Great Falls weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1894-1???, 1895-03-22
IN THE APlARY.
Bees Store Most Honey In Large Recepta-
cles, Says an Expert.

pound sections, or the one having
two pound sections? The foregoing que
ry was ~propounded in The American
Bee journal, and the answer were al
most unanimously in favor of the two
pound sections, although everybody
tgreed that when it came to selling the
honey, it was much better to have it in
one pound sections. To the farmer who
Keeps but a few colonies and who wish
es to produce honey for his family use
the question of sale is but secondary,
and he desires, above all things, to get
as much product as possible from the
few colonies of bees that n keeps. 1t is
therefore important for 1.m to know
whether there is really an advantage in
using large honey sections. With view
to settling this matter are here appended
the opinions of that expert bee man,
Charles Dadant, as expressed in a letter
to Prairie Farmer:
Bees in Il state Of nature lodge them
aelves in the holluws of trees. They store
honey i'll provision of future needs.
Nhelr instinct leads them to place the
aOney at the upper part Of their hive
above the brood and far from the en-
5rante, 50 that, the cluster Of bees being
placed between their stores and the en-.
trance, they can better defend these
against intruderS. They also want the
honey in Il place easily accessible dur
ing cold weather, and therefore as near
the brood nest as possible. When WE
give our bees an empty box above their
breeding room, we act according to their
requirements, but when tine box is cut
up into small compartments they readi
~ perceive that ONE parts Of this sur
plus q may become difficult of &C.
cess to them during the cold weather,
and they work in Them much more re-
luctantly.
The first step taken for the securing
OF surplus honey, after the invention of
the movable frame hive, was the inven.
ton Of a small box. glassod on four
sides and holding about four pounds of
honey. The bees had access to this small
box through only one hole about an inch
in diameter. 1t was soon perceived that
there was less honey harvested in this
style Of box than formerly in the old
wooden bucket plan, laid bottom side
UP on top of the box hive. We used
these hoXes for a short time, but after
the invention OF tho extractor in 1867
we tried surplus cases of full size with
open frames right over the brood combs
II without any partition or honey
board. These frames We're used for ex-
tracing. The result was so much in fa-
vOr of the large frame that we soon dis,
carded the glass boxes altogether, A lit
Gle lat " On the honey section, holding
about a pound, was invented and found
Just the thing for the comb honey mar
llet. We tried these sections in broad
frames to hold them i'll the supers, and
We used them side by side with the long
extracting frames. The result was by
far III FAVOR of the latter, and We're it
not that tn" city trade demands honey
iii SNAIL packages we dare the assertion
chat 10 on" would think of using any
thing else.
To show how evidently the bees prefer
a long, open frame to u small section
We will say that we tried both the lon4
Frames and the frames containing four
section, each, side BY side in hives,
placing tn" small sections in the center
over the hronl nest. In every instance
Ghc bees filled til" large open frames first,
although they were placed in :. less ia
yo1ahl" place. In a comparative test
between larg" and small sections the
result was similar, although the differ.
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