56 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



whom we can can well be proud, all over 

 Europe and America, northern and south- 

 ern. 



There are several points in the fore- 

 going that I wish to notice, but before 

 doing so I will give some more of Mr. 

 Dadanfs views as they appear in the 

 following copied from Gleanings. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I wish to mention 

 the most weighty objection to large hives; 

 and that is Doolittle's remark that, if too 

 much room is given, or the queen does 

 not fill all the breeding space, the bees 

 will become accustomed to putting hon- 

 ey into the brood chamber and will crowd 

 her out. 



Please take notice that this is only a 

 comb-honey objection. Those who sup- 

 port small hives seem now to hold that 

 thev are needed for comb honey only, 

 and Hutchinson has lately said (and I 

 take note of it i, that "for extracted hon- 

 ey the size of hive matters little provided 

 it is lars:c enough" (italics mine). This 

 is virtually acknowledging that the large 

 hive is absolutel}' necessary to raise ex- 

 tracted honey. Now when you rear 

 comb honey, according to those who do 

 not agree with me as to size of hives, it is 

 necessary to keep the queen on only the 

 number of combs that she can well fill 

 with brood, in order to get a good storing 

 in the supers. Very well; we are agreed, 

 and I hold that this can be done with the 

 large hive best, since it will accommodate 

 from the most prolific to the poorest 

 breeder. All it requires is a little atten- 

 tion, and you have the advantage of know- 

 ing the capacity of your queens and the 

 chance of breeding from the most prolific. 

 Is this too much trouble ? It is a little 

 more labor, and requires a little more 

 judgement: but when you once have a 

 po]ndous colony it will be nuich easier to 

 keep it .strong in a large hive than in a 

 sniiill one, as I have shown you when 

 speaking of wintering and breeding. 



In some of your remarks in a previous 

 article you ask whether it is not a great 

 deal of trouble to and one comb at a time 

 to the space of a colony. It is not ab.so- 

 lutely indispen.sable to add only one at a 

 time, and you may add two or three ac- 

 cording to your opinion of the probable 

 prolificness of the queen. One or two ex- 

 aminations during the spring ought to 

 be sufhcient. 



Hutchinson has .said, and still repeats, 

 that queens are the least expensive part 

 of a colony, and that it is better to keep 

 all the hives and combs fully occupied 

 than to use the queens to their greatest 



capacity. To us, in early spring, the 

 number of queens on hand is the most 

 important question; for we then nearly 

 always have empty combs and cpieenless 

 colonies; and I dare say that every bee- 

 keeper has more hives and sets of combs 

 on hand in spring than he has queens, 

 and he is very well satisfied, and consid- 

 ers himself very .successful if every hive 

 is alive and every hive has a queen after 

 winter. So it is the queens, the queens, 

 that have the value to the apiarist after 

 winter, and it is what the queens are likely 

 to do that makes his prospect better or 

 worse. That is why we want our queens, 

 all of them, to do all they can for a large 

 production of population, and we are 

 quite willing to run the risk of having to 

 remove a few combs from the brood-cham- 

 ber, if comb honey is wanted, when the 

 queen is not able to fill all, especially as 

 those combs, at that time, need not be 

 idle long, for they are needed for what- 

 ever increase is wanted or expected. 



By giving (?// our queens all the room 

 they need, we achieve what we con.sider 

 the most desirable aim — get the greatest 

 possible number of bees from the number 

 of colonies we have, in time for the har- 

 vest. 



.\nd, by the way, I have re-read my 

 last article on the disadvantage in cost, 

 and I find that I make the ca.se altogether 

 too strong against the large hive. I have 

 figured it at twice the cost of a small one; 

 but I want you, Mr. Editor, or your busi- 

 ness manager, friend Calvert, to tell us 

 just how nuich difference there would be 

 in the cost between a hive containing ii 

 combs instead of 8, with one (Unnmy, 

 and made like yours, but with frames just 

 deep enough to suit a hive made of 12- 

 inch lumber. If I am not mistaken the 

 Dovetailed, Simplicity, etc., are all regu- 

 lar-depth Langstroth hives, and are made 

 of To-inch lumber. Ju.st figure them 

 made of r 2-inch lumber and just as deep 

 as could be conveniently made out of this. 

 Thev would be very near the size of ours, 

 which are made 12 '4. and it .seems to me, 

 at a rough guess, that, with the dummy 

 and all the enlarged supers, they would 

 not cost to exceed 25 to 40 cents each in 

 excess of your small hive. The interest 

 on the money, and the sinking fund to 

 pay thetn up in ;^o years, would not make 

 the additional annual cost to exceed the 

 value of a pound of honey per year. What 

 nuikes the hive expensive, as we build 

 them, is the telescoping caj), the double 

 back, the projecting bottom-board, etc. 

 — a thousand and one little nothings 

 which we use just because we are accus- 

 tomed to them. 



