September, 1916. 



309 



American Hee Journal 



even able to occupy one section of the 

 brood-nest. This also applies to strong 

 colonies in short flows and bad years. 

 Some beekeepers state that when the 

 ordinary shallow extracting super is 

 used there will be just as much honey 

 obtained under such conditions as with 

 the sectional hive. The disadvantages 

 of this method, however,- are that all 

 parts are not interchangeable, and a 

 comb of honey cannot be taken out of 

 the brood-chamber and placed in the 

 extracting super; also, there are two 

 sizes of supers, two different sizes of 

 frames, and different sized sheets of 

 foundation to buy. In the sectional 

 hive every part is interchangeable. 



The interchangeable feature of the 

 super and brood-chamber on sectional 

 hives is said to enable colonies to bu\ld 

 up faster in the spring and to render 

 the stimulation of brood rearing much 

 easier. Usually a colony is wintered 

 in two sections (which have a capacity 

 about equal to a ten frame Langstroth). 

 These two sections are usually large 

 eiough for the early part of the breed- 

 ing season; the upper section is filled 



OBSERVING THE CONDITION OF A COLONY WITHOUT REMOVING.FRAMES 



SluiUuu- Hive Complete. 

 Fig. 5.— Louis Scholl's Hive 



with brood first, then the sections are 

 transposed. The devotees of this hive 

 claim that it is surprising to see how 

 soon the queen will now fill the trans- 

 posed combs with eggs. 



Many sectional hive beekeepers first 

 adopted this style of hive because they 

 found that the bees, in deep hives, very 

 often store a rim of honey above the 

 brood in the brood-chamber. Once 

 this has been done the bees are loath 

 to go up and work in the supers. With 

 the brood-nest in two shallow stories 

 the sections are transposed and the 

 rim of honey thus kept away from 

 above the brood. Beekeepers who use 

 the divisible brood-chamber hive say 

 that the expansion of the brood-nest 

 upwards is in keeping with the nature 



FIG. 6— ONTARIO AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE SHOWING 



THE FOREGROUND 



HEDDON HIVES IN 



of the bees, and produces better re- 

 sults, as the same amount of heat gen- 

 erated by the bees will warm a much 

 larger area above than at the side of 

 the brood-nest. As to the stimulating 

 feature, the transposing of the shallow 

 stories before the honey season begins 

 is claimed to be one of the very best 

 ways of stimulating the queen to greater 

 egg laying. 



With the deep frame hives this ma- 

 nipulation is also possible, but it in- 

 volves more labor and the prevention 

 of the swarming fever (it is claimed) 

 cannot be so well accomplished. There 

 are several objections offered to this 

 transposing feature of the hive by bee- 

 keepers who have tried it. In the first 

 place they claim that they have no 

 trouble with a rim of honey along the 

 top of the frames in this brood-cham- 

 ber. They also claim that this storage 

 of honey is due to the stretching of 

 the cells along the top-bar caused 

 by improper wiring, which results in 

 the foundation sagging and stretching 

 the cells. These stretched cells are 

 only suitable for the storage of honey. 

 They also found that exchanging the 

 two brood sections does not always 

 result in forcing the honey along the 

 top-bars into the surplus boxes. It 

 works reasonably well, they say, pro- 

 viding the change is made before the 

 honey is sealed ; if it is sealed the bees 

 will remove very little except in two 

 or thite central combs. It was also 

 stated that the queen, in spring, is slow 

 in crossing over from one section to 

 another to lay and start a brood-nest 

 there. 



E. Eggeman says: " Scores of times 

 I have seen enough surplus bees to 

 cover and nurse a Langstroth frame of 

 brood, clustering in bee-way spaces 

 and empty combs for a week or more 

 waiting until they get strong enough 

 in numbers for the queen to start a 

 patch of brood in that part. After 

 steady warm weather I could see but 

 little difference between the Langstroth 

 and the sectional hive as to the amount 

 of brood cared for." 



[To be continued]. 



