More than 100 years ago, the Dadants wrote:
The last condition which we can mention in the successful prevention of swarming is one which we have been using for years, but which we did not think of in that connection until the matter was brought to our attention by Mr. Allan Latham, in 1916. In exhibiting a hive at the Storrs meeting, Mr. Latham made the remark that the 1 3/8 inch spacing of combs, from center to center, in common use, was a promoter of swarming.
We have used the Quinby spacing of 1 1/2 inches ever since 1866. The bees work as satisfactorily with the one spacing as with the other. In fact, the original advisors of either mode of spacing had no very positive argument to advance in favor of their method. But the 1 1/2 inch spacing gives 1/8 of an inch additional between all the combs for the bees to cluster or move about during the breeding season. This multiplied by the height and length of the hive and by the number of frames gives an addition of 162 cubic inches of clustering space or ventilation, as the case may be. Think of the large number of bees which may be accommodated in such a space.
The standard hives of the present day are nearly all of the narrow kind. Nevertheless, the broader spacing is much the better, for the above named reason and also because it gives easier manipulation and more clustering space for the colony in winter. As we have said, we used the wider spacing for years, but did not realize that our success in swarm prevention was in part due to this spacing. It is undoubtedly of great advantage in the prevention of swarming.
Let it not be understood that we lay any claims to the total prevention of swarming. That is a goal perhaps never to be attained. Neither do we lay any claim to breeding a non-swarming strain. But when some of our most practical beekeepers, such as we have met in the East, acknowledge, as one did, having had as many as 18 swarms out, at the same hour, in one apiary, we believe there is need generally of a more thorough understanding of the causes of natural swarming.
comment: This means 9 frames in a 10 frame box. (I use 8 or 9 in the honey supers)
PLB
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