The ten-frame "Dadant hive," contains 1890 square inches of comb or 540 square inches more than the 10-frame Langstroth. That this brood chamber is sufficient and the 10-frame Langstroth insufficient, for the average prolific queen, in spring, was ascertained positively by us when, about 1876, we handled several hundred of these hives under exactly the same management, side by side with 110 10-frame Langstroth hives, which we had leased for honey production from an old Missouri beekeeper by the name of Barlow. During the month of May quite a number of the Langstroth colonies, having been given supers of built combs, began to breed in those supers, while none of the queens in the Quinby-Dadant hives occupied the supers. This was clear evidence that it took more than one story of Langstroth ten frame size to supply a good queen with sufficient breeding room, at the time when we must marshal our forces for the harvest. 

Additional evidences of the superiority of a large brood chamber were plentiful when the results were weighed. Aside from the fact that numerous old time beekeepers sang the praise of large hives, even when only logs or boxes, we found that the increased population, from ample breeding room given to the queen, unhampered by divisions or spaces, secured a much increased harvest. Perhaps the most cogent evidence that we can cite is the opinion of a farmer's wife on whose farm we had located an apiary composed of both Dadant large hives and ordinary Langstroth hives in about equal number, managed in the same manner. We were paying these people for the rental of the apiary site, in a share of the crop. The lady, who was a very keen manager, asked us one day why we had brought any small hives to their farm; why we did not keep those hives at home. She did not think we treated them fairly, for she could very plainly see that the large crops came from the large hives and she gave us to understand that she objected strenuously to our keeping an apiary at their farm in future, unless we kept only large hives there. Although we had seen for ourselves the advantages of large brood-chambers, nothing brought the matter to our notice more forcibly than this avaricious complaint. 

Dadant System of Beekeeping
By Camille Pierre Dadant
1920

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