AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Jan. 5. 1899. 



queen lackt in prolificness vpould have been reduced or kept 

 down to a size proportionate to the strength of the colony. 



Now, please do not accuse u,s of .sayinythat, with comb- 

 honej' production in large hives, you will have no swarnjs. 

 We do not even say that, of our own methods, with ex- 

 tracted-honey production. But we do say, and we know 

 every man who tries it will acknowledge, there will be less 

 swarms, many of the colonies will be stronger, and the pro- 

 duction of honey, on the average, considerably greatei'. 

 since there will be a greater average production of bees in 

 the hive. 



Mr. Brown says : '• If you have nothing but the care of 

 your bees to take up your time, you will probably make more 

 money with a small hive. If you have a farm to work, you 

 would better u,se a large hive." But he does not tell us why. 

 When some of our bee-men discuss the hive-question, they 

 iSeem to take it for granted that the small-hive bee-keeper 

 has all the colonies he can manage at the opening of spring, 

 and that it is of little import whether all his queens have 

 all the room they need. Mr. Hutchinson says, "Queens 

 cost nothing." We can't take it from that point of view. 

 Queens, to us in early spring, are the most expen.sive part 

 of a colony, and we want each queen, in everj' one of our 

 colonies in early spring, to have all the room she needs. If 

 we have 80 colonies in one apiary, we want each one of 

 those 80 queens to have the very best chance possible to dis- 

 play its powers, and we consider that the cost of the hive, 

 which has to be replaced only about once in 30 years, is the 

 smallest item of expense. The interest on the money-cost 

 of a large hive, as compared with that of a small hive, is 

 not to exceed 10 cents per year. This represents a necessary 

 production of only about one or two pounds of honev more 

 each year ; and when we consider that a large hive may be 

 made as small, by a division-board, as the smallest hives in 

 the land, and can still, at a moment's notice, accommodate 

 the very best colony in the country, with increast facilities 

 for manipulation, we can but shrug our .shoulders at the 

 idea of any return to small hives, even if we desired to re- 

 turn to comb-honey production. Does this answer Mr. 

 Brown's question ? 



Now, Mr. Editor, I sometimes think that it looks as if 

 we had an ax to grind on large hives, but we have no pat- 

 ent, never did have, and don't care — no, not a copper cent — 

 whether any one tries our methods or not. We know that 

 it takes more of a bee-keeper to manage the large hives than 

 the small ones. and.therefore have no hesitancy in referring 

 bee-keepers to the warning I gave some weeks ago, on try- 

 ing new things, tho ours is not a new thing, neither is it 

 our own idea, but only a putting in practice of the ideas 

 advanced bj- masters in the art long before us. 



And as to the pride we might take in creating a larger 

 following among the bee-keepers of the land, we are past 

 that, too, for we have pupils and followers of whom we can 

 well be proud, all over Europe and America, northern and 

 southern. Hancock Co., 111. 



No. 1. -The " Golden " Method of Producing- 

 Comb Honey Described. 



BY J. A. GOLDEN. 



I HAVE been requested by the Editor of the American 

 Bee Journal to contribute a series of articles relative to 

 my method of producingcomb honey, forthe benefit of its 

 readers, with discriptions of the manipulations of my com- 

 bination comb-honey hive, the idea of which I donated to 

 the bee-fraternity of the world free and unstained from 

 patent, altho letter after letter has been received asking why 

 I don't secure a patent on my hive, and make myself inde- 

 pendently rich. My answer lias invariably been, " No, no." 

 For the reason that patented articles deprive thousands of 

 poor bee-keepers from competing with their more wealthy 

 competitors, providing the implement or method patented 

 has superior advantages over t-he former. Realizing- this 

 fact in my own circumstances in life, I could do no better 

 deed for my brother and sister bee-keepers than I have done 

 in presenting the Golden method as previously stated, believ- 

 ing it to be far more profitable. 



What I wish to say in regard to the Golden hive and 

 method in this series of articles will be founded on practical 

 experience, and not on theoretical knowledge. 



As hundreds of new apiarists have engaged in our pur- 

 suit since my method was publisht in 1896, and are reading 

 and hearing reports from bee-keepers who are working the 

 Golden method with grand success, even realizing more 

 than double the amount of surplus honey per colony than 



from all other colonies by other methods, therefore, in pre- 

 senting my method and hive before the readers of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Jounuil I shall do so honestly and truthfully. My 

 object, then, will be to place before the bee-keepers of the 

 world a system of producing comb honey which, in my judg- 

 ment, will in time become the general riiethod for the pro- 

 duction of section comb honey. 



But before doing so, permit me to insist that all who can 

 will please re-read Mr. C. P. Dadant's wise letter of advice 

 on page 675 (1898). It is chock-full of wisdom, and the re- 

 sult of many years of a practical life in apiculture. Then 

 let us all revere Mr. Dadant for his words of advice, which" 

 will prove to be drops of gold to many bee-keepers if heeded. 



In 1895-96 I was experimenting with the two-queen 

 .system, and by this method a tremendous force of workers 

 or field-bees were reared and ready for storing nectar when 

 the flow came, but being a close observer I soon discovered 

 that such an army of workers could not freely enter the 

 hive, having to crowd their way throug^h in order to deposit 

 their loads of nectar and pollen, and altho the entrances 

 were enlarged it did not seem to lessen the difficulty. It was 

 then that I began to theorize upon the great improvements 

 of Father Langstroth and others, and the thought suggested 

 itself to my mind that men of long experience have from 

 time to time been writing of different methods of the pro- 

 duction of comb honey, and thus much valuable knowledge 

 is gained by those who read the bee-papers and practice the 

 valuable suggestions therein taught ; however, there are 

 thousands perhaps who yet claim, boastingly, that they 

 know more than the bee-papers teach, and still persist in 

 thiunping^ the old tin pan and ringing the old preserved cow 

 bells of a hundred years ago. 



Thus, after due consideration, I conceived and put in 

 practice two hives having side passage-ways fom the bottom 

 of the brood-chamber to the supers, having the out.side made 

 of glass, and as I was using the house-apiary my hives were 

 rather crude.. However, they answered the purpose, and the 

 next day after the change was made, after spending an hour 

 looking- throug-h the glass watching the thousands of little 

 workers marching up the side entrances to deposit their 

 loads of nectar, I noticed the entrance comparatively free 

 and easy of access. I called to my good wife and assistant 

 to come and behold a new and great discovery, that in time 

 would supersede all other methods for the producing of comb 

 honey, providing swarming could be controlled so as to keep 

 the great army of workers in an unbroken compact. 



Then the thought suggested was. Why not hive the 

 swarm in what we termed " a double super," containing 48 

 sections ? This was adopted, and success was the result. 

 This method I have manipulated ever since, and have no 

 desire for anything better, believing it the most simple and 

 profitable method for the production of comb honey that I 

 am acquainted with, Morgan Co., Ohio. 



[To be cunlinued.] 



UNITED STATES BEE^-KEEPERS' UNION. 



Report of the 29tli Annual Convention, held at Omaha, Nebraska, 

 Sept. 13-15, 1898. 



DR. .\. B. MASON, Secretary. 



SECOND DAY— Evening Session. 



[Continued from page 819.] 

 KEL.-iTIONS BETWEEN BEES AND -■VI.FAI.FA. 



Prof. Hunter, of Kan.sas, was then introduced to the 

 convention, and in acknowledging the introduction he 

 stated that he had been conducting- some experiments within 

 the past year upon the matter of the relations between the 

 bee and alfalfa. 



Dr. Miller — Won't you give us in a few words the result 

 of your investigations concerning alfalfa ? 



Prof. Hiniter — I was very much interested in what I saw 

 in one of the Omaha papers of yesterday concerning some 

 di.scussion that had been had before this convention regard- 



