32 



DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



Bordeaux, Cowan of London and Bruennich of Switzerland. 

 The results which they obtained confirmed our own. 



Although it is difficult to put in figures the economy in 

 honey secured by preventing the bees of a colony from rearing 

 2,000 or more drones, the attentive student will readily grasp 

 the advantage of the system. Two thousand drones take as 

 much room in the breeding cells as 3,000 workers. Thirty-six 

 drones are raised in a square inch of comb, while the same space 

 will accommodate 55 workers. The amount of food required 

 is similarly larger. But it is after they are hatched as full- 

 fledged insects that the difference in results looms up. The 

 3,000 workers will be an army of active producers, while the 

 2,000 gross gluttons, staying home most of the time, get in the 

 way of the workers during the best and most important part of the 

 honey-producing day, from 10 to 4 o'clock. 



It is true that we are not always sure of securing 3,000 

 workers in place of 2,000 drones, for the queen may not lay so 

 actively when she becomes tired ; but the economy will show itself 

 so plainly that the beekeeper who tries our method of doing away 

 with drone-comb will never regret it. In fact we believe that the 

 saving in honey, from the prevention of undesired drone 

 production, will be sufficient to pay for 

 every three years. 



Many apiarists have noticed the 

 objectionable features of over-production 

 of drones. But they have employed, 

 to do away with them, means that were 

 worse than the evil of the presence of 

 the drones. Drone-traps, which every 

 dealer in bee-supplies finds himself com- 

 pelled to keep for sale, because they 

 are in demand among the ill-informed, are worse than 

 useless. They hinder the bees in their flight, the drones crowd 

 in them and stop the ventilation, the beekeeper is compelled to 

 examine them daily to remove the dead drones, and after all 

 they only do away with the mature drones, when the bees have 

 gone to the expense of rearing them. 



Fig. 19. The drone trap 

 should not be used except 

 in rare instances 



