Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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EIGHT AND TEN FRAME HIVES COMPARED. 



Are all the Arguments in Favor of the Ten-frame 

 Well Grounded? 



BY O. B. METCALFE. 



The cry is, "See the eight-frame hive go 

 out and the ten-frame come in." It will go, 

 too, if everybody joins in the cry, and no 

 one says what can be said in favor of the 

 eight-frame. Even a thoroughly good thing 

 may lose its popularity and become almost 

 entirely discarded if no one continues to 

 champion it; and something which is not 

 as good may become very popular if the 

 crowd advocates it. No doubt when the 

 eight-frame hive was coming in, its advo- 

 cates were as enthusiastic about it as the 

 present advocates of the ten-frame hive are 

 now for their particular size of hive. I do 

 not intend now to start out to champion the 

 eight-frame hive, but I think that this is a 

 good time to do some actual investigating. 

 Some actual tests should be made in the lo- 

 cality where one intends to keep bees, and 

 of the methods used. 



Among the bees we bought, there were 

 about one hundred small hives which meas- 

 ure 7X inches deep, 12X wide, and 17 long, 

 inside measurement. The frames were 6^ 

 inches deep, 15^4 long, inside measurement, 

 with a scant one-inch top-bar. The man 

 who sold them to us said that they were 

 among the best make of hives he had. I sup- 

 posed that this was to sell them; but since 

 then I have noted from time to time that 

 they are the best comb-honey hives, and 

 that the bees raise more brood in them than 

 in the eight and ten frame hives of the stand- 

 ard size. These little squatty hives were de- 

 signed for this locality by a man named 

 Gathright, who was, before so much alfalfa 

 was planted, the only successful bee-man 

 here in the Mesilla Valley. What about 

 the bees doing so well in these little hives, 

 you ten-frame advocates? Is it possible that 

 location has any thing to do with which 

 hive is the best? I think it does. 



In the matter of weight, the eight frame 

 has an advantage over the ten M'hich is of 

 great importance to the man of ordinary 

 strength only. This point alone is w orth 

 considering; but perhaps the most important 

 points are that swarming can be more easily 

 controlled in the eight frame than in the 

 ten, and a small honey-flow can be forced 

 into the supers, where, with a ten-frame 

 hive, a good part of it would stay in the 

 brood-nest in the form of a ring of honey 

 around the brood, with the final result that, 

 in the fall, when it is hard to go into the 

 brood-nests, there will be too much honey 

 there, which will candy long before spring, 

 and have to be melted, comb and all. This 

 may make some of my Northern brothers 

 scoff; but even the eight-frame hive here in 



New Mexico, when it is run for comb honey 

 the entire season, nearly always has alto- 

 gether too much honey left in it when the 

 new honey comes in the spring. The ten- 

 frame hive costs more, takes more store 

 room, and it takes more loads to move an 

 apiary of them. It is too big for the brood- 

 nest of an average queen after her spring 

 egg-laying rampage is over, and not big 

 enough during that time. 



If you have a lot of eight-frame hives, 

 keep them until you have done some fair 

 testing for yourself. Do not buy a lot of 

 ten-frame hives and mix in with them. We 

 have some ten-frame hives among our bees, 

 and they are a nuisance. Nor have I been 

 able to see that they produce any more 

 surplus. Give queens two stories (sixteen 

 frames) to lay in during their spring laying- 

 spell; and when they have quieted down, 

 put on queen-excluders and make good use 

 of the extra super of frames which you used 

 as brood-nest at the critical moment. Then 

 if you do not conclude that the eight-frame 

 hive is about good enough, your location 

 must be different from mine. 



But what about those little hives of ours 

 being better here than the eight-frame? 

 Well, I do not think it is because the eight- 

 frame is too big, but, rather, that the frames 

 are not made as well in regard to econoitiy 

 of space. The frames in these little Gath- 

 right hives are not quite as wide as the 

 standard frame of to-day, and nine of them 

 fit nicely in each hive. Since the hive is 

 only }'s inch wider than the regular eight- 

 frame, this allows a lesser distance between 

 the sheets of foundation, or the midribs of 

 the combs, and this is the only reason I can 

 see that the bees will fill these little frames 

 with brood right to the last cells against the 

 top-bars. Now, I suppose that this matter 

 of width of top-bars was thrashed out before 

 my time; but if some one will be kind enough 

 to repeat some of the evidence I shall be 

 glad to hear it. There are among our stand- 

 ard frames many odd frames with little nar- 

 row top-bars — some of them not more than 

 X inch wide. I wonder if it is because these 

 frames are old and long in the service that 

 they are filled with cocoons clear to the wood 

 of the top-bars, or is it because they are so 

 narrow that the bees could not use them to 

 good advantage for storing honey, and had, 

 therefore, to leave them in shape for brood. 

 I rather think it is more the latter, for it 

 seems to me that, whenever I take them 

 out, they are well filled with brood. This 

 is no new idea which I have drummed up 

 for argument's sake. I have had my eye 

 on it for the past two or three years, and 

 now I want some one to squelch me with 

 an overwlielming argument or an avalanche 

 of data lest I begin trying to prove that nine 

 frames in an eight-frame hive body is what 

 we want instead of ten frames in a larger 

 and more bunglesome hive. 



Mesilla Park, N. M. 



