THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



27 



the advantag-es of the one are made to 

 supplement the shortcomings of the other 

 throug-hout the whole apiary and through 

 the whole season. 



At the beginning of the season ail 

 colonies that do not seem likely to begin 

 work at once in the supers are given a 

 set of extracting combs. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING BEES STARTED 

 IN SUPERS EARLY IN THE SEASON. 



The bees will begin storing honey in 

 these readily, thus forming the habit of 

 storing in the supers early, which is very 

 important. The ideal condition for a 

 colony at the beginning of the honey 

 flow would be to have every cell in the 

 brood chamber full of either brood or 

 honey, so that the very first gathered 

 must, perforce be stored in the super. 

 Since we cannot well secure this, it is 

 well, as the next best thing, to get them 

 started there as soon as possible. Bait 

 combs are good in their way, but even 

 a whole super full of drawn combs in 

 sections is not as good as a super of nice 

 extracting combs for this purpose. This 

 super of extracting combs may be left on 

 until it is completed, a super of sections 

 being tiered under it as soon as it is well 

 under way, but 1 prefer to remove it in 

 most cases as it is about half full. I 

 would rather leave it on, but the bees 

 show such a preference for the combs 

 that unless the honey flow is very heavy 

 they will do little or nothing at the sec- 

 tions until the combs are completed. 



There will always be some colonies 

 that will not do good work in the sec- 

 tions, because they are not strong enough 

 in numbers, because they are not good 

 comb builders, or because they do not 

 cap their honey nicely. The extracting 

 combs may be tiered up on these to any 

 desired height and left to be finished. If 

 these colonies get into good comb honey 

 condition before the end of the honey 

 flow, the combs may be removed, ex- 

 tracted, and stored away until they are 

 needed again. When a colony swarms, 

 its comb supers should go with the 

 swarm, while a set of extracting combs 

 should be placed on the old colony. Any 

 colony that at any time during the honey 

 flow, is found to be doing poor work in 

 the sections, should have those sections 

 promptly removed and replaced with a 

 set of extracting combs. 



As the season draws to a close, instead 

 of giving sections that may not be com- 

 pleted, give extracting combs to the 

 colonies that are doing the poorest work 

 in the sections, giving their sections to 

 others to be completed. 



In this way you not only secure a 



larger amount of finished honey, but you 

 avoid having a lot of unfinished sections 

 to carry over until the next season, and 

 which would much better be still in the 

 crate in which they came from the 

 factory. My article in August Review 

 of last year goes into detail in some 

 directions more than I have here. 



Of course, a queen excluding honey 

 board is a practical necessity on every 

 hive that has one of these sets of ex- 

 tracting combs, but the advantages of 

 this are so great and so many that I 

 would not undertake to go without it, and 

 every hive that contains a colony strong 

 enough to store honey is supplied with 

 one. 1 use the wood-zinc board, as no 

 other form will keep the exact bee-spaces 

 that are so necessary for rapid and con- 

 venient handling. 



ADVANTAGES OF A SHALLOW EXTRACTING 

 SUPER, 



My extracting supers are six inches 

 deep, just the same as the brood cham- 

 bers, the only difference being that the 

 space occupied by eight frames in the 

 brood chamber is filled by seven in the 

 upper. These frames have a projecting 

 top bar resting in a rabbet at the top of 

 the hive, but have close fitting end bars, 

 pressed closely together by a screw 

 through the side of the hive, as in the 

 Heddon hive. This continual pressure 

 keeps out the propolis, or if any gets in it 

 is squeezed out so that accumulations 

 cause no trouble. 



These supers can be handled any side 

 up about as safely as if they were so 

 many blocks of solid wood. No frames 

 are ever handled separately until they 

 come to the extracting room, when the 

 screws are loosened and the whole 

 dumped out upside down. They are 

 freed from bees by the use of a bee 

 escape or by Rambler's jouncer, a valu- 

 able invention, though 1 had used the 

 same principle for a long time. It will 

 be seen that the change from one kind of 

 a super to another requires very little 

 time or handling. 



Briefly, the advantages of the system 

 are that you secure more honey, a higher 

 grade of comb honey, save a great deal 

 of waste, and do it with a control of the 

 bees and an economy of labor that can 

 be secured by no other method that I am 

 familiar with. 



This IS not theory. I first gave this 

 system to the public about fourteen years 

 ago, and, for a longer time than that, it 

 has been the plan on which my apiaries 

 have been managed. 



Grand Junction, Colo., Nov. 13, 1903. 



