The apostle Paul in exhorting the early disciples of the new religion urged them to be able to give to every man a reason for the faith that was within them. In view of the general use of Langstroth equipment it is necessary to show very decided advantages in order to make it worth a man's while to make a change.

When Charles Dadant first revised the Langstroth book he wrote, "The Langstroth being the standard frame in America, we hesitate to advise any apiarist to change from this size, knowing from practical experience, how annoying it is, not to have all frames and all hives in one apiary uniform in size. But we counsel beginners to use the Quinby, or at least to use a frame as long as the standard Langstroth and as deep as the Quinby. "

Thus was born the idea that later resulted in the Modified Dadant hive, a hive similar to the one long used by the elder Dadant but with shorter frames to accommodate the combination of the hive with other equipment already in common use. This same statement on the part of Mr. Dadant led Blatt to build such a hive in Europe which has come into common use over a wide area and which is known as the Dadant-Blatt hive.

Of late it has become generally recognized that the Langstroth hive is too small. To overcome this difficulty the use of two hive-bodies for brood rearing has become common. Likewise the addition of a shallow story, often spoken of as the food chamber, for extra winter stores has become general. Both of these changes in practice confirm the argument of the pioneer advocate of the deep frame that more room is necessary both for breeding and for reserve stores.

At the time when the question of size of hives occupied so much space in the bee magazines, Eugene Secor wrote that the Langstroth frame was too shallow for outdoor wintering under Iowa conditions. The loss of untold thousands of colonies of bees from starvation in winter confirmed his statements. It often happens that the cluster will move upward on the combs during cold weather and exhaust the honey to the topbar at a time when it is too cold to break the cluster and move over to adjoining frames. Thus it happens that the bees die with plenty of stores in the hives. With deep combs there would be more honey above the cluster and this danger would be greatly reduced. With plenty of good stores a strong colony of bees will survive severe cold for long periods of time without serious loss. A very large share of the outdoor winter losses in the Mississippi Valley region can be directly traced to this one cause.

Bees building outside of hive for lack of storage room.

There is another very real advantage in the deeper frame and that is in having plenty of reserve stores of both honey and pollen near the brood nest to start spring brood rearing. One has only to make comparison of large numbers of colonies in the two kinds of hives in early spring to be impressed with this fact. Not only do the bees winter better on deep combs but they build up faster in spring.

The author remembers distinctly visiting several apiaries in the desert of Arizona toward the end of a dry and unfavorable winter. Bees in eight frame hives of the Langstroth size were in very poor condition. In a nearby apiary bees on deep frames in large hives were strong and ready for business. The only difference was the fact that the bees in the one case had plenty of reserve stores while those in the other were on short rations. Shortly after, came rains, followed by a bloom of the mesquite. The strong colonies stored a nice surplus of honey, while the bees in the Langstroth hives were only able to build up to storing strength before the flow was over. You may reply that had the owner of this lot provided his bees with a second story filled with stores he would have fared quite as well. True, but if we must give the extra body, why not use only one which is large enough and thus save the extra equipment and the extra labor necessary to its use?

One thing which is often overlooked is the tendency of the bees to store the reserve pollen near the brood nest, cover it with honey to preserve it and seal it. In shallow hives it is necessary to put this pollen supply in the story above. In the manipulation incident to management by the double hive-body system this pollen is often removed from the hive or placed in a position which is disadvantageous to the bees. Many cases of spring dwindling can very properly be traced to such a cause. Bees must have pollen in order to build up in spring and the manipulation of the Langstroth hives very often removes this very necessary item when the bees need it most.

One very common objection to large hives is the higher cost. F. Dundas Todd, the former Apiary Inspector of British Columbia, once called forcible attention to the fallacy of this objection. It is not the cost of a single unit which is to be considered, but the amount of equipment necessary to produce a given amount of honey. Since two hive-bodies are necessary for brood rearing with the Langstroth system, why is it not better to accomplish the same result with one large body like the Dadant? Todd showed very clearly that the total cost of a Dadant hive and sufficient supers for the harvest is actually less than for the outfit necessary to serve the same purpose with Langstroth equipment, even though a single hive-body costs more.