i68 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



I see now why yourself, Doolittle, Hed- 

 don, Taylor, and others say that eight 

 frames of brood is all that a good queen 

 can fill before the main flow of honey. 

 No matter how prolific a queen is, or how 

 many eggs she may lay, no more brood 

 can be raised than the bees can take care 

 of; so, when yovi begin in the spring with 

 a small colony, but little brood can be 

 raised. During the first three, or even 

 four, weeks the population of the colony 

 will decrease all of the time. After that, 

 the brood begins to emerge, and the in- 

 crease takes place; slowly at first, then 

 faster and faster. 



With the increase of population comes, 

 also, an increase of brood; but, of course, 

 this is a very gradual process; and the 

 honey-flow arrives when only eight frames 

 are full of brood. Then you put on the 

 supers and limit your brood-nest to those 

 eight frames, or whatever number may 

 happen to be full, and gather the flow as 

 surplus. 



I have to take back what I said about 

 "useless consumers," and apologize. If 

 the extra bees raised at the expense of 

 that much surplus, are to die during the 

 following winter without giving any re- 

 turn, they are, undoubtedly, useless con- 

 sumers. Of course, where the flow is of 

 long duration, or where there is a heavy 

 fall-flow the case would be different. 



If you could begin in the spring with 

 colonies 50 per cent, larger, 50 per cent, 

 more brood could be taken care of, and 

 would be raised. Then, when the honey 

 flow comes you will have 12 frames of 

 brood instead of eiglit, and a population 

 50 per cent, larger. A 50 per cent, larger 

 population means 50 per cent, more sur- 

 plus, and 50 per cent, more honey in the 

 brood-nest. This last, used to support the 

 stronger population. 



Right here you say that it is the bees 

 that you want, no matter if it takes 80 or 

 100 queens to get them. If I unde.-stand 

 you right, it means that the number of 

 bees being the same in both cases, it 

 would make no difi"erence whether these 

 bees are in 100 hives of 8 frames each, or 



in 80 hives of 10 irames each. I am sat- 

 isfied that where the honey flow is short, 

 and the weather warm enough, the dif- 

 ference between the two lots of surplus, 

 would be very little if any. 



If you choose the 100 eight frame 

 hives rather that the others, it is because 

 you can winter them successfully every 

 time, while you are not sure that you 

 could get the same result with the strong- 

 er ones. 



I am satisfied, therefore, that if you 

 could winter the 10 or 12-frame hives 

 better than the S-frames, you would 

 have taken them in preference. I use 

 these terms in reference to strength of 

 colonies, and might have .said: If the 

 strong colonies would winter better than 

 the small ones 3'ou would adopt them in- 

 stead. 



My "locality" is so diff^erent from yours 

 that my own experience and my manage- 

 ment can not enter into consideration; 

 bvit others, situated in localities similar 

 to yours, use large hives and winter large 

 colonies. I might name the Dadants, 

 Axtells, Hambaugh and many others. 

 Whether they winter their large colonies 

 as successfully as you, Doolittle, Heddon, 

 and others winter small colonies, I don't 

 know. I would like to hear from them. 

 I would like to hear also about their 

 methods of wintering and have a full 

 comparison made. 



I am under the impression that the 

 large colonies require a different winter 

 management. I have no doubt that 

 reall}- strong colonies, sufficiently packed, 

 could be wintered successfully out of 

 doors, any w'here this side of the Klondike; 

 but I am equally satisfied that small col- 

 onies would die out, no matter how pro- 

 tected, if the cold weather is of long dur- 

 ation. I think the cellar is necessar}' 

 for the small colonies. 



In reference to cellar wintering, the 

 right temperature is the point to ascer- 

 tain. The imiversal verdict is that 40° is 

 the right temperature to keep the bees 

 quiet; high enough to avoid u.seless con- 

 sumption of honey in order to maintain 



