ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



109 



If you (were to say to me, which is 

 better for a beginner, an eight-frame 

 or a ten-frame hive? and give me 

 nothing but that question, not allowed 

 to put any conditions at all, I would 

 say, without any question, the ten- 

 frame hive, on this ground, that the 

 average beginner is not going to be 

 a very careful bee-keeper; he is not 

 going to give the very closest atten- 

 tion to ihls bees, and if he is not, the 

 ten-frame hive is decidedly safer for 

 him than the eight-frame hive. You 

 will see there is some reason for giv- 

 ing the advice to the beginner to begin 

 with the ten-frame hive. I have had 

 experience with the ten-frame hive 

 and with the eight-frame hive. I am 

 now using eight-frame hives, and if I 

 were beginning again, it would be a 

 question with me whether to use eight 

 or ten-frame hives. One objection to 

 the ten-frame hive is that it is too 

 small. 'The eight-frame hive is prac- 

 tically larger, because you can take 

 two stories of the eight-frame hive, 

 w)henever a queen is filling more than 

 one story, whereas with a ten-frame 

 hive you would have too much room 

 to give the two stories. 



Mr. Wilcox: I was going to ask, 

 how long must a man continue with 

 a ten-frame hive as a beginner before 

 he can use an eight-frame hive? When 

 does he cease to be a beginner? If a 

 man intends to do large bee-keeping 

 and be a successful bee-keeper, he 

 should begin with the best hive that 

 he has any knowledge of, or the one 

 he believes to be the best; start with 

 it, and continue with it, until he finds 

 something better. 



Mr. Horstmann: I believe Mr. 

 Moore likes the ten-frame hives best 

 because they look better in his esti- 

 mation. A bee-keeper knows there is 

 no difference in the ihives. It does not 

 make any difference whether you use 

 an eight, a ten, or a twenty-seven 

 frame hive. I say it doesn't make a 

 bit of difference. I have used the 

 eight and ten side by side for several 

 years, and my eight-frame hives have 

 come out ahead. That may be due 

 to the eight-frame hive-bodies having 

 a better queen. I have one eight- 

 frame colony that I had on the scales, 

 that gave me 227 pounds of honey, and 

 my best ten-frame hive gave me 147 

 pounds. They 'had all the room they 

 wanted, both the eig'ht and ten. I 

 story them up four or five stories high. 

 In the spring I bring my bees out of 



the repository, and I claim, with good 

 protection, they can build up the col- 

 ony that much faster. My eight- 

 frame colonies will be as strong as the 

 ten in the spring. There will be no 

 reason for any difference. Why should 

 there be? The queen has had all the 

 room she wanted all summer; and 

 there is no reason why the dolony in 

 the eight-frame hive-body sbcfuld not 

 be as strong as the ten. ■ 



Dr. Bohrer: The impression seems 

 to be that I was advising the use of 

 shallow hives, the Danzenbaker and 

 other hives. I wish to remove that 

 impression; it is not a correct one. I 

 said I could not be induced to use 

 them to any extent. One of the first 

 shallow hives was invented by Dr. 

 Bingham, of Michigan. He sent me one 

 of those hives, and I used it one year, 

 and if I had not put those bees in the 

 cellar I would have lost them, because 

 , it was too shallow to winter in, and 

 I think you will find the same diffi- 

 culty in the Middle and Northern 

 States. In the South you can winter 

 your bees in shallow hives more easily 

 than you can in the North. The rea- 

 son I have recommended the Langs- 

 troth is because I regard it as safer 

 for one who does not understand the 

 business. One man may become an 

 expert in less time than another. One 

 man takes it up from the start. I had 

 eighteen hives sent to^ me from differ- 

 ent parts of the United States and 

 Canada to test. Among them was a 

 Quinby hive, and a Thomas' hive from 

 Guelph, Canada, all deep-frame hives. 

 I had a personal conversation with 

 Mr. Quinby with regard to the reasons 

 for making his hives two or three 

 inches longer than Mr. Langstroth's. 

 He said, "In New York, wtoere I live, 

 we have protracted cold weather, and 

 the bees go into winter quarters in 

 the lower part of the hive, and the 

 more you can have the stores above 

 them and to the rear of the hive, the 

 safer they are." Where a beginner 

 commences with a shallo^v hive, about 

 a five-inch frame, he is running a risk 

 that an expert would know how to 

 get over. A beginner would not think 

 about that. The expert would know 

 he would have to put another hive- 

 section up there or lose his bees. The 

 Standard Langstroth will give better 

 satisfaction almost over the civilized 

 world, but in the Western hemisphere, 

 at any rate, without any care from the 

 bee-keeper, and Mr. Quinby gave me as 



