346 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Rn Old Song >vitli a New Xunc. 



ELIZABETH P. ALLEN. 



There's a saying, old and rustj% 



But good as any new— 

 " Never trouble trouble, 



'Till trouble troubles you." 



Trouble's like a thistle. 

 That hangs along the way ; 



It cannot fail to grab you 

 Some other bitter day. 



But why not walk around it ? 



That's just what you can do ; 

 Why should you trouble trouble, 



Before it troubles you ? 



Trouble is a honey-bee. 

 It keeps you always vexed ; 



It surely means to sting you. 

 The next time— or the next. 



But bless you, bees think only 

 Of breakfasts dipped in dew ; 



Keep right ahead— this trouble 

 Will never trouble you. 



Oh, merry little travelers, 



Along life's sunny ways. 

 When honej^-bees and thistles 



Affright you at your plays. 



Remember the old promise 

 That your sorrows shall be few. 



If you never trouble trouble, 

 'Till trouble troubles you. 



—The Independent. 



Topics o! Interest. 



Medium Spacing of Brooi-Comlis. 



REV. W. P. FAYLOE. 



During the last five years I have ex- 

 perimented pretty thoroughly upon 

 spacing brood-combs. What I term 

 medium spacing is l}i inches from 

 center to center, or a medium distance 

 between the close spacing of combs, as 

 practiced by some of our modern bee- 

 keepers, and the distance that bees will 

 build their combs apart naturally. 



Since my last article appeared in the 

 Bee Journal upon this subject, I have 

 waited with some concern to see some- 

 thing reasonably fair in favor of the 

 close spacing theory, but the best usually 

 given is, "I do not know what is the 

 proper distance to space brood-combs." 



Some articles on the above subject in 

 Oleanings, in favor of close spacing, 

 during the last few months, have been 

 really laughable. A writer in the last 

 issue of that periodical says : "I would 

 say to those who never use % spacing 



(that is, 



inch between combs), just 



try one hive ; and when you get the 



combs all shaved down, see what sheets- 

 of brood you will have, and where you 

 used ten combs seven or eight will do. I 

 feel very sure the cause of bare spots of 

 no brood is caused by two combs so close 

 that the queen can not get there. I have 

 seen one-fourth of a Langstroth frame 

 without honey or brood, and the cell not 

 more than half depth." 



Yes ; and I have seen the same thing, 

 too. Queens will not lay at all in cells 

 that are very shallow. I wonder some- 

 times how her highness can straighten 

 out so as to lay at all where combs are 

 % of an inch from each other. 



I would not, however, be quite so 

 expansive as to put seven frames in a 

 hive where ten frames had been used. 

 As the writer says, it might do, but that 

 gives fully 2 inches space to every 

 comb. 



Now, I object to this close spacing for 

 the further reason that close spacing 

 gives us weaker, and hence, shorter- 

 lived bees. Herein lies the secret of the 

 failures in the honey crop of late years. 

 As we cramp our bees more and more 

 each year, and each succeeding genera- 

 tion the bees become weakened and re- 

 duced in strength, we can expect, by and 

 by, no surplus honey at all, unless we 

 reform on this line. 



You have all observed that the bees 

 reared in the early part of the season 

 were not nearly so active nor strong as 

 those bred during the Summer. To rear 

 strong bees requires sufficient animal 

 heat to properly develop the brood. This 

 cannot be had where combs are closely 

 spaced, as a single depth of bees over 

 the capped brood is hardly sufficient to 

 rear or breed bees two months of the 

 year. 



Suppose, as a few apiculturists advise, 

 we space the combs % of an inch apart, 

 and the bees are left to themselves to 

 rear queens. How, I ask, can the bees 

 extend a queen-cell H of an inch, and 

 yet have room for enough bees to cover 

 the cell to keep it as warm as it should be ? 

 I bought one of those $6 queens last 

 season, and her progeny are very yellow, 

 but the color of her bees is all she is 

 good for. She is the poorest layer I ever 

 saw. Why is this so ? Simply because 

 she was reared very late in the season, 

 to mate with selected drones, when the 

 animal heat of the hive was too low. If 

 I am correct here, then much of the dis- 

 ease attending modern apiculture is a 

 result of close spacing as much as any- 

 thing else. I have noticed in some of 

 these closely-spaced-frame hives, in the 

 cooler months, large patches of brood 

 which had died when nearly ready to 



