November, 19l2. 



American Hee Journal 



knowledge that you may be able to eive me 

 on the matter. F. J. Severin. 



Imoerial. Calif. 



Since we are using the shallow 

 frames for e.xtracted-honey production 

 as we'll as for comb honey, and we 

 have found them very satisfactory in 

 our hands, there is no reason why 

 others should not be as successful 

 with them as we have been. We claim 

 that we have some advantages over 

 deeper frames, chief among them is 

 the matter of being able to provide 

 'just as much room as is needed, which 

 IS i|uite an item with weak colonies or 

 during a poor season. 



Another important matter is, that 

 we can use lighter weight foundation 

 in these shallow frames, and when the 

 supers are full they can be removed 

 with much more rapidity, as the bees 

 are easily cleared out of them with a 

 little smoking and jarring. Handling 

 the lO-frame shallow supers as a whole 

 in all the various manipulations instead 

 of frames only, is quite a saving of 

 time and labor. This cannot be done 

 so successfully with deep frames; tirst, 

 because the deep 10-frame hive full 

 would be too much of a load, at least 

 to handle for any length of time; and, 

 second, the bees could not be gotten 

 out of them without considerable 

 brushing of individual frames and irri- 

 tation of the bees. One slice with the 

 uncapping knite across the face of the 

 shallow comb would uncap an entire 

 side without digging over the surface 

 of the deeper combs that are never so 

 regular as a general rule. And while 

 some persons argue that there are so 

 many more frames to handle, the ad- 

 vantages that are gained by handling 

 them far overbalance this. The Da- 

 dants are extensive users of the shal- 

 low extracting frames, and they are 

 large extracted-honey producers. 



In our experience, and after trying 

 all kinds of frames and various meth- 

 ods of spacing, as well as unspaced 

 frames, we have found the shallow 

 Hoffman .5^8 inches deep to suit us 

 better than any other. We have found 

 the closed-end type of frames unsuited 

 to rapid manipulation, especially for 

 extracted honey, where the frames 

 should be easily removed. Besides, 

 frames should be easily constructed so 

 that they will fit anywhere, in supers or 

 brood-chambers alike — there should 

 not be any spacing arrangement that 

 necessitates a super being used as such 

 only, and a brood-chamber not being 

 used as a super, or rvcc versa. There 

 need not be any tin rabbets in the su- 

 pers equipped with the shallow Hoff- 

 man frames, as we are using over tJiXHl 

 shallow hives without them. That 

 helps to cheapen the hive, and yet does 

 not make the hive any worse off for 

 the most practical uses. 



It may be well to state that the Hoflf- 

 man frames used by us, and many 

 others, are made with 3i-inch thick 

 and ;s-inch wide top-bar in lieu of the 

 regular wide top-bar usually placed on 

 the market. The wide ones act too 

 much like a queen-excluder with us 

 while the other gives freer communi- 

 cation between the several chambers 

 of the hives — a great advantage for bet- 

 ter results. This style is known pretty 

 generally here in Texas as the "Scholl 

 Shallow Frames," because the writer 



was the first to advocate it to any 

 great extent. We received, several 

 weeks ago, a letter from one supply 

 dealer in San Antonio, saying : "We 



ordered from the Coitipany 14,(XI() 



Scholl Style Frames the past season." 

 For our own use we purchased a car- 

 load of the shallow supers with :!(1,000 

 such frames to equip theyooo supers in 

 the car. 



We would not advise making the 

 frames, as not very much can be saved 

 by doing so, and the irregularity in fit- 

 ting in the hives is a great detriment 

 toward rapid manipulation, and a loss 

 of time, and, consequently, of money. 

 It is far better to expend a little more 

 on machine-made goods that fit per- 

 fectly. Fortunately there are so many 

 distributing houses of supplies now 

 that the freight rates are not high. If 

 only a few are needed it will be well 

 enough to make them, and in that 



supers for protection in the honey 

 house, there seems to be quite an ad- 

 vantage, since robbing, one of the worst 

 evils in treating contagious diseases, 

 could be prevented to a far greater ex- 

 tent. 



But there are many things that 

 could be said about this kind of hive 

 and it would take up too much room 

 to attempt more. The best thing to 

 do is to try a few side by side with 

 others, exactly like we did years ago. 

 If they suit you, adopt more of them 

 after awhile, but go slow about it. If 

 they do not suit you the investment 

 put into a few will not be a great loss, 

 if a loss at all, since such things can 

 always be disposed of again. 



One thing must be remembered; 

 when divisible brood-chamber hives 

 are adopted, the methods that ought to 

 be used with them should also be -adopt- 

 ed. It is of no use to try to handle the 



San Antonio Convention. 



event cypress lumber could be used, as 

 it is very good hive lumber. 



Moving bees extensively every year, 

 besides shipping them in carload lots, 

 has taught us that the shallow frame 

 hives will ship better than the deep 

 kind. There is not so much swinging 

 of the shallow frames, and they are 

 never fastened below like deep frames 

 must be. The strain is so much greater 

 on the deeper combs than on the shal- 

 low ones. So there is no drawback, 

 but a decided advantage. We have 

 never fastened the frames at all, not 

 even the top-bars, in all our moving. 



There seems to be no good reason 

 why the divisible brood-chamber hives 

 should be left alone in sections where 

 foul brood is prevalent any more than 

 other frame hives. We may be mis- 

 taken about some of our views, how- 

 ever, since we have not had any ex- 

 perience with brood diseases in' our 

 own apiaries. But it seems to us that 

 there would be a decided advantage in 

 this respect, since the various manipu- 

 lations of the bees in the treatment 

 of foul brood or other contagious dis- 

 eases could be done so much more 

 rapidly and easily. 



In the case of freeing the shallow 

 stories of bees, shaking the bees into 

 other or new hives, getting the bees 

 out of them quickly and removing the 



shallow frames like deep ones when 

 they should be handled by the super 

 full at all times possible. The very 

 first thing then is to learn to handle 

 supers instead of frames, and this once 

 learned, it is possible to manipulate the 

 colonies in such a way at various times 

 that the best results can be obtained 

 with a minimum of labor and a maxi- 

 mum of profit. 



The San Antonio National Bee-Keepers' 

 Convention 



A goodly number of the American 

 Bee Journal readers will remember the 

 bee-keepers' convention held in San 

 Antonio several years ago. The writ- 

 er's memory was awakened back to 

 that time by the accompanying snapshot 

 taken one evening, as the crowd was 

 marching out from the Assembly Hall 

 after adjournment of one of the meet- 

 ings. If we are not mistaken, it was 

 when the guests were on their way to 

 the famous Mexican restaurant, well 

 known to San Antonio visitors, where 

 the so much talked-about Mexican 

 banquet was given to the visiting bee- 

 keepers. 



The one thing that was of the most 

 interest when this picture was discov- 

 ered in my desk, is the fact of the cen- 

 tral figure, in the front group, being no 



