28 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



In referring to his division-board, an 1 

 the faciUty he finds in redncing his brood 

 nest, he is apparently laboring under 

 the impression that we can not similarly 

 contract our two eight-framers. All the 

 hives we have sold for years, of eight-frame 

 capacitv, have had a division-board as 

 part and parcel of the hive; and it is our 

 recommendation and practice to keep 

 those division-boards in use, for the hive 

 is made jvist enough wider to leave space 

 for follower. In putting on an upper 

 story, or, perhaps, better still, an under 

 story, we often give only four frames ex- 

 tra; and then, as the bees require more 

 room, give them the other four, or one, 

 two, or three, as circumstances may re- 

 quire; but more often I give the whole 

 eight frames at once because it saves la- 

 bor, even though it may not theoretically 

 be the best practice. 



Now, friend Dadant, when you add one 

 frame at a time to your big colonies, do 

 you not thereb}- make a great amount of 

 labor? Mr. Doolittle used to argue, and 

 perhaps does now, that it is a good prac- 

 tice to put on only one or two rows of 

 sections at a time, and only as fast as the 

 colony can take them. While there is 

 something in this, the majority of bee- 

 keepers put on a whole super of six rows 

 at one operation, because it saves labor. 

 And there is our friend H. R. Boardman, 

 who produces as much comb honey as 

 any one in proportion to the number of 

 colonies. He puts on three tiers of some 

 40 or 50 sections at once. I told him that 

 this gave the bees too much space to warm 

 up at the start. He admitted that there 

 was something in this, but added that 

 his plan saved labor, and .as long as he 

 could p'roduce as much comb honej' as 

 his neighbors working on the other plan 

 he preferred his own way. 



There is one point concerning which 

 friend Dadant does not explain himself 

 fully. By reading between the lines in 

 one paragraph I gather that his large 

 hives are not adapted to comb honey. 

 Elsewhere I get the impression that he 

 can, with them, produce as much comb 

 honey as any one. In one of his future 

 articles I hope Mr. D. will give us a clear 

 and explicit statement covering these 

 points. ] 



As I have already said, I have no doubt 

 that with Mr. Dadant's locality and man- 

 agement a large hive is better than a small 

 one. He must have found it so or he 

 would use a small hive. Admitting this, 

 I am still at .sea as to the whv of it. I 



can well understand that even if a large 

 portion of the honey goes into the brood 

 nest when a large hive is used, we can 

 get it out again vinthth^ extractor, while, 

 if we are producing comb honey there is 

 no such remedy; at the same time I do 

 not understand what there is gained 

 by a large brood nest in producing 

 extracted honey. I certainly would 

 give a colony sufficient surplus room 

 so that a place could be found for 

 all honey. Having done this I see 

 no advantage in a large brood cham- 

 ber. Large hives may be cheaper to use 

 than small ones, but this is a very small 

 point. There must be some stronger 

 reason than this for using large brood 

 chambers. What is it ? Some have ad- 

 vanced the idea that a populous colony 

 will store more in proportion to its num- 

 bers than one of ordinary strength. In 

 all of my years of bee-keeping I have never 

 seen anything indicating this. Others 

 favor very strong colonies because they 

 they think that they will winter bet- 

 ter. This has not been my experience. 

 Give me a colony of just ordinary popu- 

 lation. Remember, I am not saying that 

 there are no material advantages in large 

 brood nests and populous colonies under 

 certain managements and in certain lo- 

 calities. It seems as though this must be 

 true, or good men like Mr. Dadant would 

 not believe as they do. I may say, fur- 

 ther, that I have no personal interest in 

 this matter. It makes no difference to 

 me which is best, but if one is better than 

 the other I wish to know it and know the 

 reason n'hy. Mr. Dadant speaks in one 

 place of a hive that has such a capacity 

 that "it will acconmiodate the most pro- 

 lific queen." This is a point that my 

 Illinois friend has often brought up. He 

 does not wish his queens cramped for 

 room. Why.' What do we care whether 

 (jueens are cramped for room or not, if 

 cramping some of them gives us better 

 results ? We are not keeping bees simply 

 to give the queens room to lay. Others 

 besides my friend Dadant often speak of 

 the queen being cramped for room to lay, 



