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35th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., AUG. 8, 1895. 



No. 32. 



On Zmportant Apiarian Subjects, 



The Large and Small Hive Question Again. 



BY F. L. THOMPSON. 



In reply to Mr. Davenport's remarks on page 391,1 should 

 not have put in the word "further" in my phrase, " which 

 were further embarrassed." It did not occur to me until too 

 late to correct it, that the most obvious meaning of that ex- 

 pression was as Mr. Davenport understood it. Omitting it, 

 my meaning would have been (and was, intentionally) that 

 these as yet undeveloped colonies in large hives, while devel- 

 oping to a proportionate size with their hives, would produce 

 an excess of brood and bees over the quantity required by the 

 locality, supposing that it was already fully stocked, as I in- 

 ferred it to be from Mr. Davenport's words. Then if these 

 large hives were sufficiently numerous, that excess of bees and 

 brood might decrease the surplus " per colony " to such an ex- 

 tent that it would all go into the brood-chamber in these de- 

 veloping (but as yet undeveloped) colonies ; while the colonies 

 In small hives, having no room for it below, would store it 

 above. I beg Mr. Davenport's pardon for causing him to con- 

 sume his time in refuting what would have been indefensible. 

 I appreciate his illustration. 



But I fear he has done the same thing, or else I am not 

 able to tell which is the most obvious meaning and which is 

 not, of his words on page 231. He there says, "they would 

 not have secured any more per colony, or as much, if they 

 were larger, for there were enough in this yard to gather all, 

 and more than there was to be had from it." My impression 

 is, that in the phrase " if they were larger," the word " they " 

 would have to be limited more if it is to convey the idea " if 

 they were larger and fewer" And a little before he had said, 

 "Suppose these colonies had been in big hives" (the italics are 

 mine). 



But whether the above is obscure or not, we now have his 

 assertion — " I have not argued any such thing," so that point 

 is clear. 



But there is another point, in Mr. Davenport's article on 

 page 376, that I do not understand. After speaking of his 

 own unsatisfactory experience with large hives, he says, 

 " But I winter my bees in the cellar altogether. In out-door 

 wintering it may be quite different," after having said in the 

 same article, " I do not think the locality makes much differ- 

 ence to the specialist about the right size of hive." But I 

 always understood that the locality makes a good deal of dif- 

 ference in the methods of wintering. "Quite different " and 

 " not much difference " do not ordinarily mean the same thing. 

 As Messrs. Heddon and Aspinwall, in Michigan, and Mr. 



Pond, in Massachusetts, have had good success in out-door 

 wintering, there are quite a number of Northern bee-keepers 

 left, without going down South, whose success with large 

 hives " may be quite different " from Mr. Davenport's in the 

 matter of carrying over most of the bees of a large colony 

 from fall to spring. 



So much for Mr. Davenport's use of language, which he 

 will no doubt be able to satisfactorily explain, if he thinks it 

 worth while. 



Now while he is on the stand, as it were, I wish he would 



Mr. Chas. E. Parks — See page 504. 



theorize a little, if he can bring himself to it. Has he any 

 idea why, in cellar-wintering, the simple fact of there being 

 more bees in a hive causes some of them to die off prematurely, 

 whereas a smaller number all pull through? 



Again, he says : "My experience has been that, as a 

 general thing, eight frames are enough for the best queens we 

 can get at the present time." Here is another queer fact, 

 which I will not ask him to theorize about, for I don't believe 

 anybody could, without being well versed in biology. It 

 amounts to saying that prolificness beyond an 8-frame capac- 

 ity, as a general thing, is attended with inferior qualities in 

 the offspring. Mr. Davenport may be considered as the dis- 

 coverer of a new fact in apiculture, if this is true. This is 



