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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: "birdcr AT concentric.net" <birdcr AT concentric.net>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Two Story Hives?
  • Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:56:04 -0400

Randy,

The critical aspect of this is that CC Miller, like everyone else in his day, was producing section honey (basically the same sort of thing as cut-comb honey --- Ross Rounds is the common way to get section honey today). For this method, the bees must build wax comb as well as produce honey. To get good section honey, you must have a super-strong colony in a small space during a strong nectar flow. They feel compelled to create comb quickly, which is exactly what you need for this type of honey production. The major challenge is to get them to do this before they swarm, because these conditions are a classic recipe for swarming.

If you are producing liquid (extracted) honey, the rules are different. We want lots of bees, which is why 2 deeps are often preferred. The queen has unrestricted laying space, giving maximum potential for colony size, which gives the maximum potential for foraging force. Using Dr. Miller's plan for liquid honey production is counter productive.

If you enjoy "50 Years Among the Bees", you'll probably also enjoy "The Autobiography of A.I. Root". Root and Miller were friends. Both their stories are inspiring.

Randall Austin

On 7/5/2012 10:05 PM, birdcr AT concentric.net wrote:
Folks,
I am reading online "Fifty Years among Bees" by DR CC Miller, it 
was written over 100 years ago about beekeeping in PA. You can 
download a copy at the link below.

www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/.../030208miller/030408miller.PDF

Anyway my interest was peaked when I read these paragraphs about 
two story hives (2 deeps of brood). I thought maybe some of you 
might share some input on this?

	ROOM FOR QUEEN.
up to the time of putting on supers the queen has had unlimited 
room with the design of encouraging the rearing of as much brood 
as possible.	When the harvest begins, she may have as much as 6, 
9, 11, even up to 14 frames well occupied with brood and eggs. A 
good deal depends on the season,as well as the queen. At one time
I thought I ought to be able to make a success of continu- ing the 
two stories of brood-frames throughout the har- vest.	It seems 
that when a colony is so strong as to have 12 or 14 frames of 
brood, there ought to be no difficulty in having good super-work 
done by putting the supers above the two stories ;	and one season 
of failure the only super I had filled was on a two-story colony. 
But I was never able to have that thing repeated, and whatever 
the
reason may be, I have not been able to make a success of putting 
comb-honey supers on two-story colonies.	Even if the two-story 
plan would work all right it involves much extra lifting.
REDUCING TO ONE STORY.
So before putting on supers the colonies are reduced to one story 
each. If a colony has 9,10,or more frames of brood, all but 8 are 
taken away. The surplus frames of brood are given to those which 
have less than 8 frames of brood each, the effort being to have in 
each hive 8

frames well filled with brood when a super is given. The season 
may be such that it will not be possible to have as many as 8 
brood in each hive.	A colony strong enough to have 6 frames well 
filled with brood is likely to be in condition for good 
super-work, but the work will be better if it has 7 or 8.	On the 
other hand the season and the early condition of the bees may be 
such that when each •colony is brought up or down to its 8 frames 
of brood, a
considerable surplus of brood may be left. DISPOSAL OF EXTRA 
BROOD.
Circumstances will decide what shall be done with this extra 
brood. It may be needed for building up nuclei, or for new 
colonies.	It may be piled up temporarily in piles of three, four, 
or five stories each, to be used later in any manner desired.	It 
does not take three times as many bees to care for the brood in 
three stories as it does to care for the brood in one story. If 
two or three stories of brood with adhering bees are piled up, in 
two or three
weeks there will be enough bees there so that when re- duced to 
one story it will be all right for super-work. Or, it may be left 
just as it is, and allowed to store in
combs for the next spring's use.

Mainly the reason this peaked my interest is from a big swarm I 
hived around mid April. This hive has a deep (one story) and a 
full super of honey ready to harvest. I added another deep (story) 
today before reading this.

Cheers,
Randy Emmitt


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  • [ocba] Two Story Hives?, birdcr AT concentric.net, 07/05/2012
    • Re: [ocba] Two Story Hives?, Randall Austin, 07/05/2012

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