1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



51 



But a story-and-a-half hive would 

 very probably be better for winter 

 than the shallow Langstroth hive. It 

 would contain more honey and more 

 bees. The additional possible loss of 

 heat may be made up by greater 

 ease for the bees to reach the center 

 from the outer edges. If the bee- 

 keeper wishes to make up for the ex- 

 iguity of his hives, without changing 

 their style, this may be a fair rem- 

 edy. I have never tried it for win- 

 ter. 



However, I insist that, if we wish 

 success in every way, plenty of 

 breeding room, a compact brood- 

 chamber which will not cause the 

 queen to go about hunting for empty 

 cells, protection against excessive 

 swarming, no brood in the upper 

 apartments without excluders, the 

 deep brood-chambers for brood and 

 shallow supers for honey are prefer- 

 able to a story-and-a-half or to a 

 number of shallow stories, especially 

 in our climate of hard winters. 



The article of our old friend, Dr. 

 Bohrer, on page 8 of the January 

 issue, in which he relates his con- 

 versation with Moses Quinby, con- 

 cerning the depth of brood-chambers 

 and the quantity of honey above the 

 cluster, in winter, described in a 

 clear manner the difference between 

 the deep and shallow brood-chamber, 

 when the bees are confined for a 

 long time, in very cold weather. An 

 additional evidence of the strength 

 of this point is furnished by the rec- 

 ommendation of Mr. Demuth to turn 

 the hives on end for winter, as it 

 exemplifies the greater convenience 

 for the bees in having a large 

 amount of honey above the cluster 

 instead of on the side. Similarly I 

 suggest that a large number of shal- 

 low frames in a single story is less 

 convenient than a similar surface in 

 deep frames, as it splits the cluster 

 into too many groups. So a Lang- 

 stroth hive of 13 frames, recommend- 

 ed by some because it makes a 

 square hive, is not so desirable as 

 the deeper Jumbo with a less num- 

 ber of frames furnishing as much 

 space. 



However, when the question is to 

 use what we already have, so as to 

 waste nothing, the beekeeper may 

 well hesitate between his ten-frame 

 hives with additional half stories for 

 brood and the Jumbo hive upon 

 upon which he would use his full- 

 story brood-chambers as supers. If I 

 had the choice to make, I would take 

 the latter, for there is no doubt in my 

 mind that bees winter better and 

 breed earlier and more freely in 

 spring, in deeper hives. 



Remember that this is not guess- 

 work. Although we do not like the 

 Langstroth frame, we have a number 

 of them always on hand with bees in 

 them, for the demand is for bees in 

 that style, the mass of beekeepers 

 having never yet tried the deeper 

 frames, in this country, and we sell 

 bees often in that style of hives. So 

 we have occasion to pass judgment 

 every year in the comparison of the 

 deep and shallow frames. 



May I again insist on the fact that 

 most of the shallow supers in gen- 

 eral use are too shallow? We object 



Tumbn FrairtfA 



LancjsTrot f\ Frame, 



The above diagram illustrates comparative conditions, for winter, of the different styles of 

 hive under discussion, with clusters of the same size. The honey of the larger hives 

 being in a less number of frames, there is more of it in each frame and of easier ac- 

 cess to the bees. It is important that the honey should be in large proportion above 

 them during the coldest days, when they cannot move in any direction except upwards. 



to handling too many frames, even 

 for supers. The deep Dadant or 

 Jumbo frames are too heavy for ease 

 in extracting; but we do not extract 

 from the brood-chamber. In the 

 super we use a frame which has 

 two-thirds of the capacity of a 

 standard Langstroth frame. Here 

 are the measurements: 



Langstroth brood-frame, 134 square 

 inches. 



Dadant extracting frame, 92 square 

 inches. 



Dadant brood-frame, 186 square 

 inches. 



Jumbo brood-frame, 170 square 

 inches. 



A serious difficulty of the story- 

 and-a-half brood-chamber is that it 

 gives us 20 frames to manipulate, 

 when hunting for a queen, for queen- 

 cells, for disease, or for any manipu- 

 lation of the brood-combs. 



We have received several letters 

 asserting that even our large brood- 

 chamber is not large enough for the 

 capacity of some queens. That is 

 perhaps true in rare exceptions. It 

 is only an additional argument in 

 favor of large brood-chambers. 



I feel very free to discuss this 

 large brood-chamber question, be- 

 cause I have no ax to grind and be- 

 cause I know by my own experience 

 and by that of many who have had 

 similar experience that we have 

 some winning arguments. But I do 

 not wish to urge anyone to abandon 

 the system which he uses, owing to 

 the expense it involves. The matter 

 is not of so deep importance as was 

 the change from the old box-hive 

 system to the movable frame. 



Tribulations of a Beginner 



From a personal letter to Dr. Miller 



Dear Dr. Miller: A year ago last 

 winter I wrote you asking certain 

 questions, also implying that I ex- 



pected to get so proficient in the man- 

 agement of bees that I would "at 

 least do as well as the average bee- 

 keeper." Now, because you are in- 

 terested in bees, and further, because 

 I believe you are interested in honest 

 effort I want to tell you my experi- 

 ences as briefly as I can since writ- 

 ing the preceding letter: 



During the winter of 1914-1915 Z 

 spent a great deal of my time trying 

 to fathom the mysteries of bee lit- 

 erature, and had I not been very 

 dense I would have been better pre- 

 pared to manage bees in the follow- 

 ing spring, perhaps. The spring of 

 1915 found some 25 colonies under 

 tall hickory trees about 12 rods from 

 our house. My plan was to clip 

 queens and then keep queen-cells re- 

 moved. When I thought the time was 

 right to clip, I began operations 

 about 9 a. m. and worked hard till I 

 was called to dinner, but could not 

 find a queen. I hurriedly ate my 

 dinner and went at it again, and by 

 supper time I had clipped two queens. 

 The first one I dropped 5 times in the 

 grass before I managed to get her 

 wing clipped. I wonder that she did 

 not fly away in disgust. I learned 

 two things this day, viz. : hives placed 

 in a shimmering light are hard on 

 the eyes and temper, and that my 

 bees were very cross. They would be 

 on the war path for days after open- 

 ing the hives, and sting so many peo- 

 ple that I finally decided to let them 

 alone, only giving them a super when 

 I judged they needed it (by tipping 

 up the back of the hive after dark.) 

 Of course, I had swarms galore and 

 chased to the top of those trees, 

 more than 50 feet high, time after 

 time, till I was so sick of the sight 

 of bees that I would not even look at 

 a fine swarm as it sailed away. As a 

 fitting climax to the season's work, 

 when I came to remove honey I 

 found that eight of the old colonies 

 that I estimated had 50 pounds of 



