THE AMEBIC AJ<1 APICULTURIST. 



279 



season of this trial, I became satis- 

 fied that the Gallup or square frame 

 gave me decided advantages over the 

 long or Langstroth frame ; but being 

 naturally conservative I tried both 

 hives for two 3'ears more, at which 

 time I was thoroughly convinced that 

 I obtained one-fourth more honey 

 by the use of the Gallup frame tlian 

 by the Langstroth, the main reason 

 for which lay in the securing of more 

 brood in the square frame, at the right 

 time, than with the other. Right 

 here I wish to say that this getting of 

 brood at just the right time so as to 

 give lots of bees of the right age to 

 go into the field at the commence- 

 ment of the main honey harvest, has 

 more to do with successful honey 

 ■production than any other one thing 

 connected with beekeeping. Fail- 

 ing in this point we fail in all, and 

 my reason for adopting the Gallup 

 frame was, because that by its use 

 together with a division board, I could 

 get more nearly the amount of brood 

 in one week from the time I tried for 

 it, than I could in two or three weeks 

 witli any other sized frame. So far, 

 I had paid little attention to anything 

 else save the size of the frame, for all 

 apiarists of that day claimed that the 

 size of the brood- chamber should be 

 2,000 cubic inches or above, the ten 

 Langstroth frames and the twelve 

 Gallup frames containing about 2,100 

 cubic inches. After using the Gal- 

 lup hive for four or five years, I be- 

 came satisfied that the brood-chamber 

 was decidedly too large as the bees 

 kept three of the twelve frames filled 

 with honey nearly all the while. This 

 extra amount of room was required, 

 Gallup said, to insure honey for safe 

 wintering, but as I expected to know 

 each fall just the contents of each 

 hive, I could not see the propriety of 

 keeping these three frames full of 

 honey for the purpose mentioned, so 

 reduced the size of my brood-cham- 

 ber to nine frames instead of twelve. 

 The result was more than satisfactory, 

 for I found on the first trial that I had 



increased my crop of surplus honey 

 at least twenty-five per cent, while as 

 a rule, the bees had abundance of 

 stores for winter. This gave me a 

 brood-chamberi2 X 12 X i3;i- inch- 

 es holding nine frames io| X lof 

 inches square inside measure. To 

 test the matter further I reduced a 

 few to eight frames, thus getting a 

 brood-chamber of exactly one cubic 

 foot, but a year or two of trial con- 

 vinced me that this was just one frame 

 too small as the average of my queens 

 would keep eight frames full of brood, 

 where nine were used, while if only 

 eight were used, I got only about 

 seven of brood. The reason for this 

 seemed to be that it required room to 

 the amount of one frame for the pol- 

 len and little honey, they always 

 would keep around the brood and 

 in the upper corners of the frames, 

 so that when I contracted the hive to 

 less than the layUig capacity of the 

 queen, plus this frame, I diminished 

 the working force of the bees, which 

 thing was actually taking the dollars 

 and cents right out of my own 

 pocket. 



Without dwelling further on the 

 subject I will say that from years of 

 experience I have seen no reason to 

 change my mind and still consider 

 1,000 square inches of comb surface 

 or 1,500 cubic inches as the right 

 size for the brood-chamber of a hive, 

 regardless of what size of frame is 

 used. That I consider the Gallup 

 or square form of frame the best, 

 may be only one of my preferences, 

 still I think for this locality I am right ; 

 but right or wrong on the frame ques- 

 tion, I believe that all who will care- 

 fully test a brood-chamber of 1,500 

 cubic inches beside one of 2,000 or 

 over, will agree that they want noth- 

 ing larger than the i ,500 hereafter. 



I might go into a long detailed line 

 of reasoning regarding the safe win- 

 tering of bees in the square form of 

 hive ; tell of the ease and rapiehty 

 with which these frames can be han- 

 dled for extracting, etc. ; but I con- 



