For comb-honey production the brood chamber should be of such a size
that by proper management it may be well filled with brood at the
beginning of the honey flow, so that the brood and surplus apartments
maybe definitely separated. A brood chamber may be considered too large
if by proper management it is not on an average fairly well filled with
brood at the beginning of the honey flow, and too small if it provides
an average of less room than the colony is able to occupy with brood
previous to the honey flow. Unless the beekeeper practices feeding, a
brood chamber that does not contain sufficient room for both winter
stores and brood rearing during late summer and autumn may also be
considered too small. It may be well to note that by this standard
if the brood chamber seems to be too large the fault may lie in the
management during the previous autumn, winter, or spring. Of course the
brood chamber that is barely large enough for one colony will be too
large for another in the same apiary or the character of the season may
be such that all brood chambers may be too large for best results one
season and too small the next, so an average must be sought. While by
manipulation good results may be secured by the use of any of the sizes
in common use, any great departure in either direction from the size
best suited to conditions of a given locality necessitates an excessive
increase in labor to give best results. There is at the present
time a strong tendency toward the use of the 10-frame hive body as
a medium-sized brood chamber which may be used as a unit of a larger
elastic brood chamber when necessary.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Perforated zinc queen excluder. (From
Phillips.)]
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