334 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



breeding- season of spring; and not during 

 the latter part of summer, or early fall, 

 when the bees to be wintered are pro- 

 duced. The little gained during the spring 

 breeding, would not be enough to cause 

 me to use a 10-frame hive, on this ac- 

 count. The two prime reasons with me 

 for using the 10-frame hives in prefer- 

 ence to the 8-frame is, first, they will 

 bear more neglect, so to speak; or, in 

 other words, they have two, extra combs, 

 usually of honey; so we have less feeding 

 to do in the fall, and less watching during 

 spring; the fact is, we rarely ever have to 

 look our bees over in spring, on account 

 of lack of stores. 



The second advantage the 10-frame 

 hive has over the eight, is more surface- 

 room on top, so we do not have to tier 

 our upper stories so high, with our system 

 of leaving the whole crop of honey on the 

 hive, to the end of the season, before ex- 

 tracting. 



One other point usually overlooked, is 

 that bees handled during the bad weather 

 of spring are liable to ball their queen and 

 kill her; this happens so often, that I al- 

 most dread to open a hive during the early 

 spring breeding season; this is more likely 

 to happen during early spring, or very bad 

 weather, when breeding is at the minimum. 



I cannot help thinking that a part, at 

 least, of the queens you found m.issing 

 each time you looked your bees over last 

 spring, was caused by this same handling. 

 Let me print it in red; feed enough in the 

 fall to last until the surplus season opens 

 in June, then let your bees alone as much 

 as possible during spring. 



Remus, Mich., Oct. IP, 1907. 



[Only the man who writes much, knows 

 how difficult it is to so write that it is 

 impossible to be misunderstood. 1 did not 

 mean to intimate that Mr. Townsend with 

 his system of management would be any 

 more handicapped than any one in de- 

 termining whether or not his location was 

 overstocked. Overstocking is one of those 

 elusive problems so difficult to solve. If 

 we think our location fully stocked, or 

 overstocked, and, for this reason, allov/ 



a dozen or so colonies to run down and 

 come to naught for lack of good queens, 

 then we lose what those colonies might 

 have gathered, provided, the locality isn't 

 overstocked — just we tliink it is. 



I must admit, however, that I think 

 Messrs. Taylor and Townsend have made 

 their point, viz., that it is more profitable 

 to keep enough more bees so that there 

 will be what we f/j/'/iA- a sufficient number, 

 even if ten or fifteen per cent, turn up 

 queenless in the spring, than it is to rear 

 and introduce extra queens each season. 



Mr. Townsend has also misunderstood 

 me regarding the weak colonies that I had 

 here at Flint last spring. They were not 

 weak in numbers the previous autumn. 

 When the honey was extracted late in 

 July, nearly every colony had on at least 

 one upper story, most of them had on two, 

 and a few had on tliree. Perhaps a dozen 

 of the queens were of uncertain age; 

 about 60 had seen two years of service, 

 and the rest were of the previous season's 

 rearing. All were good, populous colonies 

 when put into the cellar, but a large pro- 

 portion of them were weak in numbers in 

 the spring. No, 1 was not deceived by 

 changing from eight to ten-frame hives; 

 in fact, one-third of the colonies were in 

 eight-frame hives, and this weakness in 

 numbers was not confined to either class 

 of hives. I agree with Mr. Townsend 

 that with any system of management 

 there will almost always be some weak 

 colonies in the spring, but it was the un- 

 usual proportion last spring that led me 

 to the conclusion that lack of fall breeding 

 ' was the cause. The colonies were not 

 weakened from disease. What bees were 

 left were just as clean, dry and healthy 

 as it is possible for bees to come through 

 the winter — they were simply lacking in 

 numbers. 



By the way, 1 had a good illustration of 

 the difference between colonies weakened 

 by disease, and those that were healthy 

 but simply weak in numbers. In yeurs 

 past I have had colonies weakened by 

 disease, and such colonies might just as 

 well h?. dead. But these weak colonies 



