1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1011 



prejudice. I am of the opinion that the 

 fact that such a device is coming up nearly 

 every year several times and in several 

 forms is proof enough that it would be pop- 

 ular if it could be bought of the leading sup- 

 ply dealers. Taking only the last few 

 months of the bee-journals, I found that 

 such men as C. W. Dayton, A. Getaz, M. 

 Pettit, and J. Alpaugh are in favor of or 

 have invented such a device. 



On the other hand, you claim the Hoffman 

 frame is popular, most bee-keepers use it, 

 etc. Well, Mr. J. Hoffman used such frames 

 for many years, but they were not popular 

 till you recommended them in Gleanings. 

 Some of the bee-keepers who use the Hoff- 

 man frame now do not know a better one; 

 others can't help it. They are forced to 

 take what the factories offer for sale as 

 standard goods. If I could not make my 

 own frames and hives I would have to use 

 them too, for I could not get any thing bet- 

 ter. Then it is an advantage to use stan- 

 dard fixtures if we want to sell some colo- 

 nies, etc. Nearly every winter, before I 

 commenced to make new hives, I considered 

 whether it would not be better to use the 

 standard goods. I tried them again and 

 again, and have given them up in disgust. 



You say some do not like the Hoffman 

 frame, probably because they did not learn 

 how to handle them; they should not be 

 handled singly but in pairs, threes, or fours, 

 —for instance, in forming nuclei. Further 

 you say these spaced frames allow a lateral 

 movement en masse, which we can not sac- 

 rifice. I 



It is true that a manipulation of hives or 

 stories in place of single frames saves con- 

 siderable time in our manipulations. For 

 this reason I prefer a divisible brood- cham- 

 •ber. With this I can make artificial swarms, 

 shaken swarms, etc., without handling 

 frames at all. This was the idea with the 

 Heddon hive, in which the easy handling of 

 the loose frames was sacrificed to get them 

 fixed as much as possible for rough handling 

 of the hive parts. The handling of the 

 Hoffman frames in pairs and fours is no sub- 

 stitute for handling stories, and can hardly 

 be used in practical bee-keeping. For in- 

 stance, if we divide a colony in a ten-frame 

 hive into five nuclei, and take the frames in 

 pairs for each nucleus, we shall hardly suc- 

 ceed. In one nucleus we shall have too 

 much brood and no honey; in another one 

 shall have very little brood. The brood in 

 one nucleus may be all capped; in the other 

 one, all open. etc. Even the bees are not 

 divided correctly. No, sir. If we operate 

 with brood- frames we must know what they 

 contain, and handle them singly. If it should 

 be any advantage we could handle the 

 frames without spacers in pairs just as well, 

 using one of the fingers as a spacer between 

 the two frames. 



Now about this lateral movement. I have 

 to say that it is necessary with the Hoffman 

 frame to take out a frame, but it was not 

 necessary in the old Langstroth hive. I con- 

 sider this a disadvantage, while you claim it 



as an advantage which you say we can't 

 sacrifice. For what purpose can we use 

 this lateral movement? In the extracting- 

 supers, I think, nobody will use it at all. It 

 may be used in the brood-chamber for 

 spreading the brood. In my opinion this 

 spreading of the brood does generally more 

 damage than good; but if done at all it must 

 be done carefully. The empty combs must 

 be placed between two combs where the 

 queen is just laying eggs in the center of 

 the combs. To find such a place, several 

 frames must be taken out and examined; 

 and for this reason the movement en masse 

 can not be used. The better management 

 is to use large combs in large brood-cham- 

 bers, and not disturb the brood-nest at all, 

 and not handle the frames. Another reason 

 for a lateral movement of frames I do not 

 know. The large brood-frames we handle 

 in making artificial swarms in forming nu- 

 clei, shaking or brushing off bees, etc., and 

 in all these cases we have no use for a lat- 

 eral movement. 



In the shallow extracting- supers, a frame 

 without a spacer is by far the best, because 

 it is quickest handled in uncapping and ex- 

 tracting. In filling the supers with notches 

 on the rabbets, no pressing together of 

 frames and other manipulations are neces- 

 sary. The extracted frames are simply 

 dropped into the super; and if they do not 

 fall into the notch I strike with the hand 

 across the top of the frames, if all are in 

 the super, and every one falls into its own 

 notch and is spaced correctly and will stay 

 so. It is during the honey crop that the 

 most handling of frames is necessary. I 

 used ten-frame shallow supers with Hoffman 

 frames. If they are full of honey it is no 

 little work to get out the first frame for ex- 

 tracting. Sometimes it was necessary to 

 push out all the frames at once with a de- 

 vice I had on hand for pushing sections out 

 of T supers. This was one of the severest 

 objections to this kind of frames. 



I have no doubt you could easily make a 

 practical device which could be nailed on the 

 rabbet of your hive in place of the tin rab- 

 bets, ard which could be used in combina- 

 tion with your all- wood frames or the thick- 

 top-bar frames, and this would not compli- 

 cate your business very much. For these 

 high frames, another device, probably of 

 bent wire, and fastened to the bottom- 

 board, would be necessary; for frames 5§ 

 high, the spacers on the rabbets are suffi- 

 cient. The advantages of such hives are so 

 many that I have no doubt it will be popu- 

 lar in a very few years. 



Cibolo, Texas. 



[It is not my purpose to make any re- 

 joinder to our correspondent. Indeed, I 

 really enjoy having my views assailed by so 

 able a writer. As I have given my opinions 

 on the question at various times, it will not 

 be necessary to repeat them here, any more 

 than to correct a misapprehension on the 

 part of Mr. Stachelhausen by saying that I 

 am not an advocate of any particular frame, 

 as a good deal depends on locality, the bees. 



