14 DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



more or less inconvenient large hive. An 8-frame Langstroth 

 hive is too small. An 8-frame Langstroth hive, doubled to 16- 

 frames, is too large. One may do as our venerable and most 

 practical friend, Dr. Miller did, reduce the 16 frames to 8, 

 when putting on supers. This gives the queen ample room to 

 develop her fertility previous to the honey crop, but it compels 

 the beekeeper to make numerous manipulations afterwards. 

 We want a brood chamber neither too large nor too small, 

 capable of accommodating the most prolific queens, in the main 

 apartment, reserving the upper stories for honey. We found 

 it in the hive in question. 



Twelve and Thirteen -frame Langstroth Hives 



A number of practical beekeepers, who have also discovered 

 the insufficiency of the 8 and 10-frame Langstroth hive, are 

 using hives containing 12 and in some cases 13 frames. These 

 brood chambers are equal in capacity to the 9-frame Dadant 

 brood chambers, but the great number of frames makes them 

 less desirable. Mr. C. F. Davie made the statement, in the 

 American Bee Journal for October 1919, that comparative 

 experiences between 12-frame Langstroth hives and the deeper 

 hives with a less number of frames were all in favor of the latter. 



Small Hives 



As we have shown in the preceding chapter, we ascertained 

 positively that small hives produce less bees than large ones, 

 because they do not allow full scope to the queen for her breeding. 

 But this is not all. Small hives cause much swarming. Small 

 hives contain a scant amount of honey for winter. Small hives, 

 being less populous, their cluster is in greater danger in winter. 

 Small hives do not enable the apiarist to recognize the best 

 or most prolific queens, when he wishes to select breeders, 

 since they are in a reduced space. Small hives cast more but 

 lighter swarms than large ones. Small hives require queen- 

 excluders over the brood chamber to keep the queen out of the 



