FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 653 



I am physically unable to do hard manual labor. 



For these reasons I am using all short cuts possible in handling 

 my bees. 



Now let us go over the various manipulations necessary to produce 

 a crop of honey and I will touch only on such parts as vary more or 

 less from the teachings we find in our books and magazines. 



We will commence the fall previous to the production of our crop, 

 say from the 2.5th of Augxtst to the 1st of September. 



Our comb honey supers have been all taken from the hives, and in 

 their place have been put shallow extracting supers, containing worker 

 combs, all except possibly the two outside frames, whicih may contain 

 some drone cells. 



It will not be necessary to look to these bees again until after a 

 killing frost the last of September or first of October. 



During the month of October I go over my apiaries carefully and 

 examine each colony, if any have more supplies than they need I take 

 out frames of honey from the extracting super and replace with empty 

 combs. 



If any are short of stores I add frames of sealed honey in the super, 

 but I neve7- take honey from the brood chamber. 



These supers are of considerable importance to catch any late fall 

 flow, and again there will be some of the colonies that have produced 

 comb honey whose brood chambers contain too much stores, in which 

 case the bees will carny these extra stores up into the super, thereby 

 relieving the brood chamber. 



(I once lost at least one-half of a fall flow from red clover, the first week 

 in September, by not having a super of any kind on my hives at this 

 time.) 



Now, I want to say that these supers remain on my strong colonies 

 all the year or from the time the oomb supers are taken off in August 

 and until they go back on in June. 



They give extra room and ventilation, during the winter, and room 

 for storage and brood during the spring. 



In fact they become a part of the brood chambers at this time and 

 when they are changed for the comb supers th,e bees more treadily start 

 work in the sections because they are accustomed to storing above the 

 brood frames. 



Our bees in Iowa should be put in the cellar about the 1st to 10th 

 of December. I put mine in rows and tier them up three high, with an 

 alley about three feet wide between; hives facing the alley so I can 

 pass through and note the condition of them at a glance. 



The hives are set on the frame, about fifteen inches from the floor, 

 so they slope slightly toward the back of the hive. 



I don't expect any moisture to condense and run out of the entrance 

 for my cellar is dry, but I do expect to run water in at the entrance 

 before I set them out in the spring. 



Of course the heaviest colonies I place on the first row at the bottom, 

 and as fast as I put them in I break the sealed cover loose and put a 

 piece of section between the cover and hive so the weight of the hives 



