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The first able-frame hives were of two types, those with standing frames and those with hanging

by the advocates of the sectional hive I

frames. The latter are now used almost exclusively, but the former, although they have been discarded, possessed some features which should not be lost, and which, indeed, in a modified form, are now coming into use again.

The standing frames had self-spacing end-bars, which were held tightly together to prevent their being glued with propolis. Their ends, in the earliest types, formed the ends of the hive; but in later types they fitted the hive snugly, just so they would slide in and out easily like drawers in a desk. Having no bee-space behind or between them, they entirely prevented propolising by excluding the workers from all access to their contact with the hive. By bringing these closed-end frames together with a sliding motion, their advocates were convinced that they could manipulate them at least quite as rapidly as loose-hanging frames, with no more crushing of bees. If the experience of beekeepers in general had supported this belief, the closedend frame might have become popular; but it did not.

The invention of the movable-frame hive, followed by that of comb foundation and the extractor, ushered in an era of excessive comb manipulations and popular favor swung toward the use of frames which hung free and could be easily shifted about. When this wave of frame handling had reached its height, a revulsion of feeling paved the way for a revival of interest in the Quinby standing frame by its reappearance in a modified form, used in a divisible brood-chamber. The new hive, invented by James Heddon, used frames which were much the same as the Quinby standing frames, except that he enclosed them in a case, as already described, and made them so shallow that it took two and a bee-space to make up the depth of one Quinby frame. That is, it took two cases, each containing a set of Heddon frames, to make one Quinby-depth brood-chamber.

The Heyday of the Sectional Hive.

The sectional hive, as it came to be called, had a great run during the last two decades of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century. Its chief attraction was that by its use, most of the brood-chamber observations could be made without manipulating individual frames. Other arguments used

turn, but first let us look at this one and see what manipulation short-cuts, if any, we are missing by using Langstroth or deeper frames instead of shallower ones. About fourteen years ago I spent a day with one of the most intelligent advocates of the Heddon hive. He claimed that by its use he could, unassisted, care for five hundred colonies of bees. He never told me the size of the crops they would produce, but it was certainly very attractive to see him apply an iron harness to his hives in turn and tip them back, supers and all, making a horizontal cross-section of the brood-chamber for the weekly examination. He could see at a glance whether any preparations were being made for swarming, for his combs were so perfect that the only convenient place to build queen-cells was in the space between the two sections of the brood-chamber.

I must confess that I was greatly taken with his system, and being at that time in charge of the Apiculture Department of the Ontario Agricultural College, I purchased some of his hives for further testing in the department. Of course, nothing came of it, but the idea of searching queen-cells in such a simple manner stuck, and was later developed into a method which I often practice with Langstroth brood-chambers when very much hurried. The supers should come off in any case to determine their needs and to place the empty one next the brood. When the brood-chamber has been stripped, instead of tearing off the excluder and handling most of the frames, just tip it back and look at the bottom edges of the combs from underneath. If no queen-cells are seen from here it is practically certain there are none in the hive. If even one with contents is discovered, then, of course, all combs have to be gone over. This short-cut we may well learn from the section-hive people.

Now, by improved methods, many beekeepers are building up such strong colonies that the use of the sectional hive is coming in again. With this difference, that the two sections are a Langstroth and a shallow, a Quinby-depth and a shallow, or two ten-frame Langstroth brood-chambers. Whether we give the queen access to this combination during the whole year is a matter of detail. We have one beekeeper, John A. McKinnon, near Ottawa, Canada, where the winters are much colder and longer than in the latitude of Toronto and Georgetown, who

is using the double Langstroth broodchamber the year round. He says he does not like to work nearly so well as he used to and that this system saves him a great deal of labor. Once in ten days, in season, he looks between the two for cells as the Heddon hive people used to do. He is a professional queen breeder and gives his queens extra attention. Whenever a hive is given a new queen, she is confined to the lower story until the colony is being prepared for winter, when the excluder is removed again.

Another argument for the sectional hive is the fact that the queen prefers to lay and the workers prefer to store, in good-sized empty combs recently placed between the brood and the food. This is an axiom of bee behavior which has long been recognized by observant beekeepers. The Heddon hive people attempted to apply it by splitting the brood somewhere near the middle, opening it up and putting a third section of empty combs between the upper and the lower halves of the brood-nest. Such drastic action should never be taken exeept to overcome the swarming impulse. Keep the brood compact. This is a slo gan of some of the most successful beekeepers, and is entirely at variance with the brood-spreading doctrine of the period we have been studying. Now how shall we supply the breeding and storing space during the building-up time in spring where we think it will do the most good, and still keep the brood compact? The answer is the food chamber. "The brood-chamber for brood and the food chamber for food," has been one of my slogans since adopting the food chamber.

Upper Section Becomes a Food Chamber.

Perhaps it may not be out of place for me to give some personal experience which led up to the use of food chambers on all of our colonies. There are always some of our yards which do not store any honey after the first of August, or earlier. We are never sure which ones will have that experience. After finding some of our best colonies starved to death when we came to feed them for winter, some years ago, we decided that the only safe way was to leave plenty of honey in a super on each hive until we were ready to feed. Whatever they did not use of this was almost sure to have a little fall honey added to lower its grade. Then it would be extracted and sold for less than the price of sugar for winter stores at least for less than its original value as clover honey. On the other hand, if we fed sufficient sugar syrup to insure good spring building up, it so restricted the brood chamber space

that very early inspection was required to supply room for brooding and storing. Then the extra brood-chamber would be partly filled with spring honey which, not being ready to extract when clover began yielding, would absorb a great deal of clover honey in the process of ripening. This either went in with the main crop to injure its color and flavor or had to be sorted out at considerable further expense and sold separately at a lower price. While the food chamber does not entirely remove all these difficulties, it relieves them considerably.

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To start at the beginning, we make up a shallow super with shallow frames the same depth as Heddon made them, 5%", but loose hanging and staple-spaced, instead of standing closed-end. The frames are wired with two wires each and have full sheets of foundation. This super is added to a hive during the main honey flow and the combs are built, filled and sealed. When the main crop is taken off August first, a shallow super is left on. Henceforth it is a part of the hive. super or more of empty combs is also given for storage, to provide for a possible fall flow. When the supers are all finally taken off in September, we note whether much honey has been used out of the food chamber. If so, the lighter combs are replaced with well filled ones, and it is left right there for winter, without any excluder. Again, when placing the hives in winter cases, the hives which feel lighter than others, are marked with a block of wood for an extra pail of feed. This is done in October, and every hive gets two ten-pound pails of syrup whether it needs it or not, as soon as it goes into the case. If light, it receives three or four pails. In other words, we want plenty of sugar syrup where it and not the honey, will be used during the coldest weather. We also want to make sure that the food chamber is so well filled that the queen is not likely to go up there to lay in the early spring. We do not want brood in the food chamber. That is not what it is for. On the other hand, we do not want food in the broodchamber that is not what it is for. "The brood-chamber for brood and the food chamber for food." When I say "food," you will understand that I mean the bulk of honey stores.

By the time spring honey storing and heavy brooding begins, there is some space in the food chamber to temporarily defer the crowding which would other wise take place and check the swarming impulse which we used to find early in May, with the single brood-chamber only. Still, we like to get around almost as early as ever, get the tops unpacked and see what is what. There is not like

ly to be a shortage of stores, but if there is we feed some to tide over until they can gather. In hives where a shortage of stores does occur, the queen will likely be occupying the shallow super as well as the brood-chamber. With light top-bars and combs perfect up to the topbars, a good queen in a strong colony passes back and forth fairly well. Where the food chamber is partly empty and the colony is weak, the brood may all be in it. This is not a serious matter, as such a colony is not worth much anyway. The remedy is to keep the colony warm and sufficiently fed until unpacking time, then if necessary, place the shallow super underneath the broodchamber. If worth saving, the queen will soon go up and occupy her rightful place. The Three Different Conditions Found in Spring.

When giving the second brood-chamber in May, there are three conditions of the hive which require three different sorts of treatment. First, a normal colony has stores and no brood in the food chamber. It is full of bees, showing the need of more space. Such a hive is in ideal condition to show off the food chamber to the best advantage. We lift it, making a division between brood and food where we place a set of dark Langstroth worker combs. The queen occupies these right away, and storing of spring honey takes place in the tops of them and in the food chamber above. The original brood-nest is still compact and the space for breeding and storing is set to the queen's taste. Second, they have eaten through and the queen has brood to the top of the food chamber, in the middle combs, and the colony is strong and will stand more room. In that case the extra set of brood combs is placed on top of the food chamber, and the queen goes up into this added story. Later, when a brood-nest has become established in the upper story, the food-chamber is placed above it, probably over an excluder. The third case includes all colonies too weak to require any more space. This early supering is done inside the packing cases, which are not removed until the end of May.

At all times when storing is possible we endeavor to keep the food chamber where the workers are most likely to fill and seal it. We get it to take care of the spring honey as much as we can, for that is quite all right for fall and spring use, and the sugar syrup takes care of the food for cold weather. The food chamber has very aptly been called an automatic feeder, and its great value to me lies in the fact that it enables us to tide over the uncertainty of the weeks between extracting and feeding time.

The queen is, or should be, at her very best just then, and any approach to a food shortage is disastrous, yet one does not feel like leaving a super of clover honey which is likely to be extracted later and sold as a lower grade.

Enlarging Cluster to Size of Hive. In addition to the late feed of sugar syrup, two other conditions are absolutely necessary for success in wintering with food chambers. The colonies must be strong in young bees and they must be warmly packed. Recently objectors have stated that orthodox wintering calls for reducing the hive to the size of the cluster. How about enlarging the cluster to the size of the hive? My experiences and views are always subject to revision and every criticism is welcomed as an opportunity to test conclusions. But there is no use denying the fact that a great deal can be accomplished for successful wintering by giving very careful attention to requeening with the best stock obtainable, and then culling the queens ruthlessly even after they have been established in the colonies.

Our wintering cases hold four colonies each and allow for six inches of packing on all sides, four underneath and eight or more on top, depending on the depth of the hives. The entrances are one and a half inches high and eight inches long. These are left open until cold weather has definitely set in. Last winter I thought it was settled cold early in November, so reduced them all to winter size-four half-inch holesafter that it turned mild and stayed mild until New Year's and the bees became very restless. The loss was rather heavy from having them too warmly packed. So this year we have not more than eight inches packing over any hive, and aim to leave the entrances open until it really does turn cold. Of course, the yards are pretty well sheltered from winds.

There are two other features of the Heddon hive system which have been saved from the wreckage of its collapse. They are both very valuable as applied to modern honey production and I am going to claim the full credit for rescuing them. They are not patented or copyrighted and I am not asking any royalty whatever for their use. All I ask is that my name go on record in connection with them. The first of these is the ease with which the shallow combs were uncapped because they came within the reach of commercial capping knives. The second is the convenience of handling a super of fixed frames as a unit. Some of our most prominent beekeepers, although recommending deep brood-chambers, are still advising shallow extracting frames

because their depth comes within the length of the short honey knives of commerce, and this facilitates uncapping the whole side of a comb at one stroke. Others of our best producers considered that the most attractive feature of the Heddon hive was the convenience and speed with which supers of firmly fastened frames could be handled. Both of these features appealed to me very much as I studied them, yet I could not accept the rest of the system.

Lengthening Knife Instead of Shortening Frame.

About eight or nine years ago Mr. Chrysler of Chatham, Ontario, who was at that time a user of shallow frames, told me that he was using a knife with a straight flat blade for uncapping. It was not long but would reach across his shallow frames, and he found it more satisfactory than the stock knife. I was incredulous, then interested, then I woke up! The spell was broken. The scales fell from my eyes. It was really possible to uncap with something different from the crooked, bevelled, awkward knife we had always used. After that I was ready to try anything, once. Chrysler can use a straight flat knife on his shallow frames," I reasoned, "why not have one made long enough for Langstroth frames?" I consulted Mr. Chrysler and it seemed reasonable to him. In fact, he knew where he could get two of them made for me. He did. They proved more satisfactory used cold than the bevelled knife, and when steam-jacketed the result was revolutionary. We used them cold in 1916 and with steam the next year.

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When I saw what a good thing I had in a long, straight, steam-heated uncapping knife, long enough to uncap the whole side of a Langstroth comb at one stroke, I did not attempt to make money out of my fellow beekeepers, but gave the idea out freely at my College Short Course and in the journals. No one paid any attention. The beekeeping public was not ready for such an innovation. From the largest to the smallest, they continued to worry along uncapping in the old laborious way, using a great deal more labor, than we were using for the same operation because of their antiquated tools. The idea, as published in my writings, did not speak their language. We were not worrying as it gave us a decided advantage on cost of production.

However, there was one enterprising young mechanic who attended my short course. He saw the point, added some notions of his own and produced the Hardy knife, which is better than the stock knife because it is long and

straight like mine, but is not so fast as the Pettit knife, because of the bevelled back. Seven years after my knife was first used and a description published, he sold his knife to a Canadian firm of manufacturers, who paid him for it. Which all goes to show that it takes considerable drooping to wear away a stone. When you see the Hardy knife advertised, you will know its story. It is a good knife. The best on the market; but not as good as mine would be if it were on the market, but it isn't. So there you are! With either knife two good operators with plenty of steam will uncap well over a thousand pounds of honey per hour and keep it up all day, and day after day, provided the honey is there to uncap. I have had one man uncap about 700 pounds per hour. Closed End Frames for Extracting

Supers.

The other purely mechanical idea which I have rescued from the Heddon hive system, appeals most strongly to the lover of the Langstroth frame who is operating numerous apiaries with a central extracting plant. This came to me from the enthusiasm of men who were trucking home Heddon supers with their closed-end frames held firmly together. The names of Miller, Bainard and Chrysler, all past presidents of the Ontario Beekeepers' Association, come to mind in this connection. I said to Chrysler, who is also a maker of supplies: "Why not make us up some frames like yours, only Langstroth depth?" He made one hundred supers for us to experiment with. The next year we got five hundred more, and have since secured another five hundred, making eleven hundred supers of regular ten-frame capacity, each containing nine frames with the end-bars wide enough, throughout their entire length, to space them evenly, only leaving a space for a wooden spacer on one side and a super spring on the other. They have projecting top-bars from which they hang like Langstroth frames, but they are long enough to fit the ends of the super, just as a drawer fits a desk, and are held firmly together by the super springs. They are never removed from the super except to be uncapped, and are returned to it directly, from the extractor. Bee escapes are used when taking these supers off, and the boys delight in handling them freely and rapidly because the frames do not fall out or lose their spacing.

C. P. Dadant, when visiting my home after the International Convention in September, called my attention to a letter from Langstroth published in Gleanings, May, 1888, after he had paid a visit to Heddon at Dowagiac, Mich. Mr. Lang

stroth was able to see the manipulation advantages of the sectional hive, but he did not note the failure of Heddon's hive to comply with the colony requirements. In a moment of weakness he repudiated his whole system and said that time would tell whether he was not right in recanting in favor of Heddon. Time has told. The Heddon hive is nearly forgotten, while the Langstroth principle of using hanging frames with bee-space all around them, has been universally accepted.

The Dadants have given us the idea of a larger chamber for brood and food. Townsend gave us the food chamber, and Demuth taught us all, in his inimitable manner, its advantages as an automatic feeder. This brought us back to the sectional hive again, with sections properly sized and proportioned, so we could separate food from brood without splitting up the brood itself.

I have endeavored to show how in the Pettit Apiaries we have preserved two other advantages of the sectional hive: by using a longer knife, well heated by steam, to uncap Langstroth combs quite as rapidly as smaller combs are uncapped with your short knives, the daily outturn of honey is increased; and by using closed-end fixed frames in Langstroth supers, we greatly increased speed in handling and reduced the breakage.

Wilder of Georgia has given us a beautiful idea, and a very useful one, too, in his garden of thoughts." Here he preserves the good things which come to his mind by jotting them down in a notebook. The garden of beekeeping literature has been badly overgrown with weeds, perhaps, but who knows when a weed may be transplanted or modified to become a useful plant. Georgetown, Ontario.

It was shortly after the suggestion that I write up my old hives that my brought home

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some thirty or forty old, neglected, double-walled hives, a disreputable looking lot that he had bought in. They looked as though they would be better for a bonfire on the college campus to celebrate an athletic victory than to repair and turn into useful hives.

But as they had been made or patterned after our best style of hive, with room for winter packing on the bottom, sides, ends and top of the brood-chamber, we thought best to repair them. By knocking the poorest to pieces and using them to replace the decayed parts of the best, then covering the roofs with Barrett's or other brands of slate roofings, we were able to make over about four very good hives from five old ones.

Covers Made of Felt Paper. This felt roofing covered with pulverized slate, will last for many years. This and other felt brands can be obtained through hardware merchants or dealers in building material. It costs about 25 cents for enough to cover one of our large double-walled hives. When it be gins to fail, it can be given a coat of asphalt paint, when it will be about as good as ever. With care it will last about as well as tin, and certainly is enough cheaper to make it practical for large roof covering.

I used to depend on keeping roofs from leaking by paint; but unless one is pret

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ty careful the wooden roofs will swell and shrink, then crack and leak, and decay sets in before one knows it. When I began to make double-walled hives, I expected to continue in the business of beekeeping as long as I lived, therefore, in constructing hives I regarded them as a permanent investment. painted them as carefully as I would a new house, for there is no more sense in allowing hives to become leaky and rotten than to let the house over one's head go to decay and become worthless. Hives 54 Years Old Still in Good Condition.

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The first lot of 50 double-walled hives that I made 54 years ago last winter, I made with flat covers, for I had never seen any other hive at that time that did not have flat roofs. But I soon learned that it was not easy to keep a flat roof of wood two feet or more square, from leaking.

The next lot I made, two years later, with gable roofs, seventy-five of them. I believe they are all in use today, and so far as know most of them, if given proper care, will probably be good for another fifty years. I made them so the grain of the roof boards runs from the ridge to the eaves, for I have found that a wooden roof will shed water much better if the grain of the wood runs down rather than lengthwise of the roof. In making these hives I allowed the roofs to project two inches beyond the hive