178 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



I want to say that any man who can- 

 not, with a Langstroth hive, where the 

 natural tendency to form a round 

 cluster, as it^were, in every direction, 

 is upward (and we are speaking of 

 the production of extracted honey) 

 get the bees to go into the super when 

 the drawn comb is there, that colony 

 has no use for the extra room and you 

 had better not give it to them. 



Next, when the brood is put in the 

 super you are putting your brood 

 combs into what is rightly the ex- 

 tracting super, and that which will 

 eventually be an extracting super, and 

 it is always bad practice (sometimes 

 we have to do it) to use brood combs 

 for extracting purposes, and therefore 

 that is a disadvantage in the manipu- 

 lation which has been spoken of. 



Again, in tiering up if you use the 

 super to put brood into then you have 

 to use so many supers in addition to 

 that, and where I use a twelve -frame 

 brood chamber and then luse upon that 

 two supers, the man who uses an 

 eight-frame hive in order to have the 

 same room has to tier those hives and 

 by the time he gets to the fifth or 

 sixth tier he finds great difficulty in 

 manipulation. 



The next thing is, that any man 

 who would have any one working for 

 him or would make him walk, drive or 

 ride a distance greater than is abso- 

 lutely necessary, is not working with 

 economy; and one difficulty with bee^ 

 keepers is that in production they are 

 not aiming sufficiently at cheapening 

 'production; and if I want to cheapen 

 I am not going to make my bees climb 

 through into four or five or six supers, 

 but by using a twelve-frame hive, a 

 twelve-frame brood chamber, and put- 

 ting two supers on that the bees 

 haven't got anything like the distance 

 to go as they do where they have the 

 eight-frame. The front of the hive is 

 the place where every one ventilates. 

 Bees do not get sufficient ventilation 

 as a rule; and Tvhere you use the 

 eight-frame hive and only have the 

 entrance as a ventilator the bees do 

 not get anything like the same am'ount 

 of ventilation that they get with a 

 larger hive, and particularly is this 

 true where the room is added in the 

 supers. 



Now, as to the tendency to swarm. 

 I had a man try some twelve -frame 

 hives, and after he got through he 

 said to me, they swarm sooner than 



the eight-frame hives. I asked him 

 how he used them. He didn't give 

 them super room, and let the eight- 

 frame hive swarm when it would in 

 the brood chamber and the twelve- 

 frame when it would, and I at once 

 admitted to him that the twelve-frame 

 would; and why? Because in the fall 

 of the year where you use a twelve - 

 frame and where you examine them 

 you have a large number of bees in 

 the fall of the year. Mr. Chapman 

 has rightly said that what we wanted 

 all the time was large or strong col- 

 onies. I quite agree with, Mr. Chap- 

 man upon that subject. In the fall of 

 the year with the twelve-frame hive 

 there are more bees in that hive than 

 in the eight-frame, and therefore they 

 go into winter quarters in that way, 

 and if they winter equally as well 

 they come out stronger in the spring 

 and they, of course, have so many 

 bees to begin with in the spfing of 

 the year and they can look after more 

 brood, and, of course, they will swarm 

 the sooner. But what we can do is 

 manipulate it in this way; we can 

 give them the room. I don't say a 

 twelve-frame • hive alone prevents 

 swarming, they will stick together 

 more and give better results. 



You and I know when we see a 

 swarm of bees hanging upon a tree, 

 if the swarm is small, if they can get 

 enough for the winter and build up 

 we are satisfied. When w^e see a large 

 one we say that is a stock that is 

 going to give us returns and success 

 in bee-keeping. To make the most 

 out of the conditions and environ- 

 ments which we have means to al- 

 ways keep a strong colony and have 

 your dish turned up the right side for 

 porridge when it runs every time. 



Another point is that where people 

 are indifferent in bee-keeping, where 

 they, often depend upon the bees hav- 

 ing sufficient stores, where they let 

 them swarm; other things being 

 equal, where they have allowed them 

 to swarm — particularly is this ^ true 

 where the istock has been depleted — 

 there is a better chance of the bees 

 having enough honey for winter than 

 in the smaller hive. That Is by no 

 means admitting that the extra room 

 is used by the beo^ for storing honey, 

 for such is not the case. What I find 

 is that what the bees hold of the 

 brood at the beginning of the honey 

 season as a rule they will retain, and 



