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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



369 



state that these hives proved ex- 

 ceedingly proficient in securing popu- 

 lous colonies. But the difficulty with 

 them was the locating of supers, for 

 which no adequate provision could 

 be made, and they were ultimately 

 discarded. It will therefore be read- 

 ily understood that his acceptance of 

 3.S00 eggs as the probable average of 

 a prolific queen was not based upon 

 guess, but upon experience. Numer- 

 ous other apiarists reached similar 

 conclusions, some even placing the 

 possible laying of a queen at 5,000 

 eggs in 24 hours. Many, however, 

 did not give sufficient weight to the 

 advisability of securing the greatest 

 possible rearing of worker-bees in 

 time for the honey harvest. 



The reasoning is that a good hive 

 should accommodate, in its brood- 

 chamber, the breeding of a good 

 queen for 21 days, at least, since it 

 takes 21 days for the developing of 

 the worker from the dav the egg is 

 laid to the day of its emerging from 

 the cell. An addition of about 20% 

 of the breeding room is needed for 

 adequate supplies, honey and pollen, 

 for the sustenance of the growing 

 larvae. This is none too much. Our 

 8-frame hive beekeepers generally 

 notice that the outer sides of the two 

 outer frames are thus used, besides 

 quite a portion at the upper and rear 

 edges of all the frames. Besides 

 these requirements, some allowance 

 should be made for drone-cells, which 

 are larger than worker cells. 18 to 

 the inch instead of 27, and also for 

 the unavoidable delay caused by the 

 queen not always finding the empty 

 and burnished cells which the work- 

 ers hasten to prepare for her as soon 

 as empty. Drones are also slower 

 than workers in hatching— 24 instead 

 of 21 days. All these matters require 

 consideration. 



If we multinly 3,500 by 21 days we 

 find 75.500 as the number of cells 

 actually needed for brood at the 

 height of the breeding season. Ad- 

 ding the 20% for supplies and a rea- 

 sonable space for the larger cells and 

 the delays above mentioned, we 

 reach a figure of about 90,000 cells. 

 Eight Quinbv combs contain approxi- 

 mately 85,500 worker cells, so they 

 are not sufficient. Ten Langstroth 

 combs contain only about 75.600 

 worker cells, being short about 14,400 

 of the number required for ample 

 room. 



Starting from the above proposi- 

 tion, sustained by experience, Chas. 

 Dadant became the main champion 

 of large hives, in the United States, 

 as he was, in Europe, the leading 

 champion of American ideas on mov- 

 able frames. But the public did not, 

 by any means, accept his views 

 unanimously. During the year 1885, 

 9 articles on the subject of "Small 

 versus Large Hives" appeared in the 

 American Bee Journal, mainly from 

 his pen and that of two opponents — 

 Heddon and Hutchinson. Six addi- 

 tional articles appeared in 1889. 



To illustrate how much opposition 

 there has been to large brood-cham- 

 bers, it is sufficient to quote 2 writ- 

 ers. In 1885, page 709, of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, Franklin P. Stiles 

 wrote that a brood-chamber of from 



4 to 7 frames, Langstroth size, was 

 best. This man — if he figured at all — ■ 

 was figuring on a maximum capacity 

 of 1,200 eggs per day for his queens. 

 In 1889, in the May number, B. Tay- 

 lor, a noted apiarist, asserted that he 

 had a hive of the right size, 1,000 

 inches of comb surface. This was 

 allowing hardly more than 1,000 cells 

 per day for the capacity of the best 

 queen. 



On the other hand, Bertrand, the 

 noted publisher and editor of the 

 "Revue Internationale D'Apiculture," 

 wrote in 1879, that, with small hives, 

 "one quickly has many colonies and 

 quickly very few;" meaning by those 

 words to suggest that small hives 

 swarm much and winter badly. 



In 1885, when Langstroth made ar- 

 rangements with Chas. Dadant for 

 the revision and re-writing of the 

 "Hive and Honey Bee." the question 

 of capacity of hives was fully dis- 

 cussed. Mr. Langstroth said : "If I 

 were to change from the 10-frame 

 hive to any other, I would enlarge it, 

 instead of reducing it." Yet, at that 

 time, the 8-frame hive was very pop- 

 ular. Its popularity has been due 

 partly to its cheapness and its light- 

 ness, and partly to the profuse 

 swarming that it causes. Many peo- 

 ple want plentiful swarming. 



There are, however, successful men 

 who use the 8-frame hive. Wilder, 

 in Georgia, wants no other. He piles 

 them up 2 or 3 high and gets brood 

 or honey, as the case may be, in the 

 different stories. He practices 

 rough-and-ready beekeeping in a 

 country where bees have small value 

 The Atchleys, years ago, in Southern 

 Texas, wrote that they wanted small 

 colonies for winter, as large colonies 

 consumed too much honey. But large 

 colonies also produce much honey. In 

 the North, a colony is never too 

 strong for winter. 



Among the successful 8-frame hive 

 men is our own associate. Dr. Miller. 

 But Dr. Miller gives his prolific 

 queens two hives, or 16 frames, in 

 which to breed. When the honey 

 crop comes, he again i educes them to 

 one 8-frame story for the brood. This 

 requires manipulations which in- 

 crease the labor at the rush time of 

 the honey crop. Sixteen frames are 

 also beyond the capacity of the best 

 queens. That is another reason for 

 our dislike of such a double hive. 



The Jumbo hive, mentioned at the 

 beginning of this dissertation, was 

 the result of a discussion, concerning 

 large hives, in Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture, which was carried on for sev- 

 eral years, between 1893 and 1899. 

 The Dadants, of course, held the ar- 

 gument in favor of large hives, with 

 numerous dissenters on the small 

 hive side of the argument. At last, 

 in the May 1st number of 1899, A. N. 

 Draper came to the rescue of the 

 large frame and hive advocates, by 

 giving his comparative experience on 

 hives. Then he quoted the "Hive and 

 Honey Bee" Revision, in which Chas. 

 Dadant wrote: "We would counsel 

 beginners to use a frame as long as 

 the standard Langstroth and as deep 

 as the Quinbv." Draper then urged 

 upon the Roots the experiment of 

 making a 10-frame hive of this size. 



They did so, but instead of calling 

 it, as some of the Europeans do, "the 

 modified Dadant hive," it was called 

 the "Jumbo," on account of its 

 larger size, when compared to the 

 standard Langstroth. The hive is 

 now sold in Europe under the name 

 of "Dadant-Root hive." 



The 10-frame Jumbo hive contains 

 over 3,600 inches of comb surface, 

 giving a capacity of over 95,000 

 worker cells, so that even if a dum- 

 my is used in place of one of the 

 frames, it will still have nearly suf- 

 ficient capacity for the prolific queen. 

 But the principal objection to it 

 comes from beekeepers who use full 

 upper stories and who find these too 

 large for convenience. Indeed, they 

 are very heavy to handle when full 

 of honey. But personally the writer 

 thinks that all full-size upper stories 

 are inconvenient and objectionable, 

 even if only of the shallow 8-frame 

 standard' Langstroth size. 



After an experience extending over 

 50 years with several hundred colo- 

 nies, in both Dadant-Quinby large 

 hives and frames, and 10-frame Lang- 

 stroth hives of the standard make, 

 the writer is still in favor of a shal- 

 lower frame for the extracting super. 

 The principal difficulty, with the bee- 

 keepers who have used shallow su- 

 pers, comes from their having used 

 too shallow frames, from 4'A inches 

 deep to 5}£. There is too much hand- 

 ling in these ultra-shallow stories. 

 The original suggestion of Mr. Lang- 

 stroth for extracting supers was a 6- 

 inch super. We followed this from 

 the first, using a frame with a 6-inch 

 side bar, a super 6$4 inches deep. 

 Such a frame permits the use of an 

 uncapping knife in the most practi- 

 cal manner, as a single stroke of the 

 knife takes the entire depth of the 

 comb. 



Our objections to full-sized upper 

 stories, after trying a hundred or 

 more of them, in Langstroth hives, 

 are as follows : 



1. The addition of a full story to 

 a middling colony gives too much 

 space above, in spring, when the 

 weather is still cool, as it doubles the 

 capacity of the hive at one stroke. 



2. The addition of this full-story, 

 to a populous colony which is over- 

 flowing its brood-chamber, entices the 

 queen away from the lower story, if 

 the lower story is not sufficient for 

 her laying capacity. So, with 10- 

 frame Langstroth hives, we often find 

 powerful colonies with brood scat- 

 tered over 2 stories. This is incon- 

 venient if we wish to extract. A deep 

 lower story and shallower upper 

 story tend to retain the queen below. 

 At least this is our experience. _ We 

 never use queen excluders, consider- 

 ing them a hindrance to ventilation. 

 They are rarely needed, with deep, 

 ample brood-chambers. 



3. The addition of full stories, of 

 the depth of the Jumbo frame, in- 

 creases the objections made to full 

 stories of Langstroth depth, for they 

 are still more cumbersome to handle. 



4. Honey in full upper stories is 

 much more difficult to handle in us- 

 ing the extractor and there is much 

 more liability for the combs to break 

 down by the heat. 



