180 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



The queen will confine her egg-laying en- 

 tirely to the top section of the hive (the lower 

 section being entirelyempty), until it is well 

 stocked with brood and bees, when she will 

 go down and quickly fill the lower one. 

 Right here is where the hive manipulation 

 begins. As soon as the weather and other 

 conditions will permit, the apiarist will in- 

 terchange these sections, placing the top one, 

 that is full of brood and bees, below, and the 

 empty one that was below is placed above, 

 again placing the empty combs in the warm- 

 est part of the hive. The heat from the brood 

 rising will warm up these empty combs, and 

 the bees will immediately begin to move tne 

 honey to the top section, and prepare the 

 cells to receive eggs. This placing the emp- 

 ty combs in the warmest part of the hive en- 

 ables the queen to develop her fertility to a 

 much higher degree than where she is com- 

 pelled to extend her brood sidewise into a 

 cold part of the hive far removed from the 

 heat center, as is the case with the deep 

 frame. 



IVJr. Dadant says, "We found in practice 

 that the bees would often desert one of these 

 shallow sections; sometimes it was the lower 

 one. We do not think that he means by this 

 statement that it was really any other than 

 the lower one. We are glad that he men- 

 tioned this subject, for this is one of the 

 sti'ong points of the sectional hive — that, if 

 too much room is given, the bees will occupy 

 the top part of the hive, leaving the lower 

 part, which they ai'e unable to cover, and 

 will work right along in the supers, regard- 

 less of the room below the brood; whereas, 

 if such room were given at the side of the 

 brood-chamber, as in the Jumbo hive, work 

 in the supers would stop until this space was 

 filled. Instinct tells the bees that it is safer 

 to locate their brood at the top of the hive. 



The manipulations of this hive are many. 

 The so-called Alexander method of uniting 

 weak colonies in the spring is as old as the 

 sectional hive, and is one of the manipula- 

 tions for which this hive is especially adapt- 

 ed. The full-depth hive is not so well suited 

 to this manipulation, and will often result in 

 failure. 



It would be far safer to wait until settled 

 warm weather before uniting colonies in full- 

 depth hives. Since 07ie queen is capable of 

 laying more eggs in early spring than the 

 bees can cover, nothing cmi be gained by 

 adding another hive and queen with only a 

 handful of bees. It is not qveens that are 

 needed at this time, nor is more room need- 

 ed so early in the spring. Such a practice is 

 equivalent to dividing your colony in early 

 spring, as soon as it is carried out of the cel- 

 lar, and is of very doubtful expediency. 



Mr. Dadant is right when he says that, the 

 neai'er the bees can come to clustering in a 

 solid ball, the better they will winter. The 

 sectional hive not only admits of this the 

 same as the Jumbo, but possesses the addi- 

 tional advantage of a full and free commu- 

 nication of all the bees in the cluster through 

 its center, thus permiting bees in the cluster 

 to circulate outwai'd and inward, thus help- 



ing to keep up the heat. This is an advan- 

 tage not to be lightly passed by. 



In the Jumbo hive, although the bees will 

 make an ejfort to cluster in a solid ball, they 

 can not do it, for this ball will be cut up into 

 thin slices, and each of these slices is separat- 

 ed from its neighbor by a solid wall of cold 

 honey. Each slice being entirely shut away 

 from the next one, there can be no circvila- 

 tion of the bees through the cluster, and they 

 must crawl into the cells and burn honey to 

 keep warm. 



Which of these brood-chambers, I ask, is 

 "split up" into small sections, Mr. Editor? 

 Perhaps you can answer this question, since 

 you are the one who first coined the expres- 

 sion. J object to this expression as applied 

 to the sectional hive. It is7iH chopped up; it 

 is simply a deep frame with a bee-space 

 through its center. 



[By "splitting up" we meant separating 

 the several sections of a divisible-brood- 

 chamber hive. We did not, as you suppose, 

 coin the phrase, but borrowed it from some 

 one else. The expression is not bad, because 

 it means a rapid separation of the several 

 parts of the hive. — Ed.] 



MORE ABOUT SECTIONAL HIVES. 



The Question Really One of Handling Sec- 

 tions Instead of Frames; Ten Sound 

 Arguments in Favor of Sec- 

 tional Hives. 



BY J E. CHAMBERS. 



Mr. Editor: — I see that you have called in 

 Mr. Dad ant's testimony as to the relative 

 value of the deep and shallow hives; and 

 while 1 have a high appreciation of Mr. Da- 

 danl's ability and judgment, yet from his 

 own admissions I question very much wheth- 

 er he is competent to do full justice to the 

 shallow-hive part of the discussi(m; for, ac- 

 cording to his own statement, he has had lit- 

 erally no training in the modern manipula- 

 tions that go to make up the system neces- 

 sary in the use of shallow hives, nor has he 

 ever used these hives with frames as we have 

 them. At any rate, 1 think he has failed to 

 comprehend the fact that the same manipu- 

 lation can not be successfully applied in the 

 case of the two kinds of hives, for in his first 

 objection to the shallow hive he seems to be 

 laboring under the impression that it is nec- 

 essary to handle frames in order to find 

 queen-cells or make an examination of the 

 brood-nest. Certainly such an idea could 

 not find lodgment in the mind of an expert 

 in the use of the shallow hive; and if Mr. Da- 

 dant was not an expert in the use of these 

 hives, why was he called upon to tell us about 

 their shortcomings? Presumably for the rea- 

 son that he was better acquainted with the 

 virtues of the deep hive than with the short- 

 comings of the shallow one. However that 

 may be, I shall be compelled to take issue 

 with some of his statements, for I do not be- 

 lieve they are altogether conformable to rec- 

 ognized facts. 



