1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



947 



COMB HONEY PRODUCED WITHOUT 

 SEPARATORS. 



How to Make the Bees Occupy the Whole 

 of the Super at Once; Keeping the 

 Brood-nest Free from Surplus Hon- 

 ey; Preventing Swarming. 



BY ROLAND SHERBURNE. 



The reading of Mr. Hand's article in Dec. 1st 

 issue, page 1503, on the size and shape of sec- 

 tions, prompts me to give something of my ex- 

 perience. I have raised tons of comb honej- 

 without separators— in fact, I have never used 

 them. It is to be hoped that some one will find 

 a better plan than any we now have; but if I had 

 to use separators to produce good comb honey 

 I would give it up and run for extracted entirely. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I want to protest most em- 

 phatically against extracted-honey producers tell- 

 ing us how to produce comb honey. The latter 

 is a science in itself, and has little in common 

 with the former. No man is in position to give 

 advice on this subject unless he has made a success 

 of raising comb honey himself, or at least has been 

 intimately connected with it. Again, in extra 

 good seasons we may get inflated ideas that will 

 require the next two or three years to get rid of. 

 My experience has led me to advise large hives 

 and plenty of room when running for extracted 

 honey, and a small brood-chamber as a working 

 basis when running for comb honey. 



I want to say a word in favor of the much used 

 and much abused i\^X4'4 7-to-the-foot section. 

 One trouble Iwith section-supers and brood- 

 chambers is, there are too many misfits. Some 

 put a T super or a super without separators over 

 a ten-frame Langstroth body, and expect fine 

 section honey. The result is nearly always a 

 failure. Such large hives should always have a 

 section super with separators, so if the bees have 

 a mind to commence somewhere in it during a 

 good honey-flow they must build straight combs. 

 He does not blame the large brood-chamber — oh, 

 no ! He condemns the super. A year or two 

 ago some one wrote that the T super was 

 the poorest of all he had Iried. I think he 

 toljd the truth; yet I would like to add that I 

 presume his super and brood-chamber were a 

 miserable misfit. If a man wears a pair of boots 

 that are too large or too small he will surely 

 blame the boots for hurting — not himself for 

 wearing them. My experience has been that an 

 eight or ten frame full-depth Langstroth brood- 

 chamber is too large as a working basis for any 

 comb-honey super holding 28 sections without 

 separators, to give best results. 



I use a modified T super with -j',; stationary 

 cleats on the sides for bee space outside the sec- 

 tions, and bodies with closed-end frames that meet 

 the requirements in our locality as nearly as I 

 can make them. In fact, I am working along 

 diflPerent lines at the same time. I handle hive- 

 bodies and half-bodies as horizontal divisible 

 brood-chaml:)ers. I never handle frames in the 

 brood-nest. 



Thirteen years ago 1 commenced using T su- 

 pers without separators, separated with wood-zinc 

 queen-excluding boards from hives with eight 

 frames six inches deep. If two swarms went 



together, so much the better. The results were 

 great; nearly all the honey was stored in the sec- 

 tions, which were often filled first. However, 

 there was not enough honey left in the 

 brood-chamber. The hive was too weak in bees 

 and honey at the end of the early flow to recuper- 

 ate for the fall flow if we had one. These six- 

 inch bodies were to be used double as a brood- 

 chamber the next spring and summer; but two of 

 them proved too large, as a rule, for best results. 



I next tried eight frames, 7 in. deep, inside 

 measure, thus adding the capacity of one L. 

 frame. Such a body is large enough for an 

 ordinary queen to keep filled with brood without 

 adding an extra seven-inch body. 



Here in Iowa I always prepare for two honey- 

 flows whether they materialize or not — the white 

 clover and fall flow. In the spring I double 

 up all weak colonies until all are reasonably 

 strong and I get them ready for the white clover. 

 My aim is to start the bees to work in the sec- 

 tions without their getting the swarming fever. 

 In this I am fairly successful, though not wholly, 

 of course. -I find that, if I can get the bees hard 

 at work in the sections at first, then giving the 

 right kind of room at the right time, I never 

 have more than 25 up to 40 per cent of the colo- 

 nies run for comb honey that swarm in the worst 

 of seasons. 



I am much taken with Mr. Hand's system, and 

 shall try to work it in as fast as practical the 

 coming year by combining his and mine. I 

 hope to reduce swarming to a minimum. 



I also have 100 or more half-bodies with ex- 

 tracting-frames 4,'4 inches deep, inside measure. 

 I intend to fill as many more as I can of these 

 next season, and I shall use all of them in con- 

 nection with the seven-inch frame. These shal- 

 low extracting-supejs with 4X-inch-deep frame I 

 consider very necessary in a yard run for comb 

 honey, for they can be used in many ways above 

 the brood-nest with a queen-excluder between to 

 give more room and to hold odds and ends of 

 honey before the main flow begins or they may 

 be used, when necessary, to enlarge the brood- 

 nest and give the queen more room, but especially 

 to keep honey out of the brood nest. The old 

 way of adding more full-depth combs does not 

 take or keep honey out; it only gives more room 

 for plugging. The uses to which these shallow 

 half-bodies for extracting can be put have often 

 been told in Gleanings, so I will not speak fur- 

 ther in regard to them. 



A queen that will not keep eight seven-inch 

 frames reasonably full of brood in season is not 

 worth keeping; but some need more room, and 

 they must have it as soon as needed. I make it 

 a rule not to put on a super of sections until the 

 colony is strong enough to fill all or the greater 

 part of it with bees at once. They will soon be 

 working in all the sections, and these will grow 

 naturally and evenly. This is the secret of suc- 

 cess in using sections without separators. We 

 are told to put on sections when the bees com- 

 mence to whiten the combs; but unless the colony 

 is strong the brood-nest will be plugged with 

 honey, and we know what that means. I prefer 

 putting a half-body over a queen-excluder to hold 

 the honey, and waiting a few days. When ready 

 I place the super of sections under the half-body 

 and over the queen-excluder, and then there will 



