^IUTT^ 



lEflW 



VOL. in, 



FLINT, ICHieM, MAY 10, 1890, 



SO. 5. 



Large Hives, Combs and Colonies. — How the 



Dadants Raise, Extract, Handle and 



Sell Their Honey. 



CHAS. DADANT. 



^ LONG practice and a careful com- 

 parison of different hives and meth- 

 ods have convinced us that success in 

 bee culture is based on two condi- 

 tions: 1st, a yreat number bf bees at the 

 right time : and, 2nd, a spacious room to 

 receive their harvest. 



( )ur comparative experiments have taught 

 us also that a hive ought to be large enough 

 to accommodate the laying of the most pro- 

 lific queen, even if she is able to lay 5,000 

 eggs daily ; and that, to get the greatest 

 number of bees ready for the spring crop, it 

 is indispensable to begin preparations the 

 preceding summer. 



Let me remark that I write from one 

 standpoint, white clover, which begins to 

 bloom here between the I'Hth of May and 

 the .'ith of June, being our main crop. A 

 backwardness in the laying of our queens 

 would deprive us of the harvest, since the 

 lindens are very scarce around oilr apiaries. 



The conclusion of the foregoing is that we 

 allow our queens a full freedom to lay all 

 summer, reckoning it a bad policy to spare a 

 few pounds of honey by contracting the 

 brood nest, as advocated by some bee keep- 

 ers, or by extracting from the brood cham- 

 ber. 



B> our method the colonies are ready to 

 profit by a casual crop in the fall, and the 

 hives contain a provision of fine spring 

 honey to winter on. It follows that a large 

 number of Ijees, at the end of the winter, 

 have survived to warm a wide disk of comb, 

 in which the queen can lay abundantly as 

 early as the weather will allow. 



We have found this method as good for 

 raising comb honey as for extracted, and 

 used it long before the invention of Hursch- 

 ka ; the bees being as crowded in a large 

 hive, when its queen lays more than 4,000 

 eggs daily, as in a small hive, where she has 

 room for only 2,000, and as ready to climb 

 into the surplus boxes without being com- 

 pelled by contracting. 



We have now utterly abandoned the pro- 

 duction of comb honey, the extracted re- 

 quiring less work at a time when we have 

 many other irons in our fire. 



From the 1st of March to the 15th of May 

 our only work with bees is to look at their 

 provisions every fortnight, taking comb 

 from those too plentifully supplied, to help 

 the needy, or giving them some of the combs 

 reserved for this purpose before winter. 



All the combs of most of our hives are 

 nearly full of brood on the first fortnight of 

 May. When the clover begins to give some 

 nectar the bees lengthen with white wax the 

 cells under the upper bar of the frames. It 

 is a sign that they need more room. Then 

 we hasten to put surplus boxes on all our 

 good colonies. 



Our decided preference is in favor of the 

 Quinby suspended frame hive, enlarged to 

 ten frames, with a partition board. Our 

 surplus boxes have the size of these large 

 hives, but their frames are but six inches 

 high. These frames are full of comb. We 

 had about 2,000 of these combs in every one 

 of our six apiaries, but the crop of last 

 spring was so sudden that, not to extract 

 unripe honey, we increased their number 

 with comb foundation. Some of these sur- 

 plus combs are fifteen years old and were 

 emptied one or more times nearly every year 

 from the beginning. 



As soon as the first case is about two-thirds 

 full, another is placed under it, and, so on, 

 to the end of the croj) : unless the harvest be 

 unusually large, as that of last year ; then 

 we extract twice or three times during the 

 season. 



For extracting, we employ three workers 

 and a lad. After removing the cap of the 

 hive our first man, with a few puffs of smoke, 

 sends most of the bees into the brood cham- 

 ber. He lifts the surplus box and places it 

 in a shallow tin pan of suitable size. The 

 second worker covers it directly with a rob- 

 ber cloth, while the first shuts the hive. 



Then the bees of every comb are brushed 

 away in front of the hive with a broom made 

 of asparagus twigs : the comb is passed to 

 the second worker who puts it in another 

 box furnished also with a robber cloth and 

 idaced also in a tin pan on a wheel-barrow. 

 As soon as the last comb has passed in the 

 second box. the second worker wheels it to 

 the extracting room, and comes back, while 

 the first opens another hive. 



The third worker, in the extracting room, 

 uncaps the combs on the capping can : the 

 young man turns the machine. The honey 

 is emptied in a barrel through a sieve placed 

 in a funnel. The surplus boxes, with the 



