AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



83 



ist or an inversionist practices according 

 to his doctrine, and continues straight 

 ahead, non-believers say nothing until 

 he begins to back on to a side-track, 

 or off a rickety trestle, and then they 

 exclaim that he is losing confldence in 

 his own methods. 



The illustrations of hives and the 

 reading matter on pages 414 and 415 

 of " Langstroth," are in astonishing con- 

 trast. Bee-culture in France in 1861 

 was probably considerably below what 

 it is in California to-day, of which Mr. 

 Hewes says that all the knowedge of the 

 specialist may generally be summed up 

 in the hiving of swarms, and taking 

 away what honey the colonies chance to 

 gather, and it is my belief that one-half 

 of the colonies in Los Angeles county 

 last fall were so extensively robbed that 

 they died of starvation, and starvation is 

 the only method I know of for inversion 

 to "diminish the number of colonies." 



By further adventure along the line, 

 it will be found that the inventors of the 

 accompanying hives were systematic 

 and sure in feeding their colonies sugar, 

 which is a safer winter food than 

 honey. It certainly is not " costly " to 

 cause the bees to store all their honey 

 in the sections when section honey sells 

 for 14 to 16 cents a pound, and granu- 

 lated sugar can be purchased at 5 or 6 

 cents. I don't think it is as risky to 

 weigh out and feed a colony 20 to 25 

 pounds of syrup as it is to make an esti- 

 mate of the winter food in combs that 

 may be partially filled with pollen or 

 honey-dew. 



If some one, apparently out of breath, 

 should tell you that your uncle had fallen 

 oflf one of those 18-story "sky-scrapers " 

 in Denver, on to the stone sidewalk, you 

 might lose your breath, as it were, but 

 when he finished his story, and you 

 learned that he landed on his feet, and 

 was not even shaken up, you would 

 breathe easier than ever. So in " Lang- 

 stroth on the Honey-Bee," it gives 

 modern invertible hives and the results 

 of ancient careless or neglectful man- 

 agement. There is a chapter on feeding 

 sugar in another part of the book, but 

 in connection it does not say that feed- 

 ing is extensively practiced by those who 

 take all the honey away by inversion. 



" Langstroth" is a history of bee-cul- 

 ture in ages gone by. " Success in Bee- 

 Culture " deals with the future ; so do 

 most of the books. 



In bringing " Langstroth " up to the 

 present time, many of the latest imple- 

 ments and practices are discussed, and 

 often ancient practices and plans ap- 

 pear to be arrayed against the modern. 



as we find the Shuck and Heddon hives 

 illustrated on pages 414 and 415, and 

 the inversion of box-hives in 1861, and 

 a plan of feeding for winter that re- 

 quired the apiarist to prophesy to a day 

 just when the honey-flow would cease, 

 associated. 



Inversionists and contractlonists in- 

 variably use large, and sometimes very 

 large, hives for brood-rearing. 



Sometime in 1890, the editor of 

 Oleanings intimated that by contraction 

 there were never as strong colonies as 

 where contraction was not practiced, 

 and I wrote in defense of contraction as 

 no hindrance in securing strong colonies 

 while brood-rearing was done with a 

 larger hive than was used when con- 

 traction was not practiced. Mr. Heddon 

 used 10-frame hives ; Mr. Doolittle 12- 

 frame hives ; and I was at the time 

 booming somewhat a method of contrac- 

 tion of my own, and using 12 frames to 

 the hive. 



To answer my arguments, he referred 

 to Mr. Dadant, who starts out with, "Of 

 course a queen can rear a very small 

 amount of brood in a small hive." Now 

 any one might as well argue at the 

 blank side of a barn when he considers 

 my hive of 12 frames 9x17, smaller 

 than his own containing 9 frames 

 11x17; in fact, my hive was held up 

 before the unsuspecting reader as con- 

 taining only 4 or 6 frames. 



In Mr. Heddon's book he devotes more 

 space to feeding bees for winter than to 

 inversion and contraction. 



Non-contractionists, in combatting the 

 subject, have invariably grasped by the 

 tail and shunned the horns, endeavored 

 to keep our locomotive plunging forward 

 regardless of dangers, while contractlon- 

 ists arranged throttles, side-tracks and 

 block stations all the way. 



On page 270 of " Langstroth," Mr. 

 Alley's system is intermixed with a most 

 wretched case of queen-rearing, and 

 says, " His queens are all reared in very 

 small nuclei, which he calls miniature 

 hives." The fact is, the cells are put in 

 these small colonies only when they are 

 about ready to hatch, and the queen is 

 to become fertilized and tested. Mr. 

 Alley's cells are all built in rousing colo- 

 nies, which have been deprived of all 

 brood, thereby causing a populous colony 

 to center their whole strength and care 

 upon a limited number of cells. Then, 

 too, his nuclei colonies are well fed dur- 

 ing the time, and a well fed nucleus is 

 courageous and prosperous, while an 

 unfed strong colony may be on the de- 

 cline and low-spirited. 



Again, on page 5, in Mr. Langstroth's 



