THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



45 



same depth. Results from this hive are 

 about the same as with the standard 

 Langstroth. If a bee-keeper has them 

 there is no reason why he should discard 

 them for the standard. These hives are 

 well adapted to strong colonies and heavy 

 honey-flows. 1 tier them up three, four 

 or five stories high. Advantages : Large 

 capacity for honey storage: not given to 

 swarming. Disadvantages : A tendency 

 in case of weak swarms to build up 

 slowly. Taken altogether they have been 

 very satisfactory. 



2nd. Hives with frames 1 1 Yz inches by 

 16, capacity 10 frames; also Dadant 

 hives (about 2 inches longer). These 

 hives are especially adapted to the pro- 

 duction of extracted honey. The brood 

 nest is more natural in shape than the 

 former, with less waste space, which is 

 very noticeable on comparing well filled 

 frames of brood. This hive, for a large 

 one, allows colonies to build up quite 

 easily in the spring, maintaining a heavy 

 increase of bees throughout the summer, 

 and, in good years, easily leads the others 

 in extracted honey yield. Newly built 

 combs of honey must be handled care- 

 fully to avoid breakage, unless well-built 

 to frames on the ends, but older frames 

 are easily handled. They tier up three 

 or four stories with advantage and are 

 especially valuable when the flow is 

 heavy. 



3rd. Hives with frames 13^:^ by 10 

 inches. 10 frames. This is a small hive, 

 but is the best of any 1 have yet had any 

 experience with for rapid building up in 

 the spring. I tier them up usually to 

 three stories and sometimes four. They 

 have an economical brood nest, being 

 compact without much waste of space 

 anywhere. I can raise more young bees 

 in a given colony with this hive than in an 

 ordinary Langstroth. They are especi- 

 ally valuable in case of a somewhat slow 

 yield, and 1 have found them well 

 adapted, in an average year, to the secur- 

 ing of a good crop of honey. My colo- 

 nies in them always have done well, and 

 yet 1 prefer, for my own use, something 



somewhat larger, since, with the large 

 hives, I get somewhat more honey with 

 less swarming. 1 cannot recall a single 

 case of a person who has helped me 

 through two or three seasons, and then 

 bought bees, who has not taken the deep 

 hives. 



While 1 like a large, roomy hive for my 

 own use, as a producer of extracted honey, 

 and while 1 like the heavy frames of 

 honey when extracting-day comes, yet 

 it is not the object of this article to espe- 

 cially puff any especial kind of hive; 

 neither am 1 addressing the larger bee- 

 keeper who is "sot" on his own style of 

 hives, but I am rather addressing a more 

 numerous class of small bee-keepers 

 whose hives may not be standard, and 

 who are possibly being urged to discard 

 their hives and invest in the standard at 

 a cost equal to Yz the entire value of their 

 bees after they are rehived. 



In this line I remember, a few years 

 ago, of a bee-keeper visiting me, and using 

 his utmost endeavor to persuade me to 

 change my style of hives and get hives 

 like his. I then had something over 200 

 colonies, and he would undertake to 

 supply all the necessary hives for S400; 

 and yet. year after year, 1 was securing 

 better crops of honey than he was, and 

 also meeting with greater success in 

 wintering. 



Set it down in big letters, rea'd it over 

 and over again, it is the bee-keeper and 

 not the hive that wins success. The cost 

 is also very much more than the hives to 

 make a change; since, though you utilize 

 all the comb, and do your part perfectly. 

 it still greatly retards the bees, and yet, 

 there are certain hives which 1 have 

 always used to disadvantage. 1 have 

 had, from time to time, quite a number of 

 hives with frames about 12 inches square 

 or perhaps a trifle deeper than 12 inches. 

 They do not tier up well, and any hive 

 that tiers up poorly should be condemned. 

 They are too short and too deep for an 

 economical brood nest, hence do not build 

 up well in the spring. Colonies in them 

 are also heavyswarmers. 1 do well when 



