GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



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At Borodino, New York 



HOW TO ARRANGE SUPERS ON HIVES. 



Among my many other books on bee culture I 

 have "A Year's Work in an Out-apiary." I note 

 that you advocate putting on two empty supers at 

 the same time. I never tried that plan. What 1 

 want to ask you is this: How would it work to put 

 the sections filled or partly filled with comb for 

 baits in the top super, and none below? Would 

 that not cause the bees to fill the top super first, 

 and thus prevent all travel stain on the lower sec- 

 tions? I know by experience that It pays well to 

 have one bait section in every row of sections. 



In order to answer these questions I must 

 "ramble about" to a certain extent. At the 

 outset I wish to say that "A Year's Work 

 in an Out> apiary " was written from an out- 

 apiary standpoint. In the home apiary I 

 rarely put two supers on any colony at the 

 same time, unless that colony is a very 

 strong one. The reason for this is that I am 

 always on hand to attend to the wants of 

 the bees in the home apiary; and if I had 

 five out-apiaries and the home yard this 

 home yard could have some of my atten- 

 tion at morning and night of the days spent 

 in the out-apiaries, in addition to the whole 

 of the sixth day spent at home. A quarter 

 of a century or more ago we were firm in 

 the conviction that no more super room 

 should be given at one time than the bees 

 could occupy at once. From this convic- 

 tion, one, two, three, or four of the six boxes 

 holding from six to seven pounds each, that 

 the super of the I^angstroth hive accom- 

 modated, were put on at first, little doors 

 in the honey-board over the brood-chamber 

 being fixed to close the entrances for each 

 box when these were not on the hive. On 

 scores of hives I put on only one of these 

 seven-pound boxes at the start of the sea- 

 son; when, if this was occupied wiih bees, 

 one more was added a day or two later, and 

 a little later another, until all six were on. 

 Now, any one will see at a glance that no 

 out-apiary could be worked along this line. 



It will also be seen how apiculture has 

 progressed during the time since Mr. Lang- 

 stroth first put his hive before the apicui- 

 tural world. No "sections" were known at 

 that time: and the term "baits," when first 

 used with sections, had to be explained to 

 the average beekeeper. AViththe arrival of 

 sections came opposition, on the ground 

 that a whole super must be put on at once; 

 and to overcome this objection, Mr. Man- 

 um, of A'ermont, a leading beekeeper of 

 those days, clamped a single row of sections 

 in a very light frame, so that in this way 

 this principle of only a small amount of 

 room at a time could be used with sections 

 the same as had been done with the boxes. 

 These light frames of sections could be put 

 on one at a time till the top of the hive was 

 covered and thus a "bridge" was made that 

 finally spanned the chasm between the one- 

 box-at-a-time theory and the putting on of 

 a whole super of sections covering the whole 

 top of the hive as we do to-day. After a 

 while it was discovered that, by putting in 



bait sections, one in each row. such as our 

 questioner mentions, the bees could be 

 coaxed into this whole super sooner than 

 they would occupy one of the light frames, 

 as made by Mr. Manum, without a bait. 



The next step was to "stretch" the bees 

 out still further; and so as soon as they were 

 well at work in this first super it was raised, 

 and an empty super of sections put under 

 it. This caused the bees to commence work 

 immediately in this empty super, so that 

 they might not have an empty space be- 

 tween the brood below and their treasure 

 house above. This became known as the 

 "tiering-up plan." But many of us soon 

 found that, unless the season proved to be 

 an extra good one, or one long drawn out, 

 we had from one-half to three-fourths of the 

 sections worked in. unfinished at the end of 

 the season, with only a small portion of onr 

 crop in marketable shape; while if we had 

 not tiered up, our marketable product would 

 have been twice as large. From this came 

 the idea of putting the super of empty sec- 

 tions on top of the one the bees were at work 

 in, and then, if more room was needed, the 

 bees would "overflow" into this upper su- 

 per, and work would go on equally well with- 

 out danger of three-fourths of the sections 

 being left in an unfinished state. There was 

 also no danger of the "dish being bottom 

 side up" if there should be an urvexpected 

 "rain of porridge." The objection to this 

 empty upper super on top was that it al- 

 lowed the heat of the colony, and especially 

 of that from the bees at work in the first 

 super, to pass up into this empty one above; 

 and from this loss in temperature the becB 

 could not work in the super next to the 

 brood- chamber to as good advantage. But 

 the observing ones found that the "crust 

 bees" were able to keep the heat in the first 

 super, when needed, by clustering in the 

 beeways between the tops of the sections, so 

 as to keep the heat just where they wanted 

 it, so that the temperature of this empt> 

 super at the top was very little if any warm- 

 er than that of the outside air. 



Turning to the main question of this cor- 

 respondent, if one is at work at the out- 

 apiary, and has a colony so strong that he 

 thinks one super will not be sufficient until 

 he comes again, the two are put on as given 

 in the book. But I hear him asking, "Why 

 not, as I suggest, put the su])er with the 

 baits at the top?" Because the condition 

 would then be almost if not quite the same 

 as in the tiering-up plan. In other words, 

 these baits would be so far away that they 

 would not draw the bees into the supers at 

 all; or if they did. thebees would commence 

 in both supers at once, so as to have a con- 

 nection between the bait combs above and 

 the brood combs below, which would ma- 

 terially lessen the prospects for many mar- 

 ketable sections, especially if the sea>;on 

 should prove to be a sliort or poor one. 



