1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



645 



Best Hive for Farmers — Box or Frame ? 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspondent writes that he has been induced to take 

 the American Bee Journal, and after reading some of my arti- 

 cles, and those of others, he has become Interested In bees. 

 He says he Is a farmer and wishes me to write an article on 

 the best style of hive, with the management of the same, for 

 the farmers who may keep a few colonies of bees, for he thinks 

 there may be many other farmer bee-keepers among the read- 

 ers of the Bee Journal besides himself. 



In complying with this request, I would say that all de- 

 pends upon how " the farmer" Intends to keep his bees, and 

 what time he expects to spend on them. If he intends only to 

 hive the swarms when they issue, and put on the surplus ar- 

 rangement when the white clover commences to bloom, paying 

 little or no attention to them otherwise (which is the way the 

 average farmer tends to the bees), then 1 would say that the 

 box-hive, formerly known as the "Miner hive," Is as good for 

 such an one as any hive In existence. 



Why I single out this hive from the hundreds of other 

 box-hlves or log-gums of the past, Is, that the top was so ar- 

 ranged that by the removal of a " honey-board " the surplus 

 arrangement could be set Immediately over the combs, thus 

 placing no more barrier In the way of the bees in entering the 

 sections than there is with the best hive ever invented ; and 

 should our farmer ever want to sell his bees, they will bring 

 from 50 cents to $1.00 more per hive than they would in any 

 of the others, on account of the provision Mr. Miner made of 

 slats standing with the knife-like edge down, so that the bees 

 nearly, if not quite always, build their combs straight and 

 true, so that, when they come Into the possession of the prac- 

 tical bee-master, they are easily transferred to any of the 

 movable-frame hives. 



If, on the other hind, the farmer is willing to give the bees 

 the attention which they require — which is far less than he 

 would give one of bis horses or cows — then I would say that 

 nothing short of a good movable-frame hive will be good 

 enough for him. As to which of the frame hives is best, I 

 would say, much depends on the locality in which we live. If 

 in the South, then the Langstroth or even shallower frames 

 will do as well as any ; but if north of latitude 420 jg 453, 

 then I would prefer a deeper frame, if the bees are to be win- 

 tered on the summer stands. Of course, chaff-packing will 

 help the shallow frame hive ; but I believe it is something con- 

 ceded by all, that a deep frame Is preferable for the extreme 

 North, where bees are to be wintered out of-doors. 



A hive which will bring the colonies out strong in the 

 spring Is something worth looking after, where the crop of 

 white honey comes early in the season, as it always does where 

 white clover is the chief source of supply, and the hive which 

 accomplishes this item the most perfectly, is the one the 

 farmer, or any other person keeping bees, should look after. 

 Lots of bees in time for the honey'harvest, without contract- 

 ing the swarming-fever, means success to their keeper, while 

 few bees at that time means a failure, no matter how many 

 there may be at all other times. 



The early management of any hive consists In knowing 

 that the bees have a good queen, plenty of stores, and that 

 they are tuckt up warm and secure at the top of the hive. 

 Bees will build up even if the top of the hive has cracks In it ; 

 but all will see that the heat which passes out of these cracks 

 takes so much warmth away from around the cluster, and 

 causes the bees to burn just so much more fuel (honey) to re- 

 place the same, only to be carried away again. Therefore, it 

 pays well to see that the top of the hive is tight in early 

 spring. 



Plenty of stores are needed, for it the bees have to scrimp 

 on account of fear of starvation, not nearly so many bees will 

 be reared as there would be were there so much honey in the 

 hives that the bees could use it lavishly. A hive that has 20 

 pounds of honey In it on the first day of April will, as a rule, 

 give double the bees at the commencement of the clover har- 

 vest, that the one will that has only five pounds, providing the 

 latter does not starve altogether. A good queen is an actual 

 necessity; for, tuck up the hive as well as we may, and give 

 the bees a surplus of stores, to such an extent that they feel 



rich, yet if the queen Is poor or falling there will be only 

 enough bees reared to keep up the dying population of the 

 hive, resulting in little or no honey to the owner. 



Seeing that the bees have the three requisites named 

 above, little more will be needed from the farmer till swarm- 

 ing-time arrives. When the first swarm issues he will mark 

 the date on the hive, so that in eight days he can go in the 

 evening and listen for the piping of the first young queen, 

 which usually emerges from her cell sometime during the 

 seventh day, where the swarm Issues on the sealing of the first 

 queen-cell, as it generally does. If he hears the queen piping, 

 he may know that, if the weather is pleasant, a second swarm 

 will Issue the next day, unless thwarted in some way, and also 

 that there is a queen hatcht and at liberty in the hive. If he 

 hears this piping the hive should be opened quite early the 

 next morning and every queen-cell cut off, which will surely 

 prevent any after-swarm issuing from that hive. 



To be sure no queen-cells are mist, it is well to shake the 

 bees off each frame, in front of the hive so that none are hid- 

 den by the bees being so thickly clustered upon them. 



The surplus arrangement should be put on each hive as 

 soon as Its combs are filled with brood and there is honey 

 coming in from the fields, no matter whether they have 

 swarmed or not, and upon all others as soon as there are bees 

 enough in them so they can keep up the necessary warmth 

 for brood-rearing, with the surplus arrangement on. 



As soon as the sections are filled they are taken off, and 

 more put in their places to the end of the harvest, when no 

 new ones.should be put on to become travel-stained and stuck 

 up with propolis, and also so that the bees will be more likely 

 to finish what are already on. 



Any farmer can do as much as Is here outlined, and I have 

 sometimes seriously questioned whether this will not give any 

 of us as good results as the more frequent manipulation of 

 each hive, which I and others have Insisted on in the past, 

 where natural swarming is to be the order and method of in- 

 crease. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Should Hive Bottom-Boards be Nailed? 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



The above subject is suggested to me by reading the arti- 

 cle by Wm. M. Whitney, on page 594, who urges that there 

 are serious objections to the use of loose bottom-boards, and ' 

 thinks they should be nailed to the hive. We have tried both 

 the fast and the loose bottom-boards In the same apiaries for 

 years, and I will now give my reason for the preference I en- 

 tertain in a very decided way for the free, removable bottom- 

 board. 



Take the hive at the beginning of spring, when the bees 

 are just going out of winter quarters. There are often thou- 

 sands of dead bees on the bottom-board, and they are some- 

 times so packt into a solid, rotten, moldy mass that It is very 

 dllBcult for the bees to remove them. With a movable bot- 

 tom-board all that is required is to pry the hive from it with a 

 chisel, breaking the propolis fastening that holds the two to- 

 gether, and with a small, straight block of wood In ten seconds 

 you can scrape all dead bees, debris, and dirt from the bottom 

 that it would have taken weeks for the bees to carry away. It 

 is true you can remove this dirt with a tight bottom as well, 

 by transferring the bees and combs Into another hive, but the 

 latter method is too slow for me. 



In the spring, if by some accldentor through some manip- 

 ulation, it happens that some comb has been broken, either by 

 transferring or straightening, and some honey has been made 

 to run down to the bottom-board at a time when robbers are 

 wide-awake, if you use a loose bottom you can, in one or two 

 minutes, bring out a fresh bottom-board and transfer the hive 

 from one on to the other. You thus avoid having to run some 

 risk of your colony being robbed owing to the leaking honey. 

 Again, of all the parts of the hive the bottom-board is the 

 first to get out of shape, to rot, to warp, to become worthless. 

 With a loose bottom-board It takes but a minute to renovate 

 the foundation of the abode of your bees, doing away la a 

 twinkle with a defective piece which may have been damaged 

 by unexpected causes, such as the gnawing of mice, or by a 

 loose knot. 



Then in hot weather it is surely a very satisfactory thing 

 to be able to increase the ventilating space at will. Mr. 

 Whitney favors re-spacing the combs by removing one or two 

 from the brood-chamber for ventilation. I will agree that 

 this looks very nice at first sight, but I doubt whether Mr. 

 Whitney has done this more than one season, for when he 

 finds that the bees have thickened the combs so as to leave 

 only the usual bee-space, and that they have perhaps built an 



