•6o 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



in thebrcxxi combs is not lost. We can 

 extract it if we wnsh, but that isn't the 

 point; we are working for comb honey, 

 and we wish all honey not needed for 

 winter stores to go into the sections. 



Mr. Dadant calls attention to mj- hav- 

 ing said that for the production of ex- 

 tracted honey the size of the hive mat- 

 tered little, pro\-ided it is large enough. 

 He says that this is \-irtuall3- acknowledg- 

 ing that a large hive is needed for ex- 

 tracted honey. I fear Mr. Dadant does 

 not get my true meaning. I would not 

 crowd the bees for room to store honey. 

 whether I was producing comb or extract- 

 ed. In producing comb honey I would 

 have a small, or a medium sized, brood 

 nest, for the reasons that I have given, 

 but I would give an abundance of room 

 in the surplus apartment. In producing 

 extracted hone}-, as my friend Dadant 

 produces it, the line between brood nest 

 and surplus apartment is not very sharply 

 drawn; there maybe honey in the brood 

 nest, and brood in the surplus apart- 

 ment, yet it is possible to separate the 

 two — this can not be done in comb 

 honey production. I am not in favor 

 of exceedingly small hives, for either comb 

 or extracted honey, if b}- '"hive" is meant 

 both brood nest and supers. In produc- 

 ing comb honey I would have the brood 

 nest of such a capacity- that an ordinarily 

 prolific queen would have it full of brood 

 at the opening of the hardest; then I 

 would give all of the room needed in the 

 supers. I am not sure but I should pur- 

 sue the same course in producing extract- 

 ed honey — but that is another storj-. I 

 know that a man can succeed in produc- 

 ing extracted honey with a large brood 

 nest, for the reasons I have just given, 

 and I know that he can not meet the 

 highest success with a large brood nest 

 in producing comb honey, and for the 

 reasons I have given. 



These two articles of Mr. Dadant have 

 given me more insight into his methods, 

 and into the reasons for his belief in the 

 superiority of large hives, than has any- 

 thing else he has ever written. This 



shows the benefits of these arguments. 

 \\'hen a man is hard pushed he will 

 bring forth arguments and reasons that 

 otherwise he would never have mention- 

 ed. Perhaps he does not think them worth 

 mentioning. Perhaps he thinks every- 

 body else is aware of them. For in- 

 stance, Mr. Dadant tells why he places 

 such a high value on queens. He always 

 has queenless colonies and empty combs 

 in the spring: and, for that reason, he 

 wishes to get as much work as possible 

 out of each queen. That throws a flood 

 of light on the question. Mr. Dadant 

 uses a large hive and gets all of the work 

 possible out of each queen. He "horse- 

 whips" them, as Mr. Heddon once ex- 

 pressed it. The high pressure imder 

 which these queens work exhausts them 

 sooner than would be the case under or- 

 dinary circumstances. Notice the ex- 

 periment of Mr. Doolittle in which the 

 queen that did such enormous lapng in 

 that long-idea, extracting hive, died of 

 old age that same fall, although less than 

 a j-ear old when the experiment began. 

 Poultry- men have figured out that a hen 

 will lay about so man\' eggs in her life 

 time. In ordinary.- circumstances she will 

 lay so many the first year, so many the 

 second, so man^- the third, and so on. I 

 believe that she lays the most eggs per 

 year during the first, second, and possibly 

 the third, years of her existence. For 

 this reason thev crowd and stimulate her 

 in ever}- way possible for the first two 

 years, get the most out of her, and then 

 replace her with a vounger fowl. It is 

 quite hkely that the queen bee resembles 

 the fowl in this respect. She can be 

 pushed, "horsewhipped," if you like, and 

 made to lay enormous quanities of eggs 

 for the first two years of her life; then 

 she is ^^7/^'/and, as a result, Bro. Dadant's 

 hive is left queenless. When queens are 

 worked in this way. and but little swarm- 

 ing aUowed. I can easily see why it is 

 so hard to con\-ince m}- Illinois Bro. that 

 queens don't cost anything. I am willing 

 to admit that plenty of good queens in 

 the spring are excellent things to have, 



