722 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



healthy colony in the whole yard nor even 

 in my neighbor's yard. I sent you a sam- 

 ple, and you said you were unable to tell 

 definitely whether it was black or pickled 

 brood— certain cases of each resembling 

 each other. 



After doctoring, fussing, and writing for 

 a year, I ran across a man of wide experi- 

 ence in troubles of this sort. He advised 

 me to get rid of the black blood in my api- 

 ary. In the mean time I had the disease 

 examined by a prominent bacteriologist, 

 who unhesitatingly pronounced it pickled 

 brood. He seemed to take a deep interest 

 in my case, and insisted that I introduce 

 pure Italian queens throughout. Now for 

 the result. As fast as colonies became 

 thoroughly Italianized, the disease disap- 

 peared. 



After all were Italianized and healthy I 

 had a stray swarm come to an empty hive 

 on some old combs from pickled-brood hives. 

 The next spring they had the disease. Of 

 course, it might have come from diseased 

 honey in their honey-sacs; but the fact they 

 were on infected combs seems quite con- 

 vincing. I Italianized them, and they were 

 cured. I am not saying Italians are free 

 from pickled brood; but I do think they are 

 much more immune to brood disease. I 

 have had two seasons to look for the return 

 of the disease, and have been unable to 

 detect a single cell, the same combs previ- 

 ously being full of it. 



Verbank Village, N. Y., Dec. 7. 



THE HOFFMAN FRAME. 



Producing Both Comb and Extracted Honey in 

 One Super. 



BY M. W. SHEPHERD. 



We notice on page 593 an article from Mr. 

 Hoffman in defense of the frame bearing 

 his name. We notice he says, "as for the 

 practical bee-keeper, the loose swinging is 

 out of date." We would say that, with the 

 small bee-keeper, and ir\^ a locality where 

 there is but httle propolis, the self-spacing 

 frame might give satisfaction; but where 

 large apiaries are kept, or where propolis is 

 abundant, the self-spacing is not what the 

 bee-keeper wants. The Hoffman frame is 

 not a good frame to use in the extractor; 

 no uncapper can handle as many of them in 

 a day as he can of the unspaced kind, and I 

 have never yet found the person who could 

 clear a super of Hoffman frames as quickly 

 as he could the loose or unspaced. Where 

 propolis is plentiful the Hoffman frame soon 

 refuses to go up close to its neighbor. You 

 must scrape the propolis off soon or you 

 can not get the follower in the hive, and 

 that is usually the condition in which I find 

 Hoffman frames. J. A. Green puts the 

 matter true and square when he says the 

 Hoffman frame is not the frame for aver- 

 age bee-keepers, for they will forget to 

 crowd the frames together. Mr. Hoffman 

 says that is easily answ'ered by giving such 



average bee-keepers the advice to go back 

 to the old box hive. We wonder if that is 

 an indirect admission that, if the Hoffman 

 frames are not crowded together tightly, 

 and so held with springs, they are no better 

 than the box hive. We are inclined to think 

 it is about the truth, anyhow. 



Years ago, when living in the North, and 

 using the two-story chaff hive, we tried al- 

 ternating the wide frames with extracting- 

 combs, thus producing both comb and ex- 

 tracted honey in the same super. We found 

 the extrac ting-frames worked all right, but 

 we had trouble by having the comb honey 

 built out and over the upper edges of the 

 tin separators, so we gave the plan up. Mr. 

 Townsend, by adopting the idea to be used 

 in the shallow supers, may make a success 

 of it; but it gives a lot of small combs to be 

 cared for at the end of the season, which 

 may be counted as an objection by some. 

 They might possibly be sold as chunk honey, 

 and at better prices than he could get for 

 the honey extracted. However, we hope 

 the plan will be thoroughly tested the pres- 

 ent season. Mr. Townsend says, page 594, 

 to overcome this tendency of the bees to go 

 above, probably the majority are bait sec- 

 tions. We ask ivhy the majority are bait 

 combs. In our practice we never use more 

 than one or two bait sections to the super— 

 always put them as near the middle of the 

 super as possible, and have never had trou- 

 ble in getting the bees to work at once in 

 the supers; yet we are aware that locality 

 has much to do with it, and what will work 

 here would not do in Michigan or other 

 northern States. 



The honey crop throughout the South is 

 short this season — in fact, it is a question 

 whether bees will get enough to winter on; 

 if they don't, will it pay to feed? 



Interlachen, Fla. 



[You say, "The self-spacing frame is not 

 what the bee-keeper wants " " where large 

 apiaries are kept." The facts are, there 

 are hundreds of "large apiaries" where 

 nothing else will be used, and there are sev- 

 eral very extensive bee-keepers who are us- 

 ing Hoffman frames who run for extracted 

 honey, and who have from 1000 to 1500 colo- 

 nies. For instance, Mr. F. H. de Beche, in 

 this issue, would not have any thing else, 

 and propolis is very abundant in Cuba. In- 

 deed, the conditions are much the same 

 there as in Florida. As I have repeatedly 

 stated before, this question of frame choice 

 is largely one of individual preferences based 

 on methods of management in different lo- 

 calities. For instance, there are some coun- 

 ties in York State where bee-keeping is 

 carried on very extensively, where the self- 

 spacing frames are used very largely. In 

 Wisconsin there are other counties where 

 nothing but the unspaced frame is used. 



With regard to springs, we do not recom- 

 mend them to go with Hoffman frames, and 

 have never used them, and we do not know 

 of any one who does. 



Our correspondent's horizon would be con- 



