1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



463 



and Dr. Miller and others who are on the fence, 

 a problem I solved long ago : Take two colo- 

 nies of bees and give them a good queen and 

 30,000 workers each, in two small hives, and 

 take one colony, good queen, and 75,000 work- 

 ers, in a large hive, and see which will pro- 

 duce more comb honey in ten years. We 

 must remember the keeping of bees from the 

 standpoint of dollars and cents. 

 Granville, Ohio, April 22. 



[There is just one point in this discussion 

 that I wish to refer to ; namely, that you say 

 Mr. Dadant can not give a fair estimate be- 

 cause he admits he has never tried the small 

 hives — never any smaller than ten-frame. Per- 

 haps there is something in this ; and on the 

 other hand are you not committing the same 

 error in making a comparison between your 

 six and nine frame hives, with the difference 

 in favor of the six? Mr. Dadant will now 

 have a right to say that you never tried a large 

 hive, and that, therefore, you can not make a 

 " fair statement." In making these compari- 

 sons we should make a sharp distinction be- 

 tween a ten-frame Ouinby as the representa- 

 tive of a large hive, and an eight-frame Lang- 

 stroth as the representative of a small one. It 

 is true there are hives or brood-chambers as 

 shallow as the Heddon, but they are generally 

 used in pairs, so that, after all, a hive of the 

 eight-frame Langstroth capacity may be con- 

 sidered a small one. 



The following letter is a private one ; but I 

 obtained permission of Mr. Poppleton to give 

 it to the bee-keeping world, as it contains 

 much matter of interest, especially in this di- 

 rection. — Ed.] 



!»«»».. • ■ ■ 



THE LONG-IDEA HIVE. 



One Brood-nest Holding 24 Large Frames ; a Hive 

 for Extracting, and a Hive for Comb Honey. 



by o. O. POPPLETON. 



I have been much interested in all that has 

 been published for a year or two past on the 

 large-hive question. My own ideas and prac- 

 tice are in line with nearly all of Mr. Dadant's 

 ideas. I am glad to see ttiat you are going to 

 test the larger frame and hive ; but, whde 

 about it, why not also test the large frame in 

 a single story — that is, a few of them, that 

 will take, say, 24 combs each? The frames I 

 use are 12 in. square inside; but if I were to 

 start over again all new, 1 would keep the same 

 dtpch, but lengthen the frames two inches, 

 which is about half way between my frame 

 and the one 3 ou are going to test. 



In your editorial on p. 345, you say, " While 

 I believe in large colonies I do not see how it 

 makes any difference whether they are in one 

 or two brood-chambers; but perhaps it does." 

 " The proof of the pudding is in the eating 

 thereof, ' ' not in the theory about how it should 

 be made. 



Bee-paralysis was an important factor those 

 two years. My own personal experience of 

 30 years in bee-keeping, two of them in Cuba, 

 with 4l)0 to 500 colonies in tiered-up hives, has 

 fully convinced me that, for some reason or 



other, large colonies in single brood-chambers 

 do give better results, even if we can't see 

 the reason. There are objections, of course, 

 to the single-brood-chamber hive, but they do 

 give better results, so far as extracted honey 

 is concerned, at least. 



The hive first devised by Mr. Langstroth, 

 nearly 50 years ago, has not been improved on 

 so far as shape and proportions of frames are 

 concerned, for the production of comb honey; 

 but the production of extracted honey is so 

 different from that of comb honey that it is 

 doubtful if the same style of hive and frame 

 can be the best for both. 



This letter isn't written to call your atten- 

 tion in the least to any of my ow n methods, 

 but to encourage you to make full expeiiments 

 in the new frames, and methods of using them; 

 and don't reach any conclusions, as Mr. Doo- 

 little did, after the use of only two hives for a 

 season or two. Conclusions formed after such 

 a limited test are practically worthless. 



Stuait, Fla., May 27. 



[When Mr. Poppleton called on us two years 

 ago we talked over this matter considerably, 

 at which time he voiced substantially the sen- 

 timent expressed in the letter above. I could 

 not see why a Langstroth frame would not be 

 equally well adapted for both extracted and 

 comb ; but, as he says, it is not a matter of see- 

 ing — it is a matter of the proof of the pudding. 



One thing seems to be very clear — that is, 

 if our orders are any criterion to go by : The 

 ten and twelve frame Langstroth is gaining 

 favor among the extracted-honey men of the 

 South, and the eight-frame size is preferred 

 by most of the comb honey producers in the 

 North. Of course, there are a good many ex- 

 ceptions to both. Some comb-honey produc- 

 ers will have nothing less than a ten-frame 

 hive, and some extracted-honey men prefer 

 two small brood-chambers, frames cf Heddon 

 depth. 



After all, the proposition simmers itself 

 down to this : Can we make more dollars in 

 our locality with a large hive than with a 

 small one? This same proposition may be 

 varied somewhat this way : It the Langstroth 

 hive, eight-frame size, is the proper thing for 

 comb-honey production, is the large hive with 

 large frames the best suited for the production 

 of extracted ? Here are two propositions that 

 will bear discussion. From the amount of cor- 

 respondence and inquiry already in it, would 

 look as if a large portion of our readers, at 

 least, still consider this old subject a live one 

 yet. Indeed, quite a few are ordering " Draper 

 Barns " to test alongside of the standard eight- 

 frame Langstroth hives. — Ed.] 



THE BARBER PLAN OF FORCING BEES INTO 

 SECTIONS, AGAIN. 



The Way it Works, and the Quality of the Honey. 

 BY MRS. A. J. BARBER. 



I don't know whether it's the proper thing 

 for a little bee-keeper, and a woman too, to 

 talk back to so big a man as our Dr. Miller ; 



