GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



LARGE HIVES— OBJECTIONS. 



Large Hives for Comb Hone}; Faults of Large Hives 

 as Compared with Standard Eight- 

 frame Langstroth. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I wish to mention the 

 most weighty objection to large hives ; and 

 that is Doolittle's remark that, if too much 

 room is given, or the queen does not fill all 

 the breeding space, the bees will become ac- 

 customed to putiing honey into the brood- 

 chamber and will crowd her out. 



Please take notice that this is only a comb- 

 honey objection. Those who support small 

 hives seem now to hold that they are needed 

 for comb honey only, and Hutchinson has 

 lately said (and I take note of it), that " for 

 extracted honey the size of hive matters little 

 provided it is large enough" (italics mine). 

 This is virtually acknowledging that the large 

 hive is absolutely necessary to raise extracted 

 honey. Now when you rear comb honey, ac- 

 cording to those who do not agree with me as 

 to size of hives, it is necessary to keep the 

 queen on only the number of combs that she 

 can well fill with brood, in order to get a good 

 storing in the supers Very well ; we are 

 agreed, and I hold that this can be done with 

 the large hive best, since it will accommodate 

 from the most prolific to the poorest breeder. 

 All it requires is a little attention, and you 

 have the advantage of knowing the capacity 

 of your queens and the chance of breeding 

 from the most prolific. Is this too much 

 trouble ? It is a little more labor, and requires 

 a little more judgment ; but when you once 

 have a populous colony it will be much easier 

 to keep it strong in a large hive than in a 

 small one, as I have shown you when speak- 

 ing of wintering and breeding. 



In some of your remarks in a previous arti- 

 cle you ask whether it is not a great deal of 

 trouble to add one comb at a time to the space 

 of a colony. It is not absolutely indispensa- 

 ble to add only one at a time, and you may 

 add two or three according to your opinion of 

 the probable prolificness of the queen. One 

 or two examinations during the spring ought 

 to be sufficient. 



Hutchinson has said, and still repeats, that 

 queens are the least expensive part of a colo- 

 ny, and that it is better to keep all the hives 

 and combs fully occupied than to use the 

 queens to their greatest capacity. To us, in 

 early spring, the number of queens on hand 

 is the most important question ; for we then 

 nearly always have empty combs and queen- 

 less colonies ; and I dare say that every bee- 

 keeper has more hives and sets of combs on 

 hand in spring than he has queens, and he is 

 very well satisfied, and considers himself very 

 successful if every hive is alive and every hive 

 has a queen after winter. So it is the queens, 

 the queens, that have the value to the apiarist 

 after winter, and it is zuhat the queens are like- 

 ly to do that makes his prospect better or 

 worse. That is why we want our queens, all 

 of them, to do all they can for a large produc- 

 tion of population, and we are quite willing 



to run the risk of having to remove a few 

 combs from the brood-chamber, if comb hon- 

 ey is wanted, when the queen is not able to 

 fill all, especially as those combs, at that time, 

 need not be idle long, for they are needed for 

 whatever increase is expected or wanted. 



By giving all our queens all the room they 

 need, we achieve what we consider the most 

 desirable aim — get the greatest possible num- 

 ber of bees from the number of colonies we 

 have, in time for the harvest. 



And, by the way, I have re-read my last ar- 

 ticle on the disadvantage in cost, and I find 

 that I make the case altogether too strong 

 against the large hive. I have figured it at 

 twice the cost of a small one ; but I want you, 

 Mr. Editor, or your business manager, friend 

 Calvert, to tell us just how much difference 

 there would be in the cost between a hive 

 containing 11 combs instead of 8, with one 

 dummy, and made like yours, but with frames 

 just deep enough to suit a hive made of 12- 

 iuch lumber. If I am not mistaken the Dove- 

 tailed, Simplicity, etc., are all regular-depth 

 Langstroth hives, and are made of 10-inch 

 lumber. Just figure them made of 12-inch 

 lumber and just as deep as could bs conven- 

 iently made out of this. They would be very 

 near the size of ours, which are made of 12 X, 

 and it seems to me, at a rough guess, that, 

 with the dummy and all the enlarged supers, 

 they would not cost to exceed 25 to 40 cents 

 each in excess of your small hive. The inter- 

 est on the money, and the sinking fund to 

 pay them up in 30 years, would not make the 

 additional annual cost to exceed the value of 

 a pound of honey per year. What makes the 

 hives expensive, as we build them, is the tel- 

 escoping cap, the double back, the projecting 

 bottom-board, etc. — a thousand and one little 

 nothings which we use just because we are ac- 

 customed to them. 



Now, Mr. Editor, somebody asks me wheth- 

 er I think that the large hives are going to 

 " take," and become prominent. I will frank- 

 ly tell you that I think not. Say what we 

 maj', the §1.00 hive will sell because people 

 go for cheapness. And if it were not a ques- 

 tion of cheapness, but only of reason, does it 

 follow that people would take the more reason- 

 able course ? 



Do men chew tobacco because it is the best 

 thing to do ? Do our women wear tight cor- 

 sets because they are more healthful ? Do the 

 Chinese bandage the feet of their girls be- 

 cause they will be benefited thereby ? Do our 

 little girls wear short skirts in winter and long 

 hair in summer for their comfort? Why does 

 a lady carry her pocket-book in her hand in- 

 stead of having a pocket to her dress? Is it 

 more convenient? Why does America take 

 the Philippines and pay out twenty millions 

 of her money ? Is it for her moral or her pe- 

 cuniary advantage ? Nay. we are all more or 

 less like sheep, and follow the bell-wether, 

 whether she leads us right or wrong. Just see 

 us now, throwing away our feelings, patting 

 the British Lion, with the confidence of a 

 child, forgetting that, less than forty years 

 ago, he did all he could to promote secession 

 and break up the Union. His cat-like paw is 



