THE BEE-KE'EPERS' REVIEW. 



131 



honey plants does not allow of the raising of 

 bees to gather the honey from them after the 

 yield in any other latitude has been secured. 

 If then, only old bees and sealed brood can be 

 transpoi-ted to the coveted fields, the ship- 

 ment must be very well and accurately man- 

 aged, else, just as llie llow comes on, only a 

 few old bees, with a hive more or less lilled 

 with immature brood, are left to gather the 

 harvest. 



Many bee-keepers will, of course, flatter 

 themselves that the absence of water, or too 

 much heat, or whatever destroys the brood, 

 may be overcome. Well, suppose they can, 

 another factor comes to the front. Can 

 honey be produced by such expensive meth- 

 ods and sold so as to leave a fair margin? 

 The uncertainty of })loom, the precarious- 

 ness of the weather, the close margins, all 

 tend to show that.with minor details omitted, 

 the migratory management of bees for hon- 

 ey alone offers little reasonable reward. 



Abkonia, Mich., Aug. 2, 1889. 



A Criticism of the Latest Bee Books — How 

 Many Frames Shall be ,TJsed in a Hive. 



II. SAWYEK. 



5 HERE is scarcely a day that I don't 

 wish for information upon some point 

 that I can't get in " Root's ABC of 

 Bee Culture," written with the express 

 purpose of i)ersuading me to buy something, 

 and very careful not to give information 

 that would enable me to help myself. Then 

 there is Heddon's "Success." Perhaps it is 

 a success for him, but it isn't for me. Al- 

 ley's "Handy Book" is a story half told. 

 Then there is your book, and Foster's and 

 Miller's, and Simmin's, and now last, but 

 by far the best, Dadant's. None of them 

 have enabled me to decide the following : 

 Suppose at the first appearance of clover 

 blossoms, some ten days before the general 

 crop ; I have 1,(KX) combs well covered with 

 bees, and tilled with brood, and I am possess- 

 ed of plenty of gootl iiueens, and wish to 

 I'aise comb honey, shall I put four combs 

 into one hive, or shall 1 give twelve to one 

 queen, or is the proper number somewhere 

 between these extremes, and, if so, where V 

 If I am to raise extracted honey, what is the 

 number of combs to use in the brood nest ? 

 This year my smallest colonies have given 

 me the best satisfaction in raising comb 

 honey. 

 Burlington, Iowa, July 11, 1889. 



Friend Sawyer, no one, perhaps, has criti- 

 cised Brother Root more vigorously than we 

 have done, but, in this particular instance, 

 we are going pick up hammer and tongs in 

 his defense. While we do not agree with all 

 of the teachings contained in the A B C of 

 Bee Culture, we regard it as one of the most 

 consistent books ever written. Instead of be- 

 wildering the beginner with a thousand and 

 one descriptions of different hives, " traps 

 and calamities," its author sticks to one 



hive, one system, and one everything else 

 down through to the last chapter. And, 

 while they may not be the best, they hang 

 together ; each i)art fits the other ; and if 

 Mr. Root can furnish these things cheaper 

 than the reader can make them, said reader 

 ought to be thankful. We think many of 

 the accusations of " axe grinding " are un- 

 just. A man doesn't always think an arti- 

 cle is best because he adopted it ; rather 

 he adopted it because he thought it best. 

 We don't wish to be understood as saying 

 that the ABC mentions only one hive or sys- 

 tem, but that the reader who follows the in- 

 structions given will never find himself in a 

 muddle by having adopted the parts of two 

 opposing systems. The same can be said of 

 Mr. Heddon's book, and ive have found the 

 methods therein described a most decided 

 success. We are glad to see our friend 

 speak a good word for Dadant's book, but 

 we notice that its teachings (large brood 

 nests) are somewliat at variance with his ex- 

 perience for the present year. 



Friend S., if you have read all the books 

 you mentioned, and the Review for the pre- 

 sent year without being able to decide upon 

 the proper size for the brood nest, we doubt 

 if we can help you. We will give, however, 

 a recapitulation of our views on the subject. 

 The brood nest ought to be of such size that 

 an ordinarily prolific queen can fill it with 

 brood in the spring of the year. At the be- 

 ginning of the main harvest, the brood nest 

 ought to be full of brood, then the honey 

 must be carried into the supers. If the 

 queen be given too many combs, even 

 though they be " full of brood and covered 

 with bees " at the beginning of the honey 

 harvest, she cannot keep them full of brood; 

 and, as the bees liatch out, the cells will be 

 filled with honey that would otherwise have 

 gone into the sections ; and the result is that 

 fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five pounds of 

 choice honey is stored where its value is de- 

 preciated one-half. Combs of honey hang- 

 ing undisturbed at the side of the brood 

 nest from one year's end to t4ie other, are so 

 much dead capital. They are pretty expen- 

 sive "dummies." In raising extracted 

 honey, the size of the brood nest is not of so 

 great importance, as we can get the honey 

 out of it ; but how much more convenient 

 to have the brood in one compartment and 

 the surplus in another. Only recently, in a 

 plea for large brood nests, we came across 

 the following : " If I had a queen that 



