252 



THE BES-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



might take advantage of some pro- 

 ducer who did not know. Knowing 

 the Review as absolutely a pro- 

 ducers' paper should give you con- 

 fidence in what is advised along 

 the line of financial or other advice. 



We copy the following from a 

 private letter from Vice President 

 Pellett: It seems to me that we 

 should begin to plan the place of 

 meeting for the next NATIONAL 

 as this should be settled several 

 months in advance." Just so Pres- 

 ident Pellett! The Review should 

 have this information very soon 

 now to do justice in advertising the 

 meeting as it should be. To start 

 something, The California State 

 Bee-keepers' Ass'n. also the man- 

 agement of the Exposition at 

 San Francisco have offered us a 

 special invitation to meet with them 

 next year. There are other invita- 

 tions to be considered. 



The methods used by ^Ir. Wilder 

 in getting his start in bee-keep- 

 ing contain some very valuable 

 points. He was looking for every 

 chance possible to save money on 

 the bees or material bought. He 

 bought up all the bees in old boxes 

 that he could find and you are not 

 expected to believe that he paid 

 very high prices for them. Then 

 by making his own hives another 

 quite large saving was made. ^Ir. 

 Wilder did not say — but his hives, 

 including bottoms, covers and 

 frames probably did not cost him 

 one dollar each. Foundation, supers 

 and other accessories would probab- 

 ly be extra. Mr. Wilder has wisely 

 kept within the limits of the pos- 

 sibilities of the industry in this. At 

 the present prices of supplies a 

 hive with one comb honey super 

 nailed up and painted will cost 

 the bee-keeper more than three 

 dollars each, if he counts his time, 

 as he should, and wires his frame 

 and uses full sheets of foundation. 

 If a bee-keeper buys his hives by 

 the hundred he will soon find him- 

 self pretty heavily involved unless 

 he gets very good honey crops and 

 sells them to the best advantage. 

 But :Mr. Wilder's plan is the safer 

 and shows an economical method 

 that will win in most instances. 

 These are the men who stay 

 the business year after year. 



AV. F 



Does the Size of the Hive Regulate the 

 Size of the Colony? 



During the last week of April we 

 purchased three yards of bees lo- 

 cated 25 miles north of Northstar. 

 'lliose bees are principally in 

 Langstroth frames and hives, a 

 few being in odd size hives and 

 frames. As usual this last mild 

 Winter, these bees wintered al- 

 most perfectly, outside in packing 

 cases. At this time we will speak 

 of the bees that are in the regu- 

 lar Langstroth frame. Some of 

 those hives contained seven frames, 

 a considerable number eight frames, 

 some contained twelve frames, 

 twenty-five or thirty contained 

 liives with sixteen frames, likely 

 fifteen or twenty hives contained 

 20 frames each. They were all 

 wintered single story, some of the 

 hives being nearly three feet long, 

 twide.) Having an opportunity to 

 watch results in the breeding up 

 of bees in Spring in the different 

 size hives on a somewhat extensive 

 scale, we are in a position to de- 

 termine quite accurate results. We 

 are positive after measuring results, 

 that with perfect wintering those 

 who use as small a hive as the 

 eight or ten frame Langstroth hive, 

 do not know what a strong swarm 

 of bees is, for, those bees seemed 

 to breed up into colonies compara- 

 tive to the size of the hive that 

 contained them. Even the twenty 

 frame hives contained twice as 

 much brood and bees as the ten 

 frame and the sixteen frame twice a 

 much as the eight frame hive. The 

 fact of the size of the hive deter- 

 mining the size of the colony pro- 

 duced, between the limit of from 

 seven to 21 frames, was shown up 

 so strikingly in those yards of 

 some over 2 00 colonies, that if we 

 could have had him with us, among 

 those bees we could have con- 

 vinced the man who invented pre- 

 judice that the eight frame hive 

 is not more than half large enough 

 to hold the brood of any normal 

 queen. 



in 



The Bee-keeping Outlook in the West 



The honey crop report of the 

 department of Agriculture relative 

 to the important western honey 

 producing states is very significant 

 for this season. I have taken the 

 twelve states of Texas, Montana, 



