FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 135 



a bee-cellar under it. The bee-cellar, however, has not 

 been used for some years. The upper story is used for 

 storing empty supers, hives and other articles not very 

 heavy, or such as are not often needed. The outside 

 door opens into the middle of the east side of the house 

 into a store-room ; immediately in front of you as you 

 enter are the stairs leading to the upper story, and at 

 your right a door opens into the work-room. In this 

 work-room is a coal-stove, and the room, being ceiled up, 

 is comfortable in the severest weather. 



. ROOM FOR QUEEN. 



up to the time of putting on supers the queen has 

 had unlimited room with the design of encouraging the 

 rearing of as much brood as possible. When the harvest 

 begins, she may have as much as 6, 9, 11, even up to 14 

 frames well occupied wnth brood and eggs. A good deal 

 depends on the season, as well as the queen. At one time 

 I thought I ought to be able to make a success of continu- 

 ing the two stories of brood-frames throughout the har- 

 vest. It seems that when a colony is so strong as to have 

 12 or 14 frames of brood, there ought to be no difficulty 

 in having good super-work done by putting the supers 

 above the two stories ; and one season of failure the only 

 super I had filled was on a two-story colony. But I was 

 never able to have that thing repeated, and whatever the 

 reason may be, I have not been able to make a success of 

 putting comb- honey supers on two-story colonies. Even 

 if the two-story plan would work all right it involves 

 much extra lifting. 



REDUCING TO ONE STORY. 



So before putting on supers the colonies are reduced 

 to one story each. If a colony has 9, 10, or more frames 

 of brood, all but 8 are taken away. The surplus frames 

 of brood are given to those which have less than 8 frames 

 of brood each, the effort being to have in each hive 8 



