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247 



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young queens hatched ; and if you 

 shoukl cut out the queen-cells and re- 

 turn the queen with the beCvS, the bees 

 woukl start queen-cells immediately. 

 You can prevent increase by taking the 

 queens away from the swarm, and re- 

 turn the swarm, and six or seven days 

 after the swarm issued, destroy all the 

 cells but one. Then again, on the 

 tenth day go over the combs again, 

 and destroy any cells that may have 

 been started before all the larvie was 

 sealed, so as to leave but one young 

 queen. This plan will work, but you 

 will get tired of it. — G. W. Demaree. 



Hive the swarm on the old stand, 

 and give it the supers from the old 

 hive, so that the work of the colony 

 may not cease. As the bees emerge 

 from the parent colony, shake them in 

 front of the sw^arm, or treat the parent 

 colony in any way that your judgment 

 may dictate. Do not be in haste to 

 destroy queens and queen-cells. Care 

 for them, test them, and preserve the 

 most promising. — J. M. Shuck. 



Both of the methods you mention 

 are objectionable. How to prevent in- 

 crease invarialily and successfully is 

 one of the problems as yet unsolved. 

 — The Editor. 



COI^TEI^TIOIW UrOTICES- 



ITF" The next raeetint; of the N. W. Ills, and 8. W, 

 ■Wi8. Bee-Keepers' Association will be held in R^ck- 

 ton, Ills., May 122, 1888. D. A. FULLER, .Sec. 



t^~ Tlie Eastern Indiana Bee-Keepers' AsBocia- 

 lion will hold Its spring meeting on Haturday. April 

 21, 1888, at Richmond. Ind. M. G. Reynolds, Sec. 



tsr The Deo Moines County Bee-Keepers' Associ- 

 ation will hold its next meeting on April 24, ihhk, at 

 Burlington, Iowa. John NAu, Sec. 



t^" The Darke County Union Bee-Kpepers' Asso- 

 ciation will hold its annual meeting on Friday. April 

 27, lr88, at Ansonia. O. J. A. Hue, Sec. 



J^F" The Union Bee-Keepers' Association of Wes- 

 tern Iowa, will hold their annual meeting at Menlo, 

 Iowa, on Saturday, April 14, i«8M, at lo a.m. 



H. D. Lenucker, Sec. 



^^~ The Cortland Union Bee-Keepers* Association 

 will hold its spring meeting on MayH, ih^h, at Cort- 

 land, N. Y., at 10 a.m. All bee-keepers are invited. 

 W. H. BEACH. Sec. 



jy The Marshall County Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion will meet at the Court House in Marahalltown. 

 Iowa, on Saturday, April 21, l«s8. at lo :j(i a.m. The 

 subject for discuseion is, "-Spring and summer man- 

 agement of hees." A general invitation is extended. 

 A good meeting is expected. J. W. Sanders, Sec. 



tW The iHth semi-annual session of the Central 

 Michigan Bee-Keepers' Association will be held in 

 the Pioneer Hoom at the State Capitol, on Saturday, 

 April 21, 1H8'*. Prof. A. J. Cook will give an address. 

 A cordial invitatU.iti in extended toaU.as it will be 

 a very interesting meeting. W. A. Ba knes. Sec. 



Z^~ The annnual meeting of the Western Bee- 

 Keepers' Association will be held at Independence, 

 Mo., at the Court House, on April 2.*>, ihhk. It will 

 be carried on as a sociable, friendly gathering. Let 

 all bring their baskets and have a good time. 



Pkteh Otto, Sec. 



jy The next meeting of the Susquehanna County 

 Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at New Mil- 

 ford, Pa., on May 5. im,h8. The following subjects are 

 to be considered : Bee-keeping for plea-^ure and pro- 

 fit— Spring work with bees— Js it advi^itble to use 

 foundation? If so, to what extent?— How can we 

 make our Association of the most practical value to 

 its members. All are cordially invited to come. 



H. M. Seelev, SfC. 



t^^ The tenth annual meeting of the TexMs State 

 Bee-Keepers' Association will be held at the bee- 

 yards of Vice-President W. R, Graham, in Green- 

 ville, Hunt Co., TevHs, on May 2 and 3. iHrtw. A 

 leading feature ot the convention will be criticisms 

 upon subjects tliat have been mentioned in the bee- 

 papers. A good lime is expected, so let all Texas 

 and Arkansas bee-keepers attend. A cordial Invi- 

 tati<m IS extended to all bee-keepers wheresoever 

 dispersed. Remember, no hotel bills to pay at our 

 conventiona I B. F. Carroll, Sec. 



LARGE HIVES. 



The SiiiaH 



Hives vs. the Large 

 Hives. 



Written for the Amcrimn Bee Journal 

 BY CHAS. DADANT. 



The article of Mr. W. J. Davis, on 

 page 170, on large hives, reminds me 

 of the objections raised, 25 years ago, 

 by the bee-keepers with box-hives, who 

 condemned the frames on account of 

 the impossibility of taking them out 

 after the building of combs. The 

 combs were crooked, passing from a 

 frame to another, and therefore such 

 hives would never, never, be used by 

 the majority of bee-keepers. 



Of course such bad results were not 

 to be imputed to bees, but to their 

 owners, who had neglected to watch 

 the building of comb, and to help the 

 bees ; while a few minutes per colony 

 would have obtained the desired 

 result. 



Mr. Davis is guilty of about a similar 

 neglect,for he writes : " During March 

 and April I find that colonies build up 

 more rapidly in the smaller hive, 

 owing to the fact of greater warmth, 

 or the better economizing of the heat 

 of the cluster." Then he did not take 

 the trouble of providing his large hives 

 with division-boards, which would 

 have enabled him to reduce the num- 

 ber of combs according to the size of 

 the cluster of bees. We are not in a 

 linden country ; like Mr. Davis, our 

 main crop is from clover. Here white 

 clover begins to bloom about June 1. 

 Yet we find less difficulty to get our 

 bees ready in time, with our large 

 hives and partition boards, than with 

 small hives and no partitions. 



A little thinking will explain the 

 above. Suppose that, on March 1, we 

 have a colony so reduced in numbers 

 that it is unable to warm, sufficiently 

 for breeding, more than 500 cubic 

 inches. If we reduce the space inside 

 of our large hive three combs, the 

 upper surface of the room inhal5ited 

 by the bees will be reduced to aliout 

 80 square inches ; and the bees will be 

 enabled to warm about 6 inches in 

 depth, since the warmth always rises. 



If, on the contrary, we have a 10- 

 frame Langstroth hi\e, or even a 10- 

 frame division of the Heddon hive, the 

 surface of the whole will be about 250 

 square inches, and our bees will be 

 unable to warm more than 2 inches of 

 depth ; 4 inches less than in our large 

 hive. Then while tli<' small cluster in 

 our large hive will be able to keep the 

 brood warm, the same number of bees 



in the whole small hive will exhaust 

 itself to prevent its brood from being 

 chilled, and the laying will be alto- 

 gether stopped. 



Another curious objection of Mr. 

 Davis is, that a queen can be ex- 

 hausted by laying too much. During 

 the spring, if bees find something to 

 harvest, the queen is abundantly fed, 

 and slie lays more or less, not accord- 

 ing to her liking — not according to the 

 number of cells — but according to the 

 quantity' of footl oftered her by the 

 bees. When the queen does not find 

 cells to lay in, her eggs are dropped 

 and lost. Besides, we can show by 

 our experience, that although our 

 queens can lay from 3,500 to 4,000 

 eggs per day, they are as long lived 

 as any. 



In our home apiary we keep from 

 80 to 100 colonics, all in very large 

 hives. If our ([ueens were exhausted 

 by their excessive laying, they would 

 not last, on an average, more tlian two 

 years. Then the whole number would 

 be replaced at the rate of about 3 or 4 

 queens every month. Three queens 

 every month, from Nov. 1 to March 1, 

 wouid give a loss of 12 queens, whose 

 colonies would be queenless or brood- 

 less in March. We are far from losing 

 half this number, on the average. 

 Then our queens are not exhausted by 

 their laying. 



We can prove the same during the 

 time of liarvest ; as we prevent swarm- 

 ing, the number of our swarms shows 

 how many colonies replace their 

 queens, since in such cases they swarm. 

 As our 80 or 100 colonies do not give 

 more than three swarms, on an aver- 

 age, during the honey crop, we know 

 that our queens are as long-lived as 

 those that inhabit small hives. 



As to wintering bees in large hives, 

 we know that according lo llie laivs oj 

 nature, a large aggregation of animals, 

 horses or sheep, and even bees, will be 

 more comfortable in winter, than a 

 small aggregation. If I needed to 

 prove it, I would open to page 83, 

 where Mr. S. P. Stone asks why a col- 

 ony in a box-hive lived and prospered 

 for 27 yeai's. The answer is found iu 

 the size of the box ; 16x16x22 inches, 

 or 5,632 cubic inches. 



On page 107, Mr. Heddon says that 

 a colony in a liivc as large as 10 Lang- 

 stroth liives combined, had wintered 

 safely for seven years, while many 

 others had died by its side. 



Both of the above colonies and hives 

 were in Michigan, in the " bee-diar- 

 rheadom," as Mr. Heddon terms that 

 State. Why did they winter better, if 

 not on account of the size of the hives? 

 I could multiply these examples, even 

 witliout quoting our own regular suc- 

 cess in wintering bees in large hives. 



Hamilton, Ills. 



