THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



59* 



brood the younj^ bees emerge "solid," 

 and so she keeps on following the brood 

 as it emerges, in regnlar order. Bnt if I 

 read the eilitor aright he wants to know 

 if ([ueens reared by the plan given in 

 "Scientific Qneen-rearing" do not need 

 more room for egg-laying than those 

 formerly reared by old plans. In answer 

 to this i will say that, as the older read- 

 ers of our bee-iiteratnre will remember, 

 up to the eighties, and for years, I used 

 only six and seven Gallup frames to the 

 hive, and a number of articles can be 

 found in the American Bee Journal head- 

 ed "Those Six-frame Hives," in which 

 I showed how I succeeded in producing 

 tons of comb honey by the use of from 

 six to seven frames for brood. And even 

 to-day, where I find a queen that does 

 not fully occupy more than six Gallup 

 frames at the beginning of the honey har- 

 vest, that colony has the other three 

 combs taken away from it, as years of ex- 

 perience has taught me that a lot of emp- 

 ty comb in the brood nest, at the begin- 

 ning of the honey harvest, is the great- 

 est drawback toward a successful result 

 in comb honey of any thing I have to 

 contend with. But I am prepared to say 

 that the number of colonies shut on six 

 and seven brood combs at the beginning 

 of the honey harvest is not nearly so 

 great as it was before I practiced the plan 

 of rearing queens as given in "Scientific 

 Queen-rearing." 



[While Doolittle does not say so in so 

 many words f owing, no doubt, to his 

 modesty i I infer that queens reared by 

 his method require larger brooding-space 

 than queens reared b}- the old ways — at 

 all events, that has been our experience. 

 .\ honey flow, feeding, or large cells, 

 seem to be important requisites. — Ed.] 



There is one very pleasant thing about 

 this discussion, and that is that all who 

 have taken a part in it, are gentlemen. 

 They are fair, honorable and polite. To 

 me it is a great comfort to argue with such 

 men, knowing that the closing of the 

 discu.ssion will find us still wami friends. 



The first point that I wish to notice is 

 where Mr. Dadant says that he has notic- 

 ed that the supporters of small hives agree 

 that a large hive may be good for ex- 

 tracted honey but not suitable for the 

 production of comb honey, but they have 

 not explained the reason why. He ad- 

 mits, however, that Mr. Doolittle has at- 

 tempted to give a reason, in that a large 



l)rood nest encourages the bees to store 

 their surplus in that apartment to the 

 neglect of the supers. That there comes 

 an "accustoment" to the brood chamber 

 to the neglect of the supers and that the 

 queen is thus crowded for room. To me 

 this would be reason enough for wishing a 

 small brood-nest in working for comb 

 honey. Let the reason be what it may, 

 once the bees get the start of the 

 queen, so to speak, get more honey into 

 the brood nest than there is brood, yes, 

 one-half as much honey as there is brood, 

 and that colony is useless as a comb hon- 

 ey producer. There is no use in extrac- 

 ting the honey, as the bees will fill the 

 cells again the first thing they do. It 

 seems to be the habit that the colony has 

 gotten into, more than anything else. I 

 have heard farmers tell about some of 

 their animals becoming "hide-bound," 

 whatever that may mean, and when the 

 brood nest of a colony becomes "honey- 

 bound," it is the same as a "hide-bound" 

 animal — no good. One reason why I 

 place so much value upon a super of 

 drawn combs at the opening of the sea- 

 son is that the bees are thereby induced 

 to begin storing their first surplus in the 

 supers instead of the brood-nest. Mr. 

 Dadant speaks of removing from the 

 brood nest, at the opening of the harvest, 

 all combs not filled with brood. That is 

 all right in itself, but I prefer to avoid 

 such fussing, and have those combs in 

 some other hive a.n(\.Ji/h'ii with brood. 



There is, however, still another reason 

 why a large hive, or brood nest, might be 

 tolerated in producing extracted honey; 

 at least, we might be successful in using 

 such a brood nest when working for ex- 

 tracted honey, but would not likely meet 

 with the highest success in comb honey 

 production. It is this: Suppose the brood 

 nest is too large, so large that large quan- 

 tities of honey are stored in it, we can 

 get it out; it can be extracted; but when 

 the honey that we wish in the sections 

 is stored in the brood nest how are we 

 going to get it into the sections? We 

 can't doit. Of course, this honey stored 



