1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



663 



THE T SUPER. 



Dli. .MII.LKi: OVEIiCOMKS 

 TION'f 



SOME OF ITS (tH.ri:r- 



I sliall \»' ratlicr sur|)ris('il if. w ithiii a few 

 years. I do not tiiul soiuctliin^ I like bi'tU'r tlian 

 the T sui)('i\ As yet. liowcvcr. I liavc not S(>('ii 

 it. In the meantini(> I am doing all I can to 

 learn how to oven-come the objections to it. I 

 susjject that some who have tried it have not 

 known how to use il jiroperly. Certainly I 

 have leainefl something in this direction sincc^ 

 tirst using it. A very fair summing-up of the 

 disadvantages of the T super may be found on 

 page ()'.i of the latest edition of the'A B C. They 

 are given undei' three heads: and a fourth, un- 

 til lately, wonld have been added by me. I will 

 speak of it again. Tnder the tirst head, friend 

 Root says: "Open-side .sections, which of late 

 (1889) are growing in favor, can not be used in 

 it." If I remember I'ightly I have seen it stated 

 that of late the call for open-side sections has 

 not been large, and I have had the impression 

 that they were rather growing out of favor. 

 How is it now. friend Roof? In any case. I 

 think there are some who. like myself, have 

 tried and rejected the open-side sections, and 

 for such this tii'st objection to the T super does 

 not hold. 



A B (.' gives objection ;.': " As the upright of 

 the T takes about ^ of an inch, it leaves spaces 

 between the rows of sections, which the l^ees 

 are inclined to fill with propoli.s One- 

 piece sections have a tendency to lie dia- 

 mond-shaped: .... they come out of the 

 super a little bit out of square." This is putting 

 it very mildly. Instead of j^, the upright of my 

 T tins has i"„. The sui)er is 17i^ long, inside 

 measure, and four of the 4I4 sections meastire 

 17 inches, leaving '^s space for play. And the 

 sections do play. They slouch around in all 

 sorts of shajjes. iea\ing sjjaces anywhere from 

 nothing to -'h of an inch for the bees to till with 

 glue. Often tin,' side of a section for more; than 

 two-thii'ds of its length will be entirely covered 

 with propolLs. some of it a fourth of an inch 

 thick. I am liap])y to say that I have entirely 

 overcome this objection. In getting ready for 

 the harvest of 18<K). I ordered oT A. I. Root 'sejj- 

 arator stuff cut 12 inches by }-4. enough to have 

 three pieces for each super. This, of coui'se. 

 meant stuff ,\ thick. When it came it was 12 

 by I4. but the thickiK'ss varied, averaging about 

 ^s of 'du inch. I was taken aback. It would 

 leave no play whatever to get in these three 

 sticks, and it would be sim|)ly impossible to g<'t 

 them in. Rut in this, as in many another case. 

 I found myself mistaken. Although it made a 

 tight lit. thei'e was no great trouble in getting 

 them in. "\'ou understand that, after the supers 

 were filled with sections, and the seitarators all 

 in. these little sticks weic pushed down across 

 the supers in the sjjaces left between the rows 

 of sections, so that four sections. 414 each, and 

 three sticks each 's in thickne.s.s. just exactly 

 tilled the supei'. 



I do not know of an\ new thing I have tried 

 this year that has jjleased me as much as these 

 little sticks. Every section is held peilectly 

 true and S(iuar<'. having no chance to be other- 

 wise, unless so much out of S(|uare that one end 

 of the section rises uj). which it would do jusl 

 as much in a Moore crate. The sides of the 

 sections are. of course, entirely clean. Xot a 

 l)ee has a chance to get at them. 



In using these little sticks I found another 

 advantage not to be desj)ised. B<'for<^ I tried 

 them I tliought it would be hai'der to di'aw out 

 a single seetion held in place by the sticks, and 

 harder to put it back. To my suri)rise I found 

 it sonu'what easier to draw out. and a gi'i'at 



deal easier to put in. Thei'e is less surface 

 fricti(jn. In imtting in a single secti(jn without 

 the sticks, the s(>ctioii generally strikes on the 

 upright of the T. and you can"t push it to one 

 side enough to slide it down. The two sticks 

 make a play-space of J4 inch all the way from 

 the sticks to the T, allowing you to move the 

 bottom of the section back and forth to strike 

 the right sjmt. 



I don't know by what sort of bungling friend 

 Root sent sticks S thick when I asked for sep- 

 arator stuff, but I"m sure I don't w'ant them 

 any less. 



The third objection the A B C makes to the 

 T super is. tliat it is not an easy matter to 

 make the central and outside rows change 

 places. Friend Root, would you make such 

 change if it were easy? Is there any advan- 

 tage in it? C. C. MiLLEi!. 



INIarengo, 111.. Aug. 2.5. 



Yes, friend M.. open-side sections, in the early 

 part of 188U, seemed to be growing in favor, but, 

 for some reason or other, have been growing 

 le.ss and less popular. We made special auto- 

 matic machinery, so that we could make tlu^m 

 at the same price as the regular two-beeway 

 section; but now there is scarcely a call for 

 them. The tirst objection, then, does not bear 

 very hard against the T super. Objection No. 

 2 can be obviated by the little sticks, but it 

 seems to me as if they would be a good deal of a 

 nuisance. We have three loose T tins, and then, 

 after that, three more sticks — six pieces besides 

 the'T-super shell itself to hold the separators 

 and sections. I do not know, friend M., unless 

 it was the great rush during the past season, 

 how we came to give you separator stuff thicker 

 than you ordered. I am very glad now if our 

 oversight was a blessing in disguise. The last 

 objection still holds. On my trip among the 

 York State bee-keepers I found that those ex- 

 tensive bee-keepers, many of them, prefer some 

 arrangement whereby they can shift the out- 

 side row of sections to the inside, and v/cc versa. 

 That is wliy, fricmd M.. I like section-holders. 

 By the way. Elwood uses almost identically our 

 section-holder: or perhaps, rather. I should say, 

 we are using his. See Notes of Travel else- 

 where. Hethei'ington uses tl^e T-snper arrange- 

 ment. 



^ — • — ■ 



IN-AND-IN BREEDING. 



IS IT IN.TI'HIOl'S? 



A correspondent writes, that in his apiary of 

 7.5 colonies he has two colonies which cap tluMr 

 honev very white, with very even combs. IRi 

 says that he would like to propagate these bees 

 for this sp(>cial (imility. and desires to know 

 whelhei' the rearing of (lueens from one ami 

 drones fiom the other will do. as the twotiueens 

 are sisters. He thinks that such in-and- 

 in bleeding might tend to make the future 

 generations of his l)ei's weakly. If we were 

 sure that both ])arentages were alike, there 

 might be some chance of making our bees weak 

 by in-and-in lireeding: but as it is almost cer- 

 tain that they are not. such breeding as he 

 proposes could not be directly in-and-in breed- 

 ing. \Viiile 1 do not indorse the Dziei/.on the- 



