90 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York. 



CONTRACTION OF THE BROOD-NEST. 



" In an old paper I read that much more 

 honey can be obtained when the brood-nest 

 is contracted than where the bees are allowed 

 to have their whole brood-nest to work in as 

 they i^lease. If contraction is profitable, I 

 want to make my dummies this winter." 



Much depends upon what contraction is 

 used for, and when it is used. The advocates 

 of an eight-frame Langstroth hive use this 

 size of hive for the purpose of securing an 

 early rush of bees into the sections. They 

 consider this the best way of getting a larger 

 yield of section honey from white clover 

 and basswood, as with this small hive the 

 bees have little chance to store any of this 

 honey in the brood-combs where very pro- 

 lific queens are used, the brood from such a 

 queen (and the necessary pollen needed for 

 this brood ) keeping the combs of the brood- 

 chamber filled so that, where any honey of 

 any amount is stored, such must go into the 

 sections. 



Some of oiu' most successful apiarists of 

 the past have claimed that a hive, even 

 smaller than the eight-frame L. hive, gives 

 still better results, and so have used dummies 

 to take the place of one or two of the out- 

 side frames, thus using a six or seven frame 

 brood-nest. They take these dummies out 

 after the white-honey flow so that the bees 

 can fill the frames, which now take the place 

 of the dummies, with fall or dark honey for 

 their winter stores. However, such contrac- 

 tion, where a colony has a g'ood queen, is 

 liable to bring on swarming; and when the 

 fever is once contracted it is hard to con- 

 trol, the prospects for a good yield of honey 

 often fading away through the continued 

 efforts to swarm, unless the colony is shaken 

 or some other manipulation used, either to 

 draw off a part or all of the working force 

 from their brood, or take a part of the 

 brood away. 



On the other hand, with an ordinary or 

 poor queen a gain can be made at the com- 

 mencement of the white-honey flow by using 

 a dummy for every frame not occupied 

 -vholly or in part with brood. Otherwio^ 

 the combs not having brood in them will be 

 filled with honey, the queen still further 

 crowded down, resulting, as a rule, with 

 little or no honey in the sections. 



The advocates of a ten-frame Langstroth 

 or larger hive are quite sure that all con- 

 traction of the brood-chamber can only re- 

 sult in a smaller crop of section honey, rea- 

 soning that, according to their views and 



experience, any contraction is a most unwise 

 course to pursue. In the first place they 

 claim that we need to raise all the bees 

 possible before the opening of the main 

 harvest ; that we must have an abundance of 

 these workei'S or the harvest will be in vain, 

 and to rear these workers there must be 

 plenty of available cells. Second : In a hive 

 we need all of the cells which a good queen 

 will keep full of brood, and enough other 

 cells for the storing of pollen and the need- 

 ed daily allowance of honey that is neces- 

 sai-y for an abundant supply to stimulate 

 the whole household to its fullest degree. 

 Then, when the coming harvest finds these 

 combs all filled with brood, pollen, and hon- 

 ey, there is nothing to be gained in taking 

 out some of these combs and putting in 

 dummies ; for if the brood-nest is full when 

 the honey comes, the surplus must go into 

 the sections. 



Then there are others using large hives 

 who claim, where the season is poor up to 

 within a week or so of the expected harvest, 

 thus allowing several of the outside combs 

 to be empty of any thing, that the best 

 means of getting the bees into the sections, 

 with the first flow of white honey, is to feed 

 an inferior honey until these empty combs 

 are filled the same as they would be had the 

 season been good, thereby placing them in a 

 better condition than would be possible by 

 using dummies. 



Then contraction is practiced and advo- 

 cated by some of our most practical bee- 

 keepers using a ten-frame L. hive, which is, 

 {he hiving of the large swarms sent out 

 from these large hives on six or seven 

 frames, using dummies to fill out the rest of 

 the hive ; and in a locality where the surplus 

 white honey is gathered in a short period of 

 from two to four weeks, this is generally a 

 profitable mode of procedure. Especially is 

 this the case where the fiow from white 

 clover and basswood is followed by a dearth 

 of honey for a month or so before the flow 

 from buckwheat or fall flowere begins. Un- 

 der such conditions it often hap^Dens that 

 one of these large colonies will get profitably 

 at work in one, two, and sometimes three 

 supers of sections, when, all at once, out 

 will come a large swann. If they are re- 

 turned, more likely than not the bees will 

 keep on attempting to swarm till the harvest 

 is over, resulting in scarcely a section of 

 marketable honey. By hiving this large 

 swarm in a contracted hive on the old stand, 

 transferring the supers to the newly hived 

 Continued on page 112. 



