XHB: BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



97 



become lessened and uncertain, sometimes 

 failint; altogether. It is no uncommon 

 thiut; for there to be considerable bloom of 

 honey plants and little or no nectar secret- 

 ed. The favorable localities for honey pro- 

 duction are becoming fewer and fewer, and 

 unless the causes that have produced these 

 changes can be eliminated, speciality in 

 bee-keeping will in time be practically a 

 thing of the past, and bee-keeping will be- 

 come a mere department of farming except 

 a small part carried on by persons of leisure 

 or those unable to do laborious work. 



Under these changed conditions the nec- 

 tar when secreted is often produced so slow- 

 ly that the bees are apt to lounge about 

 spending their time tearing away the foun- 

 dation in the sections and filling up cracks 

 with the wax and daubing it about on the 

 sections and inner parts of the hive, single 

 depth supers containing twenty-eight, seven - 

 to-the-foot sections used to be of about the 

 right size for tiering up but now they seem 

 to be large. Every thing may work favor- 

 ably with the first super, especially if the 

 sections contain a certain amount of drawn 

 comb, but the bees are likely to be discourag- 

 ed if the nectar comes in slowly when the 

 second super is put on, if the sections con- 

 tain only foundation. 



Under such circumstances I think it would 

 be a good idea to try contraction of the su- 

 pers. To practice contraction it is neces- 

 sary to remove partially finished sections 

 with the adhering bees and to place the sec- 

 tions in another super. This would be 

 a troublesome and an annoying opperation 

 with the T super. Section holder supers 

 would be considerably better for the pur- 

 pose, but they possess one disadvantage, 

 and that is the trouble in lifting out the first 

 section holder at the place where the section 

 holders are to be taken out, causing un- 

 necessary work and trouble. Wide frame 

 supers are superior to either kind of super 

 mentioned for practicing contraction. A 

 frame can be easily and quickly lifted out 

 anywhere in one of these supers after it, 

 and the separators attached to it, and the 

 sections it contains, are loosened from the 

 adjoining parts. 



The new Heddon wide frame super would 

 be the handiest super to contract. The tin 

 supports fur the frames are just the thing to 

 support the floor at the bottom of the 

 cavities at each side of the frames, still it 

 may be possible to make hanging wide frame 



supers just as handy by nailing tins on 

 their end pieces at their inner lower corners. 

 These tins should not project inward any 

 farther than is absolutely necessary. One 

 eighth of an inch is far enough. The floor 

 of each cavity beside the frames should 

 reach from the frames to the side of the 

 super and have the division board rest on it. 

 It may consist of one piece or it may con- 

 sist of strips hinged together at each end 

 with a strip of leather. The latter is pref- 

 erable for it allows of adjustment accord- 

 ing to the number of frames. These strips 

 should be as wide as the distance across the 

 end of each frame upright and the separa- 

 tor, except those next to the frames which 

 should be given enough of extra width to 

 cover the distance from the first frame to 

 the side of the super when the super is filled 

 with frames. Three eighths of an inch is 

 thick enough for the strips. The inner edge 

 of those next to the frames should be cut 

 away along the frame bottom bars so as to 

 give sufficient bee space between them and 

 the frame bottom bars. The inner corners 

 of the division boards should also be cut 

 away to give the proper bee space along 

 them and the top and bottom bars. The 

 division boards can be nailed to the inner 

 strips or hinged to them, probably the latter. 



A stout wire nail should be driven into the 

 upper side of each strip at the middle 

 lift them by. The leather hinges at each 

 end of the strips need only one nail in 

 each to attach them, and this should be 

 driven into the center of tha strips Wi th 

 such an arrangement it would be compara- 

 tively easy to arrange a super for contrac- 

 tion, but with loose pieces to handle con- 

 traction would be almost sure to prove un- 

 satisfactory. It could be practiced with 

 the old fashioned section clamps, two or 

 more of which cover the top of a hive. They 

 are inferior for the purpose to the wide 

 frame super arranged as I have stated. I 

 never liked these clamps. 



The value of contraction can only be 

 found out by actual test and I think it wor- 

 thy of trial. I know of no fair trial of it. 

 Several years ago contraction of supers was 

 recommended for trial in getting finished as 

 many as possible of the partially finished 

 sections usually on hand toward the close of 

 the honey harvest, but I guess nothing came 

 of it. 



I think it would be a good idea for those 

 who can conveniently do so to try Mr. 



