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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 8, 



too important to let pass without confirmation from as many 

 other bee-keepers as possible. It is not the same thing as say- 

 ing that prolificness alone is not to be regarded as the chief 

 excellence in a queen, which all can understand and admit. I 

 had one very prolific queen, but the colony was one of the 

 most sluggish I ever saw. She was a daughter of a 5-banded 

 queen. I have had other colonies with prolific queens that 

 were not, and I should never have supposed from my own ex- 

 perience that prolificness generally implied detrimental quali- 

 ties. But it may be so. 



But supposing it is so, how does that affect the hive dis- 

 cussion ? It is only saying that queens having a tendency to 

 produce an abnormal amount of brood are, for some reason 

 unknown to us, undesirable, although such brood may be pro- 

 duced in the right season. It is not saying that the majority 

 of queens, producing a normal amount of brood in proportion 

 to the size of the colony, will not be desirable when said colo- 

 nies are large. This, Mr. Davenport admits "may" be the 

 case when out-door wintering is practiced. (It should be 

 noted, in the instance in my experience given on page 368, 

 that the amount of brood, while large, was not abnormal in 

 proportion to the size of the colony.) 



Mr. Davenport also says : " I believe that, after a colony 

 gets to a certain strength — a strength with the right kind of 

 queen — the 8-frame hive gives ample room to develop, and 

 they will store as much or more for the same number of work- 

 ers as one much larger." Mr. Davenport here gets down to 

 bed-rock. All the superiority of the 8-frame hive must ulti- 

 mately rest on this belief. That he himself "believes" so, is 

 no inconsiderable point in its favor ; for as the editor of 

 Gleanings says : " Mr. Davenport is a very large and exten- 

 sive bee-keeper, and his statements can be taken as in some 

 degree authoritative." But — should not this be something 

 more than a " belief " if it is ever going to be anything more 

 than a mystery ? Should it not be demonstrated, if possible ? 

 And what are we to make of the " beliefs " of other large and 

 extensive bee-keepers, who prefer the larger hive? Decidedly 

 a little rigid theory would not come in amiss here. Nothing 

 like reason to support " belief." 



I would be glad to have Mr. Davenport point out, if he 

 will, any specific objections to those theories which he charac- 

 terizes in general as " too deep and complicated." I will 

 fight for the principle of sandwiching theory in with practice, 

 for I do not see how the greatest success can be achieved in 

 any other way ; but still I am not so conceited as to suppose 

 that it Is impossible for any particular theories to be defective. 



A great mass of undigested material on the capacity 

 question has accumulated during the past year. A little the- 

 orizing — that is, deduction of principles — is necessary in order 

 to get any good out of it. To simply keep adding more ex- 

 perience, first on one side, then on the other, leads to no con- 

 clusions. My main source of income is bees, and I want to 

 know where I am " at" before accepting even facts without 

 scrutiny, which may be misleading. 



The preference for the 8-frame hive by many leading bee- 

 keepers is a fact that needs accounting for. I accounted for 

 it by supposing that, if the rule is held to that some surplus 

 must be had every year from every swarm and every colony, 

 the limited capacity necessary for swarms and one-year colo- 

 nies led to the use of a small chamber for all ; and I might 

 have added that another circumstance contributing to the be- 

 lief that nearly all colonies in an ordinary apiary are profit- 

 able in small chambers only, was the continual undermining 

 of the strength of the old colonies by swarming. But do away 

 with swarming, and the case is different — all " grown-up " col- 

 onies, which, by means of tlieir sustained strength furnish the 

 queens every inducement to employ their egg-laying capacity 

 (whatever that is) at all times, as well as at the close of the 

 season, if given room to do so, and if there is no hitch in the 



wintering to lose advantages already gained. Is it not a very 

 reasonable supposition, that if eight frames are considered 

 just right when swarming is rife, with its parceling out of 

 energy, that it will take more than eight to preserve the equi- 

 librium between colonies and hives when it does not occur ? 



The preference for the small chamber is readily enough 

 accounted for by supposing that eight frames are enough for 

 the average queen. But that is rendered doubtful in localities 

 where a larger capacity than the 8-frame averages the same 

 proportion of bees at a time when there will be something for 

 them to do— and such localities seem to be rather abundant, 

 judging from the reports in Gleanings. Either we have still 

 not got the right theory, or else the 8-frame hive is not the 

 best in all localities. The 8-frame is more common here, as 

 everywhere where the supply-dealer and his standard goods 

 holds sway, but is not preferred by the big bee-men, who are 

 as free from theory and as full of practice as Mr. Davenport 

 could wish. 



In snort, what Bee-Master calls the "convincing plea " 

 of Mr. Davenport, rests on some mysterious facts and beliefs, 

 which, coming from such an authority, might well be convinc- 

 ing, were there not already so many discordant facts and opin- 

 ions among high authorities ; and it seems as if the discussion 

 would never end, unless principles, as well- as facts, can be 

 substantiated. Arvada, Colo. 



A Question — Bee-Escape Experience, Etc. 



BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



How long would a man have to study the business opera- 

 tions of the simple (?) rural pursuit we call bee-culture, to so 

 hedge himself about that his judgment is never over-reached — 

 in fewer words, so that ne never makes any mistakes ? Who 

 can answer this question ? I cannot. 



AN EXPERIEKCE WITH THE BEE-ESCAPE. 



For five or six years I have used the Reese bee-escape. 

 (Perhaps it ought to be called after my name, as I introduced 

 the name "bee-escape," when exhibiting a device of the kind 

 at the International Bee-Keepers' Convention held at Lexing- 

 ton, Ky., in 1881. But I care very little about it. Mr. John 

 S. Reese, of Winchester, Ky., made the first practical applica- 

 tion of the idea — the automatic shifting of bees from one de- 

 partment of the hive to the other.) I have used the original 

 cone escape introduced by Mr. Reese, and have used my own 

 little trap-door escape, and also the nicely adjusted little 

 spring escape introduced by Mr. Porter, and in these years I 

 have never met with an accident of any kind to the bees, until 

 this summer. 



During the very warm weather in .Tune I discovered that 

 one of my strongest colonies that had a set of Langstroth 

 combs above the brood-nest, was becoming crowded for room, 

 and being in a hurry about something, I lifted off the heavy 

 super, and seeing the combs were ready for the extractor, I 

 adjusted a case of empty combs in the place of the super re- 

 moved, and on top of this was placed the bee-escape board, 

 and the full case was tiered ou the board in the usual way, 

 and I went about my business, leaving the bees to pass down 

 through the Porter escape at their leisure. I have done the 

 same thing hundreds of times. 



Some hours afterward, I passed by the hive and chanced 

 to lift the cover of the hive to see if the bees were moving 

 down through the escape. It was a sight to see the plight of 

 the crowded bees in the super. They were well nigh suffo- 

 cated — black and dripping with moisture. They seemed to be 

 asphyxiated, when the cover was first removed, but after a 

 littler airing they began to boil up over the edges of the super, 

 dripping wet. The only thing I could do for them was to 

 brush theui gently from the combs in front of the hive, and 

 leave them to the chances of recovery. This has taught me a 



