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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



December 15, 



Mr. Westcott — I would like to hear from the members of 

 the Union. In our locality the S-frame hive for comb honey 

 seems large enough. As I said before here, we have no honey- 

 flow to amount to anything until fall ; in August or September 

 we get our honey-flow. The colonies have to be kept in con- 

 dition to catch the flow when It comes. As a general thing 

 along about the first of August I cut out the queen-cells, and 

 it is quite a job to lift the supers and get into the hives ; but 

 of course if a person keeps that up, he has it to do every eight 

 days until about the first of September, then they will hardly 

 try to swarm any more. The S-frame hive seems large 

 enough for this loiality ; but perhaps California would need 

 larger hives than we would in Nebraska. 



Mr. Hatch — Some of you may remember that about four 

 years ago I wrote an article for Gleanings in which I said I 

 preferred the 10-frame hive. Dr. Miller, Ernest Root, G. M. 

 Doolittle and all of them jumpt on me rough-shod, and tho-I 

 was very busy I had to write article after article, and fairly 

 wrote myself out trying to defend the 10-frame hive. Since 

 that time I have kept bees in Arizona, and have used five dif- 

 ferent styles of hives. I had some a foot square and a foot 

 deep ; some a foot square and 7 inches deep ; some after the 

 Gallup style of hive ; and then S and 10 frame Langstroths. 

 With the same management I could get more honey from the 

 lO-frame than from the others, up until the last extracting ; 

 then the honey was stored below more. All were run with a 

 queen-excluder between the extracting-frames and the brood- 

 chambers. Since then I have operated in California with 9 

 and 10 frame Langstroths for extracting. 



E. R. Root — How many stories? 



Mr. Hatch — Two and three, according to the strength of 

 the colony. Ernest Root has come over on my side of the 

 fence gradually, and 1 hope that in three or four years there 

 will be more. I do not recognize any essentini difference be- 

 tween hives for comb and those for extracted honey. If you 

 have a good hive for the one, it is a good hive for the other ; I 

 mean so far as the brood-chambers are concerned. Manage- 

 ment is the whole story. If you have a system of manage- 

 ment whereby you can make a success of the 8-frame hive, 

 and reduce the work down to the minimum, stick to it. One 

 man successfully uses a hive the brood-chamber of which is a 

 foot square and 7 inches deeh, and gets lots of honey ; but my 

 system of management is not adapted to it at all. It depends 

 on whether you " catch on " to the right system of ofeinage- 

 ment; there is where the whole secret lies. I can handle a 

 colony better with 10 frames side by side than with 10 frames 

 one above the other. If I get more brood than I want in the 

 hlye, I can take some out and give it to a weaker colony. In 

 that system I have less work than with the two-story system. 

 When it comes to the extracting season, pile on as many as 

 you want. In California we need a larger hive for stores than 

 you do in this country, where the winters are more severe, for 

 the reason that they eat more out there in the winter. It 

 takes more stores to carry a colony through the winter in 

 California than it does in Wisconsin, because out there the 

 beee fly a great deal more through the winter, and they get 

 comparatively little to eat at that time. 



Dr. Mason — You say this man with the small hives gets 

 large quantities of honey. Where does he get it? By piling 

 up the stories ? 



Mr. Hatch — Yes, sir ; five or six high. He uses a queen- 

 excluder and confines the queen down where he wants her. 

 And while I am up, I want to speak of a scheme that J. H. 

 Martin has. He uses the Heddon hive. This year he put the 

 queen-excluder on and put the queen down in the bottom sec- 

 tion. He had lots of honey in his hives. When I visited him 

 last fall he had four supers full on an average on his hives, 

 probably 160 pounds to the colony. Last spring it was 

 thought that there was going to be no honey season at all, 

 but he put the queen in the bottom story and put the excluder 

 above and then went off and left her. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — I have spent about 25 years In study- 

 ing hives. In visiting different fairs, the hives and the exhi- 

 bitions of honey always attracted me, for I wanted to discover 

 the best hive for my own use. Finally, I combined the good 

 points of several and made my hive. I have settled upon a 

 10-frame hive, with a capacity equal to the 8-frame Lang- 

 stroth. It gives more room for sections for comb honey. Take 

 the same capacity in an 8-frame hive and you can put on 2i 

 standard sections; put the same capacity in a 10-frame hive, 

 with the frames 73-2 inches deep, and you can put on 32 sec- 

 tions. I put on 100 sections over a hive of the same brood 

 capacity where I could put on but 75 on an 8-frame hive. In 

 California the conditions are of course different. Such men 

 as Mr. Mclntyre and Mr. Mendleson, who produced honey by 

 the carload, can judge of the conditions for themselves. They 

 know what they are doing, and can .judge what hive to use. 



Captain Hetherington has 300 colonies of bees In Virginia 

 this year. He didn't take off a single super of honey. I was 

 In the same vicinity, and I got 2,000 sections of honey from 

 half as many bees. His colonies were strong and hives full of 

 bees, but there was capacity in the brood-chambers for storing 

 hooey, and they did it there. He put his supers on, but a 

 maa told me he hadn't one super of honey this year. I had a 

 letter from a man in New York who bought one of these 

 hives, and he says, " I have to confess that bees in your hive 

 produced more honey than bees in any other hive in the yard." 

 It is to the difference in the size of the brood-frames that I 

 attribute it. 



Dr. Mason — If what Mr. Hatch has said is true, that the 

 system of management is the secret of securing honey, then 

 Mr. Danzenbaker has been fooling away 25 years of his life 

 in trying to find the best hive instead of the best system. 



Mr. Danzenbaker — I have mentioned several men who have 

 been using hives for 10 or 20 years, and who have made a 

 success with mine. The only difference is in the depth of the 

 brood-frames and in the sections. 



Dr. Mason — Perhaps you throw in some of your enthusi- 

 asm with the hive. I use the 8frame Langstroth hive, piling 

 the stories one on top of the other. I have colonies with three 

 and a half full stories. When I came away, I pulled up thf» 

 cover and lookt in and saw that the top frames wore full of 

 honey. I tried to lift some of the hives, but couldn't do it. It 

 has frequently been the case in years past that *hen I was 

 ready to get the bees prepared for their winter quarters, I 

 found scarcely any honey in the brood-chambers, and then I 

 had to take some and put it below. I am very much inclined 

 to favor the idea that Mr. Hatch advances, that there is more 

 in the system of management than in anything else. 



Mr. Hatch — If you had a good lOframe hive you would 

 not have to bother to put any honey below. 



Dr. Mason — I would suggest that Mr. Danzenbaker spend 

 the next 25 years of his life in finding out the best system of 

 management. 



Dr. Miller — I have been trying to think when I "jumpt on" 

 Mr. Hatch, as he says. If he knows what kind of a hive I 

 want, and what size, he knows more than I do. There is one 

 point, however, that I would like to ask about. He says there 

 is no difference at all, except in the management, -whether 

 you are working for comb or extracted honey. 



Mr. Hatch — I said there was no difference in the. hive; 

 that the hive would be adapted to both, so far as the brood- 

 chamber is concerned. 



Dr Miller — Suppose we have a 10-frame hive, with 

 a strong colony, and there comes a time when there is a fall 

 flow ; the brood-chamber is about full, and they get more 

 than they would put in the brood-chamber. If I put on sec- 

 tions above, instead of working on the sections I have known 

 times when they would simply crowd the brood-chamber ; but 

 if you put on an extractln'g-super, they would go up and put 

 the surplus honey in the extracting-combs. There is a case 

 where I should think there ought to be a little difference In 

 the hives for one or the other. 



E. R. Root — In reference to the 7-inch frame, I talkt with 

 Capt. Hetherington at the time of the Buffalo convention. He 

 tried the 7J2 and 7 inch frames for several years, and he told 

 me he gave it up. It is in the management. I don't think 

 the 7-inoh frame has anything to do with it. 



Dr. Peiro — I am satisfied that you boys don't know any- 

 thing about this business anyway. I once took a jack-knife 

 and a saw and a hatchet and made a hive — a 20-frame hive. 

 You may as well have them big enough while you are about 

 it. 1 can prove to you by good, reliable authority, right here, 

 that that 20-frame hive was chockfull of honey, and it had 

 all the bees it could hold. I verily believe it weighed 150 

 pounds. Mr. York and Mr. Abbott tried to lift it, and 

 couldn't. Now, I don't say that I am right always — not 

 always; but I do say that that hive contained better honey 

 and more of it than any hive I have had since. [Laughter.] 



ELECTION OF OFFICERS FOR 1899. 



Mr. Westcott — 1 move that we proceed now to the election 

 of officers, and that we put off the balance of our program un- 

 til that is completed. 



The motion was seconded and carried. Nominations be- 

 ing declared in order, Messrs. E. R. Root and E. Whitcomb 

 were placed in nomination. A ballot was then taken and Mr. 

 Whitcomb having received the majority of votes cast was 

 declared elected president for the next year. 



Mr. Whitcomb — I thank you for the compliment, and I 

 will try to merit your confidence. 



Nominations for the vice-presidency being declared In 

 order, Mr. C. A. Hatch was named and declared elected. 



Nominations for the office of secretary were then declared 



