BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**276.** To get the honey from the guns, or boxes, the beekeepers used at first to drive the bees to another hive **(574)** and take all the contents. But most of the thus impoverished colonies perisied. This led to the thought that killing bees would be more facie, and the brimstone-pit was invented. This killing of bees was so customary that in the XVIIIth century, Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, decreed that every bee-keeper who would cut the combs in Spring, instead of brimstoning the bees, would receive one florin (about forty events) per colony.
**277.** About the year 1830, our senior, then a boy, saw this harvesting of combs f\({}_{U}\)r the first time. Clothed with a heavy linen flock, equipped with a mask of wire strong enough to be sword-proof, and sweating under a scorching sun in this heavy garment, he helped (?) the old priest of his village to prune about twenty colonies, removing the back eombs with a curved knife, from the upturned hives. It was in April; and, while the crop thus harvested was light, thedamage inflicted to the bees was immense, for they had to rebuild their conbs at a time when queens begin their greatest laying. But the bee-keepers of old were persuaded that this crop of beeswax was beneficial to bees, since it compelled them to make new coubs, which were considered better than older ones (**676**).**
**278.** Some bee-keepers, having noticed that bees place their honey at the highest part of the hive, added a cap or. upper story, which communicated with the hive through a hole in the top of the latter. Still later, Apiarists found out that when the hive was very deep and the connecting hole small, the bees refused to store their honey in the cap, and they made their hives with open ceilings, replacing the top board of the breeding-story with slats or bars. The hives were afterwards divided into several horizontal sections, called "ekes" (figs. 51 and 55). Instead of using a cap, some Apiarists removed the upper story, when full of honey, and placed a new story under the others. The bees then continued their constructions downwards. To separate the sections from one another, they used a wire that cut the combs. Butler, in his "Feminine Monarehy," 1634, showed hives composed of four sections, piled upon one another. Palteau, in 1750, advised bee-keepers to use a perforated ceiling at the top of each section. Radouan, in 1821, instead of a perforated ceiling, used triangular bars, to which the bees attached their combs. Chas. Soria, in 1845, used these bars at the bottom of each story, as well as at the top, with bee space between, so that they could be removed, exchanged, or reversed, without crushing any bees, or damaging a single cell (fig. 56).
**279.** Other Apiarists divided their hives vertically, conforunably with the shape of the combs of the bees, which hang vertieality. If we are correctly informed, it was Jonas de Gelieu who inaugurated this style (fig. 57).
He made his hive divisible into only two parts. Oettl, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, made a straw hive divided into three vertical parts. The main advantage of these hives resides in the facility of dividing them for artificial swarming. But as this method of making artificial swarms is defective, as will be shown further (**170**), and as all these conforunees did not allow a close study of the habits of the bee, or permit the needed manipulations, it became necessary to invent a hive whose every comb, and every part, the Apiarist could promptly and easily control; a hive which, to employ the foreible expression of Mr. Hamet, could "_sc denonter comme in just the arrationettes_"; (he taken to pieces like a puppet-show).
**280**. 1. A complete hive should give the Apiarist such perfect control of all the combs, that they may be easily taken out without cutting them, or exciting the anger of the bees.
Some hives are so constructed, that they cannot be used without injuring or destroying some of the bees; and the destruction of even a few materially increases the difficulty of managing them (**399**).
3. It should afford suitable proteetion against extremes of heat and cold, sudden changes of temperature, and the injurious effects of dampness.
The interior of a hive should be dry in Winter, and free in Summer from a pent and suffocating heat.
4. Not one unnecessary motion should be required of a single bee.
As the honey-harvest, in most locations, is of short continuance, all the arrangements of the hive should facilitate, to the utmost, the work of the busy gatherers. Hives which compel.them to travel with their heavy burdens through densely crowded combs, are very objectionable. Bees instead of forcing their way through thick clusters, must easily pass into the top surplus honey-boxes of the hives, from any comb in the hive, and into every part, without traveling much over the combs.
5. It should be capable of being readily adjusted to the wants of either large or small colonies.
6. It should allow every good piece of worker-comb to be given to the bees, instead of melting it into wax, and should permit of the use of comb-foundation (**674**).
7. It should prevent the over-production of drones, by permitting the removal of drone-comb from the hive.
It should allow the bottom board to be loosened or fastened at will, for ventilation, or to clear out the dead bees in Winter. If suffered to remain, they often become mouldy, and injure the health of the colony. In dragging them out, when the weather moderates, the bees often fall with them on the snow, and are so chilled, that they never rise again; for a bee, in flying away with the dead, frequently retains its hold until both fall to the ground.
No part of the interior of the hive should be below the level of the place of exit.
If this principle is violated, the bees must, at great disadvantage, drag, \(up\)\(hill\), their dead, and all the refuse of the hive.
It should afford facilities for feeding bees, both in warn and cool weather, in case of need.
It should furnish facilities for enlarging, contracting, and closing the entrance, to protect the bees against robbers; and when the entrance is altered, the bees ought not, as in some hives, to lose valuable time in searching for it.
It should furnish facilities for admitting at once a large body of air, that the bees may be tempted to fly out and discharge their feces, on warm days in Winter, or early Spring.
It should allow the bees, together with the heat and odor of the main hive, to pass in the freest manner, to the surplus honey receptacles.
Each of the parts of every hive in an apiary should be so made, as to be interchangeable from one hive to another. In this way, the Apiarist can readily make the exchanges of brood, honey, or pollen, which circumstances demand.
The hive should permit the surplus honey to be taken away in the most convenient, beautiful and salable forms.
16. It should be equally well adapted to be used as a swarmer, or non-swarmer.
17. It should enable the Apiarist to multiply his colonies with a certainty and rapidity which are impossible if he depends on natural swarming.
18. It should enable the Apiarist to supply destitute colonies with the means of obtaining a new "queue.
19. It should enable him to eateh the queen, for any purpose; especially to remove an old one whose fertility is impaired by age.
20. It should enable a single bee-keeper to superintend several hundred colonies for different individuals.
Many persons would keep bees, if an apiary, like a garden, could be superintended by a competent individual. If the bees are allowed to swarm, he may be called in a dozen different directions at once, and if any accident, such as the loss of a queen, happens to the colonies of his customers, he can usually apply no remedy.
21. All the joints of the hive should be water-tight, and there should be no doors or shutters or drawers liable to shrink, swell, or get out of order.
22. A complete hive should be protected against the destructive ravages of mice in Winter.
23. It should permit the honey, after the gathering season is over, to be concentrated where the bees will most need it.
24. It should permit the space for spare honey receptacles to be enlarged or contracted at will, without any alteration or destruction of existing parts of the hive.
Without the \(\bullet\)power to do this, the productive force of a colony is in some seasons greatly diminished.
25. Its surplus honey receptacle should be as close to the brood as possible.
26. A complete hive, while possessing _all_ these requisites, should, if possible, _combine_ them in a _cheap_ and _simple_ form, adapted to the wants of all who are competent to cultivate bees.
taken out. This hive cannot furnish the surplus honey in a form the most scalable in our markets, or admitting of safe transportation in the comb. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, it has achieved a great triumpli in Germany, and given a new impulse to the cultivation of bees.**
## Movable-Frame Hives
**2S 1**. About one hundred years ago, Huber invented the leaf-hive, which enabled him to make his discoveries. It consisted of twelve frames, each an inch and a quarter in width, which were connected together by hinges, so that they could be opened or shut at pleasure, like the leaves of a book.
**2S35**. This hive was improved upon by several bee-keepers in Europe and America, the most noted of whom were Quinby, and his son-in-law, L. C. Root, author and publisher of "Quinby's New Bee-keeping." This style of hive is generally known as the closed-end standing-frame hive. The reader will understand that, in these lives, the combs hang separately in frames, which, when joined together, make a body, enclosed in an outer covering. Their being used by a number of Apiarisis, shows that these hives have some advantages, the greatest objection to them being the diffieulty of fitting the frames together, after inspection, without crushing some hves, unless they have been previously shaken out.
**286.** Several attempts were made, in the first half of the nineteenth century, to invent a practical hanging-frame live; that is, a hive in which each comb, hanging in a separate frame, could be readily taken out and replaced without jarrin; the hive, or removing the other frames. Propokovitseh, in Russia, Munn, in England, Debeauvoys, in France, tried and failed. At last, in October, 18:31, Mr. Langstroth invented the top-opening movable-frame hive, now used the world over with slight variations, in which the combs are attached to movable frames so suspended in the hives as to touch neither the top, bottom, nor sides; leaving, between the frames and the hive walls, a space of from one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch, called bee-space. (Fig. 59.)
**387.** By this device the combs can be removed at pleasure, without any cutting, and specially transferred to another hive. Our congenial friend, Prof. A. J. Cook, author of "The Joe-keeper"s Guide," says of it : "It is this hive, the greatest apiarian invention ever made, that has placed American Apiellure in advance of that of all other countries." And no one knows, better than the revisers of this work, that such is the plain truth, as they have watched the progress of bee-keeping in Europe, through its French, Italian, Swiss, and German bee-papers, for forty years past.
**288.** Mr. Langstroth, however, modestly disclaimed the idea of having attained perfection in his hive. He wrote:
"Having carefully studied the nature of the honey-bee, for many years, and compared my observations with those of writ, cers and cultivators who have spent their lives in extending the sphere of apiarian knowledge, I have endeavored to remedy the many difficulties with which bee-culture is best, by adapting my invention to the actual habits and wants of the insect. I have also tested the merits of this hive by long and continued experiments, made on a large scale, so that I might not, by de ceiving both myself and others, add another to the useless contrivanees which have deluded and disgusted a too credulous public. I would, however, utterly repudiate all claims to hav
**289**. A short time after the issuing of the Langstroh patent, the Baron Von Berlepseh, of Seebach, Thuringia, invented frames of a somewhat similar character. Cori T. E. Von Siebold, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, in the University of Munich, thus speaks of these frames:
"As the lateral adhesion of the combs built down from the bars frequently rendered their removal difficult, Berlepseh tried to avoid this inconvenience, in a very ingenious way, by suspending in his hives, instead of the bars, small quadrangular frames, the vacuity of which the bees fill up with their comb, by which the removal and suspension of the combs are greatly facilitated, and altogether such a convenient arrangement isgiven to the Dzierzon-hive, that nothing more remains to be desired.'' (????)
Mr. Cheshire (Bees and Bee-keeping, 2d vol. page 46) was mistaken in attributing to Dzierzon the invention of the frame-hive, for Dzierzon has not even invented, but only perfected the movable-comb hive (**282-283**), having always, to this day, been opposed to frames. So the German hive is known as the Berlepsch hive.
**290.** For years, both of these inventions shared equally the attention of bee-keepers in Europe. Berlepsch's hive is used principally in Germany, Italy, and part of Switzerland; Langstroth's in England, France, and the French-speaking part of Switzerland; but it is to be noted that hives made on the principle of the Langstroth invention, are steadily gaining ground wherever both styles are used.
**291.** And this is not to be wondered at. The Berlepsch hive opens from the rear, like a cupboard. Two stories are used for the brood, and the third for surplus honey. This is sometimes separated from the main apartment by perforated zine (**467**), to exclude the queen, or by a board with a square hole in the center. The frames are suspended, in grooves, by the ends of their upper bars, and have to be taken out with pinceers.
**292**. The worst feature of this hive is that, if it is necessary to reach the last frame, every one of the others has to be taken out. There are twenty combs in the brood-chamber. It is safe to say, that a hive built on the Langstroth principle, can be visited five times more rapidly, than a hive built on the Berlepsch idea. These inconveniences, coupled with the fact that the brood apartment of the Berlepsch hive is divided into two stories, and that the surplus apartment cannot be enlarged, _ad infinitum,_ make the Berlepsch hive inferior; and we can safely predict that hives with movable ceiling will some day be exclusively used throughout the world.
**293**. The superiority of the Langstroth hive is so evident that we were not surprised to read in the _Revuc Internationale di-alpiculture,_ Sept., 1885:
"The question of the mobility of the ceiling was discussed at length at the Bee-keepers' Meeting held in Milan, Italy, in September, 1885. Mr. Cowan and I were unable to conceal from the Italian bec-keepers our wonder that it was not solved for them, as it has been, for a long time, in the countries of large production.
"We can predict, and without any fear of mistake, that the principles on which the Langstroth hive is based will be admitted sooner or later by the most progressive bee-keepers of the world."--(Ed. Bertrand.)
**291**. In 1905, an Italian writer, speaking of the Langstroth-Indant hive, as described by the elder Dadant, calls it, "the preferred, the international, the classic, the _queen_ of hives." (Romagna Agricola, June, 1905.)
**295**. The success of American bee-culture, in the last fifty years, was first attributed, by European bee-keepers, to the honey-producing power of the country; but the most intelligent Apiarists, who have tried the American methods,with the Langstroth hive, now recognize that sueeess is principally due to the manipulations that it permits.
**206**.: _Nay, if the student will but refer to a former edition_
of this very book (1859), the first words of it will show him the progress accomplished since then:
"Practical bee-keeping in this country is in a very depressed condition, being entirely neglected by the mass of those most
favorably situated for its pursuit. Notwithstanding the numerous hives which have been introduced, the ravages of the bec-moth have increased, and success is becoming more and more precarious. While multitudes have abandoned the pursuit in diigust, many even of the most experienced are beginning to suspect that all the so-called 'Improved Hives' are delusions or impostures; and that they must return to the simple box or hollow log, and 'take up' their bees with sulphur in the old-fashioned way.''
**297**. Mr. Gravenhorst, also a German, invented a movable-frame hive made of straw. We give a cut of his hive, not that it has any practietal importance for us, but because his system is peculiar. The frames are removed from the bottom so that in order to examine the hive, one must invert it. There is no separate apartment for surplus honey.
**29S**. Although the movable frame, hanging in the hive, by projections of the top bar (figs. 59, 63), as invented by Mr. Langstroth, is the style now almost universally adopted, there is a great diversity of opinions as to the proper size and shape of the frames, and the number, which a hive should contain. Hundreds of different sizes are used with suecess, from Maine to California, and from Canada to Texas.
Frames as short as 11% inhes are used, but the standard size is still the Langstroth, _the standard frame of America_.
A frame which is now very highly recommended \(h_{\Sigma}\) a number of bee-keepers and sold by most manufacturers in America is the "Hoffman frame" (fig. 65). The frames touch one another in the upper third of their side bars and are thus spaced. The advantage claimed for these is that any beginner can use them without running the risk of putting too many or too few in a hive, a mistake sometimes made by novies, and also that they can be handled in twos or threes without difficulty. These advantages seem to us much overbalanced by the fact that it is difficult to put the frames together in a populous hive without crushing some bees. When a hive is opened to ascertain its condition, it is usually nee sary to look over every part of it. The help gained by being able to handle two or three frames at a time is therefore more imaginary than real.
Mr. E. R. Ioot, the well-known editor of Gleanings in Bee Culture, who has been the most ative supporter of this frame, in reply to a correspondent who complained of the frame, in Gleanings for November 1st, 1905, page 1127, acknowledges that the Hoffman frame is unsuited to localities where much propolis is used by the bees, owing to the difficulty of separating the frames when glued together.
Another very strong objection which has been raised against the Hoffman frame is that it cannot be manufactured in a small shop, as it requires special tools (" manufacture it. This may not have much weight with the up-to-date \(\Lambda\)piarist, but it has been our aim to recommend the simplest and most practical implements, if effective, and we consider this objection as a weighty one, when added to other objections. The main desideratum attained by the use of the Hoffman frame, namely the spacing of the conbs in a practical and stable way, can be attained by other methods which will be described farther.
**299.** The "Hanging Quinby" (fig. 68) is the frame preferred by the writers. The "Gallup" frame is used with suecess by such praetieal Apiarists as G. M. Doolittle. The closed-end-Quinby and the Danzenbaker frames are not hanging frames, but the former is much used by New York State Apiarists and the latter is the frame preferred by E. R. Root. It is a very shallow frame.
**300.** It is evident that profit can be derived from be-culture with almost any style of frame; but it is certain also, that, in every pursuit, some conditions produce better effects than others, under the same circumstances.
In apieulture, as in everything else, we should try to obtain the best results with the least labor and expense, and these can only be attained by studying the habits of the bee, and complying with them, as far as is practieable.
The combs of the brood-chamber, or main apartment of the hive, are used by the bees to raise their young, and to store their food for Winter. The size of frames must be considered, with reference to this.
**301.** We have seen (**153**) that the queen lays her eggsin a circle. In fact, it is necessary that she should do so, in order to lose no time in hunting for cells; else how could she lay three thousand eggs, or more, per day? A very shallow frame will break the circle, and compel her to lose time. In a comb five inches deep, for instance, and fifteen or sixteen inches long, the largest circular area contains less than twenty square inches, or five hundred and fifty worker-cells on each side. When these are oecupied with eggs, the queen, while hunting for ethylly cells, will find wood above and below, instead of comb, at every half turn, and will lose not only time, but eggs; for, in the busy season, her eggs have to drop, like mature fruit, if not laid in the cells. _Loss of eggs is loss of buses; loss of bees at the proper time is loss of honey._
**302**. A two-story shallow brood-chamber is objectionable for the same reason. Besides, the bees which cover the brood and keep it warm, must also keep warm the lower bar of the top frame, the upper bar of the lower frame, and the space between the two, without deriving any benefit from such an arrangement. This division of the brood-conbs, into two shallow stories, is one of the causes which prevent the beekeepers of Germany from raising as many bees, in their hives, as we do here in the ordinary Langstroth lives. This disadvantage was so evident that the bee-keepers of Switzerland, who had adopted, as a standard, the Berlepseh live (fig. 60), decided to replace the double story by a single one of the same dimension, as the Italian bee-keepers had done before, but for half the hive only.
A short frame like the Gallup (fig. 67), presents another objection, the cluster being divided among a greater number of frames.
"For Winter, it is evident that the sides of the clusters A. B. and C. D. (fig. 67) are better protected than the ends (i. H. and E. F., and also that the long frames protect the center of the brood-nest much better than the short ones."--("A B C.")
Even a cross-bar through a frame (fig. 59) will hinder the laying of the queen, so that brood will often be raised only on one side of it. Any one can easily try this.
**303.** From the foregoing, it appears that a square frame is the best for breeding. But square frames are objectionable. If they are small, they do not have enough space in each frame for Winter supplies, above or behind the brood. If they are large, they are unhandy, and their depth makes them difficult to take out without crushing bees. We have used some sixty hives, American frames, 12%x1258, for many years, and this is our greatest objection to them.
**304.**\(\lambda\) deciper frame is still more objectionable for the same reason, and because the surplus cases on top are too remote from the brood. (**27S.**) In early Spring, the bees have more difficulty in keeping the lower end of such frames warn, as the heat always rises, and a part of it is wasted, warming up the stores, which in this hive are all above the brood. In hot weather, the eombs are also more apt to break down from heat and weight combined. Such a live is deficient in top-surface for the storing of honey in boxes.
**305.** It is thus evident that Mr. Langstroth and Mr. Quinn by were right in using frames of greater length than depth, especially as these frames allow of more surplus room above the brood, a matter of some importance.
**306.** But we must beware of excess in anything. A shallow frame has too little honey above the cluster in Winter, and in long cold Winters, like that of 1884-5, a great many bees die for want of food above them, in hives con taining plenty of honey, the conuls, _bak of the cluster,_ being too cold.