1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



341 



chosen sire, I fear, would find him- 

 self "cabin'd, cribbed, confined," and 

 it is questionable if he could put 

 out his best effort in the race, and 

 it is perhaps . more questionable if 

 the best of three would be chosen to 

 act as Prince Consort. This system 

 has long been the design of many 

 minds and has been tested again and 

 again only to be dropped. Artificial 

 copulation has been only a dream, 

 although assertions have been made 

 that success had followed a trial. No, 

 only in the distant depths of the 

 pure ether can queens be mated. 

 Man can say that only pure drones 

 shall be reared, therefore only such 

 can fly — thus far he has controlled 

 true mating. Any scheme for ad- 

 vancing further must be the work of 

 no single individual. I would prefer 

 to think not even of any single State, 

 but of your united Republic. It 

 should be a national affair, financed 

 by a government subsidy, and the 

 very best beekeepers should be 

 chosen to formulate a scheme, to lay 

 down rules of breeding, to guide and 

 direct the procedure. Yearly, half- 

 yearly, or, better, quarterly confer- 

 ences should be held. Data should 

 be digested, the chaff winnowed out, 

 the questionable grain should be re- 

 jected and only the best of the very 

 best retained. 



Nearest to my ideal of a scheme 

 for securing controlled, pure pedi- 

 gree mating, however, comes the 

 Swiss Beekeepers' Association, with 

 its rearing of special mothers (the 

 dams), select purely nurtured drones 

 (the sires), and their isolated centers 

 up amid the Alps, where queens can 

 be mated with an accuracy and guar- 

 antee of purity obtained nowhere 

 else so certainly. Their procedure is 

 no haphazard one. They act in com- 

 bination on the same principle which 

 guides them s a Republic. Every 

 association, as in the case of each 

 Canton, takes > part in the manage- 

 ment of the confederated effort, 

 every beekeeper, indeed, and more 

 especially every queen-breeder, is a 

 member of the league, which settles 

 every fundamental of the scheme 

 under which they all work individu- 

 ally and collectively. Well-devised 

 rules are followed implicitly, results 

 are tabulated, tested and reconfirmed 

 or rejected. 



Yearly, or half yearly, there is held 

 a conference of the different breed- 

 ers, where results are discussed, new 

 plans are formed, old ideas modified, 

 or shred as a result of acquired data, 

 the fruits of observation and experi- 

 ence. After discussion further uni- 

 fied effort agreed on. One isolated 

 member has an experience which lie 

 estimates is of high value. Others 

 may have quite the contrary experi- 

 ence, tending to disprove its value 

 further than a mere result of chance. 

 The result may be a mere "sport." 

 One man, one mind, one experience, 

 does not count for a final decision, 

 although it may mean further test- 

 ing. When, however, ten, twenty or 

 more chronicle the same result, 

 working under diverse circum- 

 stances, surroundings and climates 

 month after month, year after year, 



there is a weight of testimony 

 which cannot be ignored. This even 

 does not pass muster until it is 

 tested, sifted, analyzed, put through 

 the crucible. All the good is re- 

 tained, all the questionable further 

 tested and only the good put into 

 circulation for dissemination and 

 use. 



Here is where the weakness of 

 queen-breeding in this country and 

 America comes in. Every breeder is 

 a law unto himself. Each one runs 

 his wagon on his own little line of 

 tiny rails. What I desire is a uni- 

 versal railway with one gauge, under 

 the authority of a central controll- 

 ing power. 



Dufftown, Scotland. 



Large Vs. Small Hives 



ON page 229, first column, you 

 say, 'And we, old heads in the 

 commercial line are apt to 

 overestimate our knowledge and 

 make light of the theories brought 

 forward, backed by experiments? 

 which sometimes contradict our pre- 

 conceived ideas. Much that we think 

 we know we have to 'unlearn" or 

 correct." 



I think you are as much prejudiced 

 in favor of large hives as I am in fa- 

 vor of small ones. There are sev- 

 eral great advantages in the modern 

 systems of beekeeping. First of all, 

 I will name the movable frame. We 

 will call it a handle to a comb of 

 honey or brood, so we can take hold 

 of the handle and remove the comb 

 of honey or brood and put it back 

 where it was before or put it in an- 

 other part of the hive or in another 

 hive. 



If we have two different-sized 

 frames in the same yard we are re- 

 stricted and we lose one of the great- 

 est benefits of modern equipment. 



Second, I will name the divisible 

 hive. All modern beekeepers divide 

 their hive into brood-chamber and 

 super, and I might say that all of 

 them divide their super into parts, 

 the advantages of which are too evi- 

 dent for me to mention. 



Now tell me why some of these 

 progressive beekeepers stick to a 

 great big undivided immovable 

 brood-chamber that they have to al- 

 ways leave in one place or have a 

 man to help move it? 



I know just what you will say. To 

 prevent swarming; but I think we 

 might better say, to suppress or pro- 

 hibit swarming; but the bees often 

 build little speak-easies that we call 

 queen-cells, that they hide in the 

 middle of their brood-nest and we 

 have to send detectives to hunt them 

 up. 



The detective takes out each large 

 frame, smokes or shakes the bets 

 off and then hunts for speak-easies. 

 Sometimes he finds them all, and 

 sometimes he doesn't ; but you all 

 know how it is, I don't need to tell 

 you. 



When the brood-nest gets full they 

 put most of it up stairs and then 

 next week do it over again and hunt 

 every week, top and bottom, for 

 speak-easies, and so on 57 different 

 ways, to try to prevent swarming; 



but the bees have 57 other ways to 

 get ahead of you. 



One big brood-chamber with two 

 or more different-sized supers for 

 comb and extracted honey is a very 

 good way, and I would not say a 

 word if I did not know a better way. 



All single brood-chambers, wheth- 

 er large or small, are sometimes too 

 small and sometimes too large, and 

 with large hives and deep frames 

 the top-bar must be heavy, the 

 standard is seven-eighths by seven- 

 teen-sixteenths,- leaving only five^' 

 sixteenths between, and if the frame 

 .above has no comb at the bottom the 

 queen is simply prohibited from go- 

 ing above. 



Then if the second brood-chamber 

 has shrunk three-sixteenths and the 

 bottom-bar covers five-sixteenths 

 space, the queen is excluded from 

 going above. 



By using shallow brood-chambers 

 (5 11-16) and following Fowler's new 

 system everything is changed and 56 

 out of the 57 varieties of preventing 

 swarming are eliminated and the 

 poor beekeeper's nerves have a rest. 

 No swarming, and the maximum 

 yield of honey with much less work, 

 and no worry. 



The notion that the queen either 

 likes to lay, or that she does lay in 

 a circle is most all imagination. 



In the cool spring and a cluster of 

 bees to keep the brood warm, the 

 brood is in a circle, simply because 

 there is no other warm place to lay. 



People on a cold day form a cir- 

 cle around a hot stove, but it is a 

 love for the stove, not the circle. On 

 the last of May I hived a new 

 swarm of bees (11 pounds of bees) 

 arid in four weeks they occupied 8 

 chambers and the queen laid in every 

 one. The next day, after putting on 

 the eighth super, there were eggs in 

 it. There was brood in 28 frames at 

 one time. 



She commenced -at the bottom su- 

 per on the sunny side, and after lay- 

 ing in 5 frames she commenced in 

 the second super on the sunny side, 

 and kept on the sunny side until she 

 was in the 5th super, then she laid 

 in 8 frames, but kept away from the 

 north side of the hive. 



This is an experiment that contra- 

 dicts our preconceived ideas. 



I have 20 swarms of bees that are 

 giving me more honey than ever be- 

 fore, without a single swarm, in 

 fact, without a single queen-cell. 

 This, also, contradicts our precon- 

 ceived ideas in regard to swarming. 

 Other bees near by were swarming 

 more than usual. I bought two 3- 

 pound swarms from a lady with bees 

 in the top of the house, no other 

 bees near. 



Of course, I would have to try my 

 system for years and years to prove 

 that it is an absolute prevention, and 

 even if I know how to prevent 

 swarming, I am like many others 

 that do not always do what they 

 know how to do. C. E. FOWLER. 



New Jersey. 



The above letter evidences ex- 

 actly what we hold, that in large 

 hives the queen usually confines her- 

 self to one story, while with shal- 

 low hives, she roams all over a num- 



