THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



117 



the whole apiary and through the 

 whole season. 



At the beg'inning of the season all 

 colonies that do not seem likely to 

 begin work at once in the supers are 

 given a set of extracting combs. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING BEES 



STARTED IN SUPERS EARLY IN 



THE SEASON. 



The bees will begin storing honey 

 in these readily, thus forming the babit 

 of storing in the supers early, which is 

 very important. The ideal condition 

 for a colony at the beginning of the 

 honey flow would be to have every cell 

 in the brood chamber full of either 

 brood or honey, so that the very first 

 honey gathered must, perforce, be 

 stored in the super. Since we cannot 

 well secure this, it is well, as the next 

 best thing, to get them started there 

 as soon as possible. Bait combs are 

 good in their way, but even a whole 

 super full of drawn combs in sections 

 is not as good as a super of nice ex- 

 tracting combs for this purpose. This 

 super of extracting combs may be left 

 on until it is completed, a super of 

 sections being tiered under it as soon 

 as it is well under way, but I prefer 

 to remove it in most cases as soon as 

 it is about half full. I would rather 

 leave it on, but the bees show such a 

 preference for the combs that unless 

 the honey flow is very heavy they will 

 do little or nothing at the sections 

 until the combs are completed. 



There will always be some colonies 

 that will not do good work in the sec- 

 tions, because they are not strong 

 enough in numbers, because they are 

 not good comb builders, or because 

 they do not cap their honey nicelj'. 

 The extracting combs may be tiered 

 up on these to any desired height and 

 left to be finished. If these colonies 

 get into good comb honey condition be- 

 fore the end of the honey flow, the 

 combs may be removed, extracted, and 

 stored away until they are needed 



again. When a colony swarms, its 

 comb supers should go with the swarm, 

 while a set of extracting combs should 

 be placed on the old colony. Any 

 colony that at any time during the 

 honey flow, is found to be doing poor 

 work in the sections, should have those 

 sections promptly removed and re- 

 placed with a set of extracting combs. 



As tlie season draws to a close, in- 

 stead of giving sections that may not 

 be completed, give extracting combs to 

 the colonies that are doing the poorest 

 work in the sections, giving their sec- 

 tions to others to be completed. 



In this way you not only secure a 

 larger amount of finished honey, but 

 3'ou avoid having a lot of unfinished 

 sections to carry over until the next 

 season, and which would much better 

 be still in the crate in which they came 

 from the factory. My article in Aug- 

 ust Review of last year goes into de- 

 tail in some directions more than I 

 have here. 



Of course a queen excluding honey 

 board is a practical necessity on every 

 hive that has one of these sets of ex- 

 tracting combs, but the advantages of 

 this are so great and so many that I 

 would not undertake to go without it, 

 and every hive that contains a colony 

 strong enough to store honey is sup- 

 plied with one. I use the wood-zinc 

 board, as no other form will keep the 

 exact bee spaces that are so necessary 

 for rapid and convenient handling. 



ADVANTAGES OF A SHALLOW EXTRACT- 

 ING SUPER. 



My extracting supers are six inches 

 deep, just the same as the brood cham- 

 bers, the only difference being that the 

 space occupied by eight frames in the 

 brood chamber is filled by seven in the 

 upper. These frames have a project- 

 ing top bar resting in a rabbet at the 

 top of the hive, but have close fitting 

 end bars, pressed closely together by 

 a screw through the side of the hive, 

 as in'the Heddon hive. This continual 



