190 



THE BEE KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



those around me. This was the ten-frame 

 Langstroth hive. Soon after this I became 

 acquainted with the writings of Elisha 

 Gallup, who fltjured largely in the bee-keep- 

 ing literature of twenty-five years ago, and 

 after an experiment of two years, I changed 

 from the Langstroth to the Gallup hive, and 

 am still using the Gallup frame in my home 

 yard. Twenty-five years ago, Quinby, 

 Langstroth, Gallup, and nearly every one 

 else recommended a hive holding from 2,000 

 to 2, .^00 culiic inches, and supposing that 

 such size was the best for profit I made my 

 Gallup hives to hold twelve frames, this 

 giving about the same room there was in the 

 Quinby and Langstroth. 



Of course it is to be understood that this 

 article is written from a comb honey stand- 

 point, for at the time I commenced keeping 

 bees and for some years after, the extractor 

 was unknown. Working for comb honey 

 and working for extracted honey, are two 

 different things, and it is a noticeable fact 

 that those who clamor most loudly for large 

 hives are among those who work for ex- 

 tracted honey more largely than for comb. 

 I never questioned the advisability of large 

 hives when working for extracted honey; but 

 after using the standard Gallup hives three 

 seasons exclusively for comb honey I began 

 to question their practicability for such 

 purpose, and will here tell the readers of th 

 Review how I decided upon the size of the 

 brood chamber which I have been using for 

 nearly twenty years. 



After using the twelve frame Gallup hive 

 for two years, while looking over the bees 

 one spring, I noticed that nearly every hive 

 had from two to four combs of nice white 

 honey unused, and I kept watch of the mat- 

 ter to see if this honey was turned into 

 brood, and the brood from it became bees in 

 time to do work in the honey harvest, as I 

 cjnsidered that such changing of honey into 

 bees had much to do with the yield of comb 

 honey I would secure. A careful watching 

 showed that honey was not converted into 

 brood, but on the contrary more honey was 

 added to it during the season. This careful 

 w vtching also showed that the average queen 

 would not occupy more than 800 square 

 inches of comb with brood for any length of 

 time; hence I began to see that my twelve 

 Gallup frames gave me about (S.^O square 

 inches of comb to be occupied with honey 

 and pollen nearly all the time, as they gave 

 about 14r>0 scjuare inches of comb as a whole. 



I especially noticed this fact, when hiving 

 new swarms on the whole twelve frames, for 

 they would not enter the sections to any 

 amount until all the brood frames were full, 

 when I had from 500 to GOO square inches of 

 comb filled with the nicest of white honey, 

 which would be from 2r> to :50 pounds. This 

 honey was just the honey I wanted in the 

 sections, but with these twelve-frame hives I 

 could not get it there, and must sell it as 

 chunk honey, if I sold it at all. 



In talking with a bee-keeper one day on 

 this point he told me that this storing of 

 honey in the brood frames was just what he 

 wanted, as it insured the safe wintering of 

 the bees after a poor season, and we far bet- 

 ter have some extra honey in the hives than 

 occasinally lose our bees in winter for lack 

 of stores. After he had gone I fell to reason- 

 ing and I soon saw that if I held to the 

 twelve frame hives I was using, my bees 

 would be wintering on from 25 to 30 pounds 

 of the very choicest of honey, which should 

 go into the sections and be turned into cash, 

 and in case of a poor season the bees should 

 be looked after to see if they had honey 

 enough for winter and if not they could be 

 fed sugar syrup to make up the deficiency, 

 said syrup costing less than half what the 

 honey would bring when sold in the market. 

 Again, I found that where the bees com- 

 menced storing honey to any amount in the 

 brood nest, and especially is this true with 

 the Italians, that the tendency was for them 

 to keep storing there instead of going into 

 the sections, or boxes as we used and called 

 them then, the result of which was that when 

 fall came I had but little honey in the surplus 

 apartment, much honey in the body of 

 the hive and few bees for winter, ow- 

 ing to the honey in the brood combs 

 crowding out the brood which gave the bees 

 for winter. Seeing things as I believed in 

 their true light, I next began figuring what 

 size hive was best. The queen I found need- 

 ed 800 square inches of comb during the best 

 of her breeding, and as it was necessary that 

 some room be allowed for pollen and a little 

 honey for present uses, I supposed that one 

 fourth the room occupied by the queen would 

 be about right for this, so settled that 1,000 

 square inches of comb would be about right. 

 But as is was impossible to have a certain 

 number of frames figure out an even 1,000, I 

 took the number that gave me the nearest 

 that amount, which was nine. Eight gave 

 820 square inches, while nine gave 1,035. 



