602 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Oct. 1 



DETERMINING THE FILLING OF THE SUPERS AND WHETHER THEY ARE READY TO COME OFF 



partly filled. As the season began to draw 

 toward its close, the process was reversed — 

 that is to say, the empties were put on top 

 of those partly filled. 



In order to determine the amount of honey 

 in any super, it is not necessary to take off 

 the cover and pull the hive apart. If it is 

 tiered up four and five stories high, it in- 

 volves a large amount of labor and consider- 

 able lifting t" pull the supers off one by one, 

 inviting the attention of robbers in the op- 

 eration. If one is supplied with a good 

 strong steel hive-tool and a smoker, he can 

 get a fair idea of the filling of any super, 

 without even removing the cover from the 

 hive. In the series of snap shots shown 

 herewith, the reader will be able to gather, 

 almost at a glance, the exact method that we 

 have used in determining what the bees 

 were doing. 



Let us take a concrete example. We will 

 start with the hive shown in Fig. 5. It has 

 three supers. The middle one is the one on 

 \yhich the bees began work first, and at the 

 time of this examination it should be com- 

 pletely filled. The bottom super was placed 

 under after the middle one was about half 

 filled. The third super was put on top be- 

 cause there would probably be not more than 

 a week more of honey-flow. 



At this time we desire to know what the 



bees have actually done; so, without remov- 

 ing the telescope cover on top nor the super 

 cover directly beneath, we extend the thin 

 blade of the hive-tool, broad end, between 

 the two lower supers at the back end of t/ie 

 hive; for one should always endeavor to keep 

 out of the flight of the bees. This is gradu- 

 ally shoved in until the blade has been 

 pushed in anywhere from }2 to a full inch. 

 A gap is now formed, of approximately -,',; 

 inch, just wide enough so that a little smoke 

 will drive back the bees. A slight pressure 

 downward separates the two upper supers 

 about an inch at the back end, when more 

 smoke is blown in. The tool is pushed down 

 a little further, making the gap a little wider 

 still. See Fig. 6. But we are not quite sat- 

 isfied as to the condition of the supers, so we 

 push the tool and supers upward, as shown 

 in Fig. 7, until we have the hive-tool in po- 

 sition as shown in Fig. 8. Here it acts as a 

 prop, when, with the intelligent use of the 

 smoker, we can drive back tne bees enough 

 so that we can see the condition of the two 

 supers, or enough to determine whether the 

 bees need more room. 



But suppose we are not quite satisfied. 

 We turn to the position as shown in Fig. 9, 

 disregard the hive-tool, and lift the two su- 

 pers higher, the hive-tool falling on the 

 ground. When doing this we slide the two 



