THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



271 



against reversing brood-combs, and 

 proposes to substitute for the advan- 

 tages gained by inversion, tine method 

 of crowding the brood-combs closely- 

 together. 



About twelve years ago, when I 

 had in use nearly loo colonies, I ex- 

 perimented largely with this same 

 comb-crowding method, and like Mr. 

 J. T. Hav/k, of Denison, Iowa, as 

 found on page 858 of Gleanings 

 for 1886, I abandoned that method 

 of attempting to gain the desired re- 

 sults. 



Once in conversation with Mr. T. 

 F. Bingham of Smoker fame, a bee- 

 keeper of a quarter of a century's ex- 

 perience m. producing comb honey 

 on quite an extensive scale, upon 

 this same subject of the best distance 

 apart from centre to centre, for the 

 spacing of brood-combs, Mr. B. 

 warmly advocated one and a half 

 inches, making many good argu- 

 ments in its favor both for its use i\\ 

 summer and winter. 



We are all well aware that Mr. D. 

 A. Jones, and very many other 

 skilful apiarists much prefer to wide- 

 space their frames for winter. Now 

 I am not only willing, but glad 

 to be placed on record as saying that 

 no system of comb spacing which re- 

 quires two respacings per annum, 

 will ever become popular. I am 

 firmly of the opinion that real prog- 

 ress '\\\ mechanical construction and 

 manipulation, connected with honey 

 producing, must tend toward de- 

 spatch and away from complication. 

 We must learn to accomplish all the 

 desirable results as understood in 

 modern apiculture, at the same time 

 approaching, as nearly as possible, 

 the little amount of labor that was 

 connected with the old box-hive sys- 

 tem. He who does not do this, it 

 seems to me, must be left behind in 

 the race \ so I repeat that semi-annual 

 changes in the spacing of the combs 

 of our brood- chambers will never be- 

 come popular. 



Besides my experiments in that di- 



rection, I have practised and tested 

 inversion of brood-combs, on an ex- 

 tensive scale, during the past four 

 years, having now in use about 6,000 

 Langstroth, suspended, reversible 

 frames and a considerable number of 

 reversible hives containing reversible 

 frames of another pattern. 



Mr. Hawk, above referred to, also 

 states his failure, or partial failure, to 

 make reversing unload his brood- 

 chambers of honey ; but as it is a fact 

 that very many others have reported 

 success, and as I have stated in a for- 

 mer article that reversing might, if 

 improperly applied, tend to increase 

 the amount of honey stored in the 

 brood- chamber, is it not likely that 

 Mr. Hawk hasn't quite mastered the 

 science of inversion ? I believe with 

 Mr. A. I. Root, that he who once 

 uses invertible-frames scientifically 

 will never abandon their use. 



We would no more think of con- 

 structing another frame, non-inverti- 

 ble, than of going back to the use of 

 6-pound, glass honey boxes. 



That careful experimenter and still 

 more careful advocate of untried in- 

 plements, Professor Cook, says in the 

 last edition of his invaluable' " Man- 

 ual of the x\piary," page 133, " For 

 the past two years I have used the 

 reversible frame which I find so 

 valuable that I shall use it largely in 

 future. . . . 



By inverting we secure the firm at- 

 tachment of the comb to the frame 

 along all its edges, and can force our 

 bees into the sections at the very 

 dawn of the honey harvest." A little 

 farther on, he says, '' These frames 

 reverse very easily, and I do not 

 know a single person who has thor- 

 oughly tried them, who does not value 

 them highly." The result of my ex- 

 periments with frame-spacing, has 

 been to adopt a uniform distance of 

 1 1 inches from centre to centre. 



I am aware that the inversion of 

 combs is not natural, but artificial ; 

 that bees have never been known to 

 invert or show any desire to have 



