240 



July, 1909. 



American Bgc JoarnalJ 



get to give the colony sufficient strength 

 for winter This frame is to be left 

 open at the top, so that the frames of 

 brood can be set in, it being held in po- 

 sition at the top by light strips being 

 nailed on each side, they projecting so 

 as to hang on the rabbetting of the hive. 

 The sides are now covered with wire- 

 cloth when it is ready for use. When 

 the queen arrives, go to any colony 

 where frames of emerging brood can be 

 obtained and get 2, shaking the bees all 

 off of them, securing those from which 

 the most bees will emerge during the 

 next 24 to 48 hours. 



Hang these frames of now beeless 

 brood in the frame cage, and let the 

 queen run in with the attendant bees 

 which came with her, when the whole is 

 to be hung in the middle of any popu- 

 lous colony in place of 2 frames, and 

 left for 3 or 4 days. Of course the top 

 is to be made secure in some way, so 

 . none of the bees from the hive can get 

 into the cage, and none of the bees from 

 the cage get out. A proper sized piece 

 of enameled cloth answers for this 

 purpose nicely. 



If you have selected the right frames 

 as to ripe or maturing brood, the cage 

 will be pretty well filled with young bees 

 in 3 days, while the queen will have 

 commenced to fill the vacated cells with 

 eggs. 



The cage is now taken from the hive, 

 which has furnished the warmth to 

 cause the young bees to emerge, and 

 carried to a hive where we wish a colony 

 to stand, the cage set in one side of the 

 hive, when we proceed to take out the 

 2 frames and set them on the opposite 

 side, when a follower or division-board 

 is drawn up to economize the warmth 

 of the little colony. If there is not 

 plenty of honey in the 2 combs from the 

 cage, a frame of honey should be set in 

 next to the side of the hive before the 

 2 frames are taken from the box, and 

 thus this honey is beyond the 2 frames 

 of bees, thus guarding against the rob- 

 bing of the little colony, and especially 

 so if the entrance to the hive is made at 

 the side the cage is now hanging. It is 

 best to allow this cage to hang here for 

 a day or two, or till we open the hive 

 again, so that all of the bees adhering 

 to it after the frames of brood are re- 

 moved, can crawl out at their leisure. 

 In cool or cold weather, it is best to 

 leave the 2 fratnes caged with the col- 

 ony for 5 or 6 days, instead of 3, for, if 

 taken out too soon, these young bees 

 may not have sufficient vitality to 

 cause the remaining unhatched lirood to 

 emerge from their cells. The little col- 

 ony is now built up by adding frames of 

 emerging brood, occasionally, as they 

 can protect and care for them. 



This plan is absolutely safe, and if all 

 who have lost valuable queens will try 

 it, we shall hear no more of so many 

 losses in introducing. It requires some 

 work, I know, and takes some time to 

 build up a colony in this way, but after 

 we have once lost a valuable queen we 

 are ready to go through with some labor 

 rather than lose another. 



There are other plans which are em- 

 ployed to introduce queens, and general 

 instructions attend all mailing cages, but 

 where a person does not have the suc- 



cess he or she desires with them, the 

 above will satisfy, if they succeed with 

 others as they do with the writer. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



The 8-Frame Langstroth vs. 

 Dadant Hive 



BY J. E. HAND. 



In these days when the majority of 

 the people are blindly following the 

 largest crowd regardless of whither it 

 is leading them, and when men of orig- 

 inal thought and independent action are 

 none too plentiful, it is very refreshing 

 to meet a man who has the courage to 

 stand by his honest convictions even 

 though he stand alone. Such a man is 

 my worthv and honored opponent, Mr. 

 C. P. Dad'ant, 



While I have great respect for Mr. 

 Dadant's opinion upon subjects pertain- 

 ing to apiculture, yet different people 

 view things from different standpoints, 

 and therefore see them in a different 

 light. In this way a dignified discussion 

 if conducted in the right spirit can re- 

 sult only in good, since it must reveal 

 some points that can not be seen from 

 one particular point of view. 



Viewing the Dadant hive from the 

 standpoint of the comb-honey producer 

 in the average location, it is weighed in 

 the balance and found wanting. There- 

 fore, it does not possess the necessary 

 qualifications that should recommend 

 a hive to a class of bee-keepers that rep- 

 resent by far the greater majority of 

 the bee-keepers of this country, 



Mr, Dadant is viewing his hive from 

 the standpoint of the extracted-honey 

 specialist, who represents a very small 

 part of the bee-keepers of this country. 

 Viewing the Dadant hive from the stand- 

 point of swarm-control, its claims can 

 not be substantiated in the production 

 of comb honey. An extracted-honey hive 

 must have something besides its size to 

 recommend it. Therefore, the 8-frame 

 Langstroth hive must ever remain what 

 it is — a general utility hive — the hive 

 that is best suited for the masses. 



The Dadant hive is too heavy to be 

 carried in and out of the cellar. There- 

 fore bees in these hives must be win- 

 tered out-of-doors, which necessitates a 

 great amount of frame manipulation in 

 the fall in equalizing and uniting small 

 colonies. Mr. Dadant admits that he 

 finds some difficulty in increasing his 

 bees enough to make up for winter loss- 

 es, which is in itself rather significant. 



My worthy opponent has fallen into 

 a common error among large-hive ad- 

 vocates, in assuming that a large hive 

 always contains a large colony of bees, 

 while just the reverse is quite apt to be 

 the case. 



If a hive is made large enough to de- 

 velop the fertility of the best queens, 

 the average queen can not keep it filled 

 with brood. Hence, it becomes a store- 

 house for honey. This condition of 

 things is followed by a long train of 

 evils, such as swarming, crowding the 

 queen, loafing on the outside of the hive, 

 refusing to enter the super, etc. And 

 the bees will continue to crowd the 

 queen until the breeding space is far 



more limited than it would be in an 

 8-frame hive. Thus the largest colony 

 is quite as likely to be found in an 

 8-frame hive as in a Dadant hive. 



Perfect control of bees is only to be 

 found in a hive in which the size, shape, 

 and methods of manipulation are cor- 

 rectly and scientifically balanced. Such 

 a hive is the 8-frame Langstroth hive 

 of today. 



When bee-keepers learn that bees can 

 be controlled only through their in- 

 stincts they will be in a position to un- 

 derstand that perfect control of bees is 

 out of the question with a hive in which 

 the room in the brood-chamber exceeds 

 the fertility of the queen. Here is where 

 the 8-frame hive wins out in an easy 

 pace. 



The fact as stated by Mr, Dadant 

 that his neighbor's bees in 8-frame hives 

 became over-crowded with bees by May 

 15, and cast swarms every year, while 

 Mr, Dadant's bees seemed to have plenty 

 of room, and cast few swarms, is rather 

 significant, and proves two things quite 

 conclusively. One is, that the 8-frame 

 hive is a splendid hive for building up 

 rapidly in the spring, and the other is 

 that the neighbor above mentioned has 

 much to learn about bee-keeping meth- 

 ods. If the owner of those bees knew 

 enough to give them a set of half-depth 

 brood-combs at the right time, they 

 would not have swarmed, and would 

 have rolled up an amount of surplus 

 that would have made the Dadant hive 

 man stand up and take notice. And 

 why not. for they are then larger than 

 the Dadant hive, and in much better 

 shape for rdpid breeding up, since the 

 additional room is in the warmest part 

 of the hive — right over the brood-nest — 

 which enables the bees to care for twice 

 as much brood as in a Dadant hive, 

 where they are compelled to extend the 

 brood-nest sidewise into the coldest part 

 of the hive, far removed from the heat 

 center, and therefore could not be ex- 

 pected to build up strong enough to cast 

 swarms before July. I believe Mr. Da- 

 dant's success with these hives is largely 

 due to the fact that a large part of his 

 surplus is gathered late in the season. 



The 8-frame hive of today is as dif- 

 ferent from the 8-frame hive of a quar- 

 ter of a century ago, as the Dadant 

 hive is different from the long-ideal 

 hive. 



The modernizing influence of the sec- 

 tional hive is slowly but surely revolu- 

 tionizing the bee-keeping methods of 

 this country, and it is these influences 

 that have made the 8-frame Langstroth 

 larger than the Dadant hive when a 

 large hive is needed, and smaller than 

 any other when a small hive is needed. 

 And all the while it is the common util- 

 ity 8-frame Langstroth hive of today — 

 the hive for the masses of bee-keepers 

 of America, 



Birmingham, Ohio, 



No. 7 .— Colorado Bee- Keeping 



BY E. C, AIKIN. 



I closed article No. 6 with the details 

 of swarm control as applied to getting 

 the best results in surplus honey. Here 

 we will go further into the management 



