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327 



CHARintlNO MAY. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 



BY J. F. LATHAM. 



All nature hails bright, bonny May ! 

 A new-bfirn verdure crowns the spray, 

 BursthiR buds, and sprinKing flowers ; 

 Balmy zephyrs, gentle showers, 

 Followini; iii the merry train 

 Of the leathered songsters' strain. 



The busy bee, with joyous hum. 

 Revels amid tlie willows' bloom, 

 CuUina with care the choicest food, 

 }l(>me bears it to her growing brood ; 

 While perched aloft, with sportive lay. 

 Rod red-breast chants the charms of May. 



The bUie-bird, too, on listless wing. 

 Lends, by its note, a charm to spring ; 

 From thicljet dense, th' allu'ing spell 

 Responds t' the music in the dell 

 With ciiuntless tliroats, in sweet refrain, 

 A prelude of the summer's reign. 



With heedless dash, the foaming rills. 

 In restless leaps, rush down the hills. 

 Or, hahbling through the meadow wide. 

 To hroader channels yield their tide. 

 And seem to lend, as zephyrs play 

 In glist'ning sheen, a charm to May. 



At morn and eve the blushing clouds. 

 No longer frown on winter's shrouds ; 

 The vernal sun, with smiling grace. 

 Betokens smiles from Nature's face 

 In countless hues, on wood and plain. 

 Proclaiming— Spring has come again. 

 West Cumberland, Me. 



BROOD-CHAMBERS. 



How I Arrived at the Size of the 

 Brood-Chamber I L'Se. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 By G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Seeing that some still prefer a large 

 brooil-chamer, and seem to think that 

 those who prefer a smaller one are 

 just a little " off the track," A few 

 words about how I was led to adopt 

 the smaller brood-chamber might not 

 be amiss, especially to those just start- 

 ing in the business of bee-keeping. 



When I first began to keep bees, 

 all the old bee-keepers about me kept 

 them in hives of 2^00 to 2,200 cubic 

 inches ; and knownig that both Lang- 

 stroth and Quinby also recommended 

 that size to secure the best results, and 

 as I knew naught of the business, I 

 supposed, of course, that they were 

 correct ; so I started out with the stan- 

 •davd Langstroth hive with a capacity 

 of 2,200 cubic inches in the brood- 

 chamber, and surplus room on top for 

 about 35 pounds of hone)-. 



After using this hive for two sea- 

 sons, I became convinced that the 

 square form of frame was better 

 adapted to this latitude than the shal- 



low Langstroth frame, and so I adopt- 

 ed the Gallup form of the Langstroth 

 frame, which is lOfxlOJ inches square, 

 inside measure. As Gallup used 12 

 frames, giving about the same sized 

 brood-chamber as Langstroth, I thought 

 that 1 must, so I started out with 12 

 frames in each hive. I soon found, 

 however, that as a rule three of the 12 

 frames would be filled with nice white 

 honey early in the season, and gen- 

 erally remained in the hive the next 

 spring. 



After a little thought on the subject, 

 I concluded to place three blanks or 

 division-boards in the place of three 

 frames, two on one end of the hive, 

 and one on the othei\ To this end I 

 nailed top-bars of frames on boards 

 which were short, the depth of the 

 hive, one-half of an inch at the bottom, 

 and hung them on the rabbets in the 

 place of the three frames. 



I had previously found that mj' best 

 queens would only ogcupy about 800 

 square inches of comb with brood, 

 which left about 600 square inches of 

 comb to be filled with honey and jool- 

 len, and my hive of 2,200 cubic inches 

 gave me about 1,400 square inches of 

 comb, surface measure. Thus each 

 year I was losing the use of 25 pounds 

 of the choicest honey, for the sake of 

 insuring that the bees had abundance 

 of honey for winter. This honej-, 

 placed in boxes, was worth 15 at least, 

 at the time, while if necessary to feed 

 on account of a smaller brood-cham- 

 ber, %2 worth of sugar made into a 

 sj-rup would provide them as much 

 feed as the 15 worth of honey would 

 supply. 



I tried about 10 colonies with the 

 three boards in the place of three 

 frames of comb, thinking it best not to 

 go contrary to the old veterans on a 

 large scale at first, fearing that they 

 might be right after all. However, I 

 was more than gratified to find that I 

 not only obtained the 25 pounds in 

 boxes, but that these 10 colonies aver- 

 aged about 50 pounds more honey 

 than those that had their 12 frames of 

 comb. The reason soon became ob- 

 vious whj' this was so. As the queen 

 kept the nine frames nearly filled with 

 brood, when tlie honey haiwest came 

 the bees had nowhere to put the 

 honey which they gathered, except in 

 the boxes, so they immediately com- 

 menced work in tliem. With the 12 

 frames of comb they had room to store 

 quite a quantity of honey in comb 

 alreadjr built, and so they were loth to 

 go into the boxes, as they had made 

 their first start below. 



Another thing pleased me much, 

 which was this : I found as cold 

 weather approached in the fall, that 

 the bees placed their fall or dark 

 honey in the brood-chamber, as the 



queen decreased laying preparatory 

 for winter, and that as a rule the 10 

 colonies had enough honey for winter, 

 namely, 25 pounds, and as this was 

 not so salable as the white honey, I 

 had made a great gain here also. The 

 next year I placed boards in many 

 more of my hives with like success, 

 and the year after found me with all 

 of m}' hives having only nine frames 

 in them. 



Having established the size of the 

 brood-chamber (as nine Gallup frames) 

 to my satisfaction, I found that unless 

 I used the boards in the new hives 

 that I made, I should not have room 

 enough for boxes (GO pounds capacity 

 being about right) on top of the hive. 

 This set me to thinking of side boxes 

 in connection with the top boxes, and 

 I soon had the hive I have so many 

 times described in the American Bee 

 Journal. 



These hives give me better results 

 than any before obtained, and I was so 

 well pleased with them that I adopted 

 them altogether when working for 

 comb honey. In 1877 the colonies in 

 them gave me the average yield of 

 o^■er two hundred pounds of comb 

 honey each. 



For a few years I was satisfied, and 

 each year gave me good results, but I 

 soon saw that if I was to secure the 

 greatest possible results obtainable, I 

 must stop the rearing of too large a 

 force of bees in the honey harvest, 

 which not only took much of the hpney 

 while they were in the larval form, but 

 became useless consumers when 

 hatched, after the honey harvest was 

 over. 



To this end I commenced to contract 

 those 9-frame hives to but 5 or 6 

 frames when hiving swarms, and also 

 the pai-ent colony as soon as the 

 young queen began laying, where they 

 were held until the honey harvest be- 

 gan drawing to a close, so that the 

 queen which now began to cease her 

 extra prolificncss did not wish to oc- 

 cupy more room with brood ; when the 

 full complemeut of combs was again 

 given in time to have their winter 

 stores placed in them from the fall 

 blooming flowers. 



In the above way I have secured 

 very gratifying results, and I would no 

 more think of returning to a hive of 

 from 2,000 to 2,200 cubic inches, than 

 I would to the box-hives of our fore- 

 fathers. 



While I prefer the Gallup brood- 

 frame to any other, I should not ad- 

 vise any one that had from 30 colonies 

 upward, to change frames, for any of 

 the frames now in use can be so 

 worked as to secure good results, on 

 the plan of small brood-chambers as 

 above given. 



Borodino, M. Y. 



