178 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Makch, 1919 



inner case, chaff tray, division-board, bot- 

 tom-board, entrance-closer, two or three 

 deep or four or five shallow supers furnished 

 with frames containing full sheets of foun- 

 dation. The hive body, or lower story of 

 the hive, rests immediately upon the floor- 

 board which has at the front an entrance- 

 contractor for regulating the size of the en- 

 trance. At each upper end of this box or 

 hive is a metal support, or rabbet, holding 

 suspended lengthwise of the body ten mov- 

 able Langstroth frames 9%xl7% inches in 

 size. Inside of these frames, attached to 

 the top-bar by means of wax, and supported 

 by fine wires, are full sheets of foundation, 

 or beeswax stamped with an impression of 

 the natural base and central walls of honey- 

 comb. During the honey flow, or while the 

 bees are being fed, new wax is added to 

 these shallow walls, and the foundation 

 built out into comb for storing honey and 

 raising young bees. Here in this lower 

 hive or lower story, called the brood-cham- 

 ber, all the young bees are raised, the queen 

 being allowed to lay eggs only in this story. 

 (Exceptions to this statement will be men- 

 tioned later.) 



As soon as the bees seem to need more 

 room there is placed above the brood-cham- 

 ber a queen-excluder,' which is an arrange- 

 ment of perforated zinc, or of wire rods, 

 which allows the workers to pass freely 

 back and forth between the lower and the 

 ujiper chambers, but excludes the queetti 



from the upper story on account of her 

 larger size. When producing extracted hon- 

 ey this excluder is necessary in order to 

 keep the queen from laying in the supers or 

 upper stories that contain the surplus honey. 

 A few beekeepers allow the queen access to 

 any or all of the supers, but we can not rec- 

 ommend this; for, besides the extra trouble 

 and inconvenience, the practice also results 

 in a poorer grade of honey. 



Over the queen-excluder is placed the su- 

 per filled with frames of foundation. The 

 super is a plain dovetailed box without top 

 or bottom. The inside dimensions may be 

 the same as that of the lower double-walled 

 brood-chamber, or it may be shallower. Some 

 prefer shallow rather than deep supers, as 

 they are lighter and more easily handled, 

 may be put on early in the spring with less 

 loss of heat from the brood, and make it 

 possible to keep separate, in different su- 

 pers, different flows of honeys varying in 

 color and flavor, such as clover and buck- 

 wheat. Some advocate deep supers so that 

 all the frames in the hive will be inter- 

 changeable, which is certainly a handy ar- 

 rangement. Others compromise by having 

 one deep super for each hive and two or 

 three shallow ones. This arrangement makes 

 it possible to give the queen access to two 

 stories when desired, and yet to retain most 

 of the advantages of shallow supers. Over 

 the super is placed a thin inner cover or 

 early in the season, when no super is used. 



EXTRACTED HONEY OUTFIT 

 1, Extracted-honey super; 2, bee-brush 3, Lee-hat and veil; 4, smoker; 5, hive-tool; 6, queen-excluder; 

 7, honey-knife; 8, extractor; 9, tray for winter packing; 10, telescope cover; 11, double-walled hive; 12, en- 

 trance-closer; 13, bottom-board; 14, frame of foundation; 15, tight-fitting divisian-board ; 16, inner cover 



oyer (1) but not shown in cut. 



