Fkbruary, 1920 



G r. K A N I N G S IN B E E C U L T U R E 



77 



" THOUSAND - DOLLAR TRICK 



cA New Old Scheme for Increasing 



the Capacity of a Hive Without 



Enlarging It 



By E. R. Root 



Years ago, wlien 

 most boys know 



IN the last is- 

 sue, page 9, I 

 promised to 

 tell something 

 about a scheme 

 that will in- 

 crease the c a - 

 pacity of a hive 

 without enlarg- 

 ing the hive it- 

 self. I also said that one man told me that 

 the scheme would be worth a thousand dol- 

 lars to him, and he is an old and experienced 

 beekeeper at that. 



The idea of enlarging the capacity of a 

 hive without increasing its dimensions seems 

 paradoxical, but it is not; and then when 

 I tell you what the trick is, at least some of 

 you will say, "Fudge! I knew that before." 

 it may be so; but if you did, did you prac- 

 tice it or did you realize what you had ac- 

 complished by it? 



The scheme I have in mind is both new 

 and oUl — old because the general idea has 

 been advocated and practiced by beekeep- 

 ers in certain sections for years; new, be- 

 cause this particular plan, while used quite 

 largely in southern California, is not gen- 

 erally known. 



To go back a little, I may say that thru- 

 out the beekeeping world there is and has 

 been a general desire to prevent foundation 

 in brood-frames from stretching, and there 

 are a hundred and one ways of doing it, 

 some good and some bad. There would be 

 no harm in foundation stretching were it not 

 for two things. First, a normal queen avoids 

 cells that are neither drone nor worker. Get 

 that fact clear in your mind. When there 

 is about two inches of stretched cells near 

 the top-bar there is two inches of comb sur- 

 face that is not available for brood. Have 

 you ever thought of thaf? This amount will 

 average 20 per cent in a Langstroth frame 

 having four horizontal wires not reinforced 

 as hereinafter explained. Second, some cells 

 stretch enough to make them sufficiently 

 large for the rearing of drones; and a large 

 amount of drone brood right in the midst of 

 a heavy flow is always a waste of bee energy 

 and a waste of honey, whatever one may say 

 of the desirability of mature drones to help 

 keep the supers warm. 



Now, that little trick of the trade, call 

 it new or old as you like, is a scheme to pre- 

 vent foundation from stretching in brood- 

 frames so that the nearly two inches of 

 space above the circle of brood in an ordi- 

 nary Langstroth frame will be used for 

 worker brood and not honey. 



Dr. Miller, who uses wooden splints to 

 supi>ort his foundation, says he has no trou- 

 ble in making his queens rear brood clear 

 up to the top-bar. Why? Because those 

 splints absolutely prevent sagging, and he 

 once said to me when I was at his place 

 that he thought this "trick" of his was one 

 of the biggest that he ever put out. "But, 

 ]")octor, " said I to him, "while that 'trick' 

 is all right for the production of comb hon- 



ey, it is of al- 

 most no value 

 for holding 

 combs securely 

 in a frame while 

 they are being 

 run thru the ex- 

 tractor. There 

 is no attachment 

 to the frame. ' ' 

 I reached the age where 

 more than their dads, I 

 threw out of the catalog A. I. Eoot 's scheme 

 of vertical and diagonal wiring as shown in 

 Fig. 1. Frames so wired, I distinctly re- 



A. I. 



used years 



Root's scheme of wirins 

 ago. 



member, held solid cards of brood clear to 

 the top-bars. A. I. Boot had no trouble with 

 this scheme in getting the queen to go up 

 into the upper story of his 15-frame chaff 

 hives. Well, when father 's scheme of wiring 

 was thrown out from the catalog and our 

 general literature I substituted the plan, 

 now so well known, of four horizontal wires. 

 See Fig. 2. In this I had the support of 

 some of the largest beekeepers at the time. 

 The thick top-bar, then accepted by the big 

 beekeeping fraternity, made it impossible 

 to use the vertical wiring. The result was 

 that nearly every one adopted what seemed 

 to be the only scheme possible, and that was 

 to use four horizontal wires strung thru the 

 end-bars. Such wiring made beautiful 

 combs with one exception, namely, the cells 

 for about two inches below the top-bar 

 would stretch slightly — not while the foun- 

 dation was being drawn out, but after the 

 combs had been in use for a year or two, or 



Fi?. 2. — Present ordinary scheme of wirinjr. 

 after a strain of a heavy crop of honey dur- 

 ing a hot spell. This space would usually 

 be filled with honey because the queen would 

 avoid these stretched cells. 



To overcome this difficulty Dr. Miller used 

 wooden splints about 1/16 of an inch square, 

 placed vertically about three inches apart 

 on the foundation. Others recommended 

 the scheme of painting hot wax over the sur- 

 face of the foundation. This, when cooled, 

 stiffens the sheet so it does not stretch. In 

 other words, it makes a "heavy brood foun- 



