108 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



. think you can get more section honey 

 off an eig'ht-frame hive than off a 

 ten-frame ? 



Mr. Taylor: If your colony is just 

 as good, you can. Tour colony is just 

 as good if your stores are as good. 

 If you have a queen that can All a ten- 

 frame hee-hive — if you come to count 

 up the number of bees that are pro- 

 duced in an eight-frame hive, you can 

 see your queen doesn't fill it. 



Dr. Bohrer: I have had them fill an 

 eighteen-frame hive. 



Mr. Taylor: You get a queen that 

 will fill five Langstroth hives full of 

 bees, and if the strain is good for any- 

 thing, you have a good, strong colony 

 all summer. I don't want a great 

 overgrown colony of bees. I always 

 have trouble with swarms if they are 

 overly large. "When you hive them in 

 a hive where they are uncomfortable 

 and uneasy, they don't work as well 

 as a moderate colony of a good strain. 



Mr. Moore: So far, I have gathered 

 from this discussion that when I am a 

 beginner, when I am green at the 

 business, I shall start with a Langs- 

 troth ten-frame hive; tout the in- 

 ference so far is, that when I get ex- 

 pert in the business, I will have to 

 take a "Danzenbaker" or something 

 else. I don't think you ought to say 

 what is good for a beginner, but for 

 a bee-expert, or what is good for a 

 man who is going to play at it, as I 

 would not say what is good for a be- 

 ginner, as a man who begins ought to 

 begin the way he is going to stick to 

 ^ it. I go up against the great man 

 from Michigan with fear and trem- 

 bling, but I am diametrically opposed 

 to Mr. Taylor's views on this ten- 

 frame question. You must think of 

 this, there are very few Taylors in the 

 bee-business. Mr. Taylor is like Mr.- 

 Heddon — he would make a success of 

 anything he undertook to do. He puts' 

 his whole energy and enthusiasm into 

 it. But you take the average bee- 

 keepers up here in the North, we are 

 going to succeed with a ten-frame 

 hive where we will fail with an eight. 

 It means that the bees are going to 

 have one-fourth more strength, one- 

 fourth more honey, which is important 

 where we have long, tiresome springs 

 with no honey for the bees; or six or 

 seven months of winter when bees 

 gather nothing and still consume. I 

 stick to it that for nearly everybody, 

 except these very expert people who 

 put their whole time and soul into the 



bee-business — it doesn't matter wheth- 

 er they have a four-frame or a four- 

 teen -frame hive — ^but for the ordinary- 

 people that keep bees, the ten-frame 

 Langstroth hive is the thing. The bees 

 will do better for themselves, with less 

 brains on the part of the bee-keeper, 

 than with any other hive, in the 

 North. 



Mr. Taylor: Mr. Moore says with a 

 ten -frame hive the colony will be one- 

 fourth stronger. Well, now, if they are 

 one-fourth stronger, they will use the 

 same proportion of the comb for brood, 

 and how will you get any greater pro- 

 portion of honey in that- hive for the 

 wintering of the bees than you will in 

 an eight-frame hive? 



Mr. Moore: I don't know that I un- 

 derstand the question clearly. 



Mr. Taylor: According to your ar- 

 gument, you will have the same pro- 

 portion of comb occupied by brood in 

 a ten-frame hive as in an eight-frame 

 hive, and your colony is that much 

 stronger. Of course, there is just the 

 same proportion of room left in the 

 ten-frame hive as in the eight-frame 

 hive for stores. The bees are as liable 

 to starve to death as they are in the 

 eight-frame hive — must be something 

 wrong with the argument. 



Mr. Moore: I have had eight or ten 

 years' experience with the ten-frame 

 (hive, and I have observed the success 

 of my neighbors with their bees. I 

 have noticed this: I have imported 

 foreign blood frequently, have bought 

 quite a number of queens, and have 

 kept an average of young queens in 

 my hives; and my ten-frame hives 

 were bang-up full of bees — they could 

 fill three ten-frame hives if you were 

 running for extracted honey. I don't 

 believe it is possible to get any such 

 results from an eight-frame hive to 

 start with in the spring, with our 

 Northern climate, with the long, cold 

 springs. 



Mr. Taylor: I just want to make 

 the remark that you will notice I have 

 not said anything against the ten-frame 

 hive. I am simply speaking to the ar- 

 gument that has 'been made in favor 

 of it. 



Dr. Miller: There is one phase of 

 the question I -was, thinking of when 

 Mr. Moore was saying that a man 

 ought to be advised to take the hive 

 he is going to continue to use, but 

 there is one phase of the question 

 that makes it possible to vary from it. 



