MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 119Q. Kindly give the manipulations of divisible brood-chamberhives.A. Perhaps no two who use divisible hives manage them exactlyalike. In a general way, I may say that advantage of divisiblehives is taken by reducing to a single story at time ofgiving supers, although some make the first and second storiesexchange places. This last, you will see, throws the honey thatwas above the brood-nest right into the middle, and the bees aresupposed to get busy carrying it up into the supers for the sakeof getting brood in its place.Q. I have decided that a divisible hive consisting of shallowframes and supers, one, two or three, according to the strengthof the queen, is about what I want. Is it a practical combination?It looks to me like this hive will be extremely easy of manipulationand that the job of queen and queen-cell finding will be minimized.I wish to winter out of doors, and think I can make awarm hive of the shallow frames and supers by contracting thebrood-nest horizontally with a tight division-board on each sideand packing between them and the outside; the ends beingclosed.A. I doubt the advisability of your trying shallow or divisiblechamberhives. To be sure, some good beekeepers use them,but the majority of beekeepers prefer a frame not less than theLangstroth, and some like a still larger frame. If you do decide touse some of the divisible hives, try only a very few at first, untilyou decide whether they are suited to your use.Q.Which is better in a double-walled hive, a dead-air space, orplaner shavings packing?A. It is generally considered better to have packing in thespace. Theoretically, air might be thought a better non-conductorthan shavings, and so it is if the air would remain still; butthe trouble is that it will not remain still, but when a part, of itbecomes warm, at the warmest part it travels to a cooler part togive up its heat there. The packing stops it from traveling somuch.Q. Is a "chaff" hive entirely practical? If not, what are theobjections to it? I have no cave and do not like to contemplatethe work incident to packing 50 or more hives with paper orother material.A. Chaff hives have been successfully used to quite a largeextent, although perhaps not so much as formerly. One objectionis their weight and unwieldiness ; another that when the sun