THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



41 



SENDING PAPEKS AFTEB THE SUBSOBIPTION HAS 

 EXPIKED. 



Without knowing it. we sometimes touch 

 a chord in the public heart, and set it all a- 

 quiver with sympathy. This was the case in 

 the December number, with the editorial 

 under the above heading. Letter followed 

 letter in approval of this course. ( )ne man 

 wrote: "What would we think of the mer- 

 chant that would send twice the amount of 

 goods ordered?" Another bee-keeper had 

 received the December number as a sample 

 copy, and was undecided whether to sub- 

 scribe or not until his wife called his atten- 

 tion to the fact that the Review would stop 

 coming when the time was up, when, to use 

 his own expression, " That fetched him." He 

 said, farther, that he had threatened to make 

 a solemn vow, that he would subscribe for no 

 paper that made a practice of sending papers 

 after the time is up. There is something 

 about human nature that resents having even 

 a good thing /orcet7 upon it. We notice with 

 pleasure that the Advance will no longer 

 send out papers after the subscription has 

 expired. In our opinion, this is the only 

 correct, and business-like — yes, the only 

 7'lght way of doing. 



CONTKAOTION OF THE BKOOD-NEST. 



The brood-nest is contracted to prevent 

 the production of brood at a time when the 

 resulting bees would come upon the stage of 

 action at a time when there would be no 

 honey to gather — when they would be consu- 

 mers instead of producers. It is also con- 

 tracted to compel the bees to store the honey 

 in the sections instead of in the brood-nest. 

 There are several reasons why this is desira- 

 ble. The honey from clover and basswood 

 is white, fine-flavored, and brings a higher 

 price than that gathered later : hence it is 

 more profitable to force this higher priced 

 honey into the sections, and allow the bees 

 to fill brood combs, later on, with winter 

 stores from such sources as yield honey 

 that brings a lower price. When it is desira- 

 ble, either because of its cheapness, or of its 

 superiority, to use sugar for winter stores, 

 contraction of the brood-nest can be so man- 

 aged as to leave the bees almost destitute of 

 winter stores, which does away with the 

 trouble of extracting, and leaves nothing to 

 be done except to feed the beeg. Such, in 

 brief, are the advantages of contracting the 



brood-nest, Where the honey flow lasts 

 nearly the whole season, with no long peri- 

 ods of scarcity, and the quality of the honey 

 is uniform throughout the season, and no ad- 

 vantage is found in substituting sugar for 

 honey as winter stores, we see little need of 

 contracting the brood-nest ; and would ad- 

 vise that it be of such size that an ordinarily 

 prolific queen can keep the combs well filled 

 with brood. But where any of the first men- 

 tioned conditions exist, the bee-keeper who 

 neglects "contraction" is not employing all 

 the advantages that are available. It has 

 been urged, against this practice, that it re- 

 sults in small colonies at the end of the sea- 

 son; and that the bees may become popu- 

 lous in time for a fall flow, or for winter, 

 some who contract the brood-nest during 

 the white honey harvest enlarge it again in 

 time to have plenty of workers when they 

 are needed. When bees are wintered in a re- 

 pository of the proper temperature, we have 

 never found that unusually populous colo- 

 nies were any more desirable than smaller 

 ones. This is one advantage of cellar-win- 

 tering, the population may be reduced to the 

 minimum during the consumptive, non pro- 

 ductive, part of the year. In contracting the 

 brood-nest, more advantages are gained 

 if it is contracted vc rtically. All dummies, 

 loose pieces, and complication is avoided; 

 and, what is of greater importance, no part 

 of the super extends out over dummies, but 

 there is brood under all the sections. We 

 have, for several years, practiced contrac- 

 tion of the brood-nest, and have read nearly 

 all, if not all, that has been published upon 

 the subject, and, in the foregoing, have 

 tried to treat it fairly : nevertheless, we re- 

 quest all who have had experience in this 

 line to favor us with an account of it, and 

 we will devote the April Review to a discus- 

 sion of "Contraction of the Brood-Nest." 



A VEET KIND NOTICE — " THE DOVETAILED 

 HIVE." 



The last number of G/t'a)n'»(/,s has an ex- 

 cellent picture of the Review editor, accom- 

 panied by some very kind words. We thank 

 Bro. Root most heartily for this courtesy. 

 Naturally, this little sketch was very interest- 

 ing reading to us, but not more so than the 

 description of a new hive that Bro. Root de- 

 scribes and recommends, and has begun to 

 manufacture. It is not quite our ideal, but, 

 with the exception of a few points that can 



