March 29, 1906 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



271 



* (Contrtbutcb * 

 Special Ctrticles 



^ 



Right Kind of T-Super All Right 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



OX page 160, F. Greiner mentions my calling attention to 

 the slight sagging of bottom-bars in wide frames, and 

 says: 

 "This shows that Dr. Miller has had some experience 

 along this line. It must be he has used wide frames, and the 

 wonder is that such an insignificant matter could induce him 

 to abandon the wide frame for the most worthless supei 

 invented." 



When so bright a man, and so good a bee-keeper as F. 

 Greiner. puts me down as doing what evidently appears to 

 him a very stupid thing, I can but attempt to give my reasons 

 for thus doing, in hopes to reinstate myself in his good 

 opinion. 



In the first place. Mr. Greiner, let me plead not guilty to 

 the charge of abandoning the wide frames on account of the 

 sagging of the bottom-bars. I don't think I would ever have 

 abandoned them for that reason. 



You are right in supposing that I have had experience 

 with wide frames. I used them by the thousand, used them 

 for years, used them with much satisfaction, and only aban- 

 doned them when I found something I could use with more 

 satisfaction. According to your arraignment of the T-super, I 

 don't see how you could do other than to discard it. You say: 

 "Some bee-keepers who have had no experience with wide 

 frames are afraid there may be difficulty (?) in taking the 

 filled sections out of them. If they had'had any experience, 

 they would have found it a great deal easier than to take the 

 honey from T-supers. and just as easy as taking the sections 

 out of the section-holders with no top-bars." 



Well, there is experience and experience. Whatever the 

 quality of my experience. I'm s'jre it has not been lacking in 

 quantity, both with the wide frame and T-super. I've taken 

 tons of sections from each. In the years that I used wide 

 frames I made advancement i n method's of taking sections out 

 of them, but at best could not take them out as safely or as 

 rapidly as I can out of T-Supers. Mind you, I don't say yon 

 can't work more rapidly With wide frames than you can with 

 T-supers— I'm only saying how things ;.re in my localitv. 

 You say : 



"There is no sur, e r on earth that gives us more trouble 

 than the T-super. I find it impossible to 'get the sections out' 

 without setting a large percent to leaking." 



If I should se' c to leaking a single section in taking 10.000 

 sections out of T-. SU p er s. I should think I had been extremely 

 careless. Neither is that because of expertness gained from 

 long experience. T n the course of the past few years, three 

 different raw h; ln ds have been set to work taking out sections, 

 each of them taking out thousands, and not a section was set 

 to leaking by father of them, except in one case, when one of 

 them let a whole super fall to the floor, and then there was 

 leaking by the wholesale. Speaking of T-supers. you say: 



"I have ii!;ed them for 20 years, and have followed the 

 instructions given by many on how to empty a super, but 

 have not yet learned the trick, or a better way than carefully 

 to remove one section after another with the super right side 

 up and follower removed. The difficulty lies in loosening the 

 section from \he T-tin. which can not always be accomplished 

 without crackj n g the honey." 



I never Undertook to empty a whole super in the way 

 you indicate, t 3U t occasionally have taken out a section or two, 

 and if that's vhe best way in your localitv, I don't wonder at 

 your rejecting the T-sup"er. I think I could work twice as 

 fast with wid<; frames. It's a ticklish thing to loosen the 

 tion from the T-tin. and no matter how slowly I work.. I I 

 should expect to crack a lot of sections. But I don't loosen 

 the section fr C m the T-tin. I turn the super upside down, 

 with a push-beard over the sections I push the sections dov n, 

 after having ptished down the follower, and lift off the sup r, 

 leaving the sections in a block, T-tins and all. Then, in d 

 of loosening the. sections from the T-tin. the T-tin? an d 



off the sections. Five seconds is sufficient time to lift o 

 3 T-tins. and the greenest hand can not crack a section a 

 doing. In the wo r st cases of gluing, it takes a little o 



to lift off the T-tin, but there is no danger of cracking the 

 sections. 



You speak of the trouble with bee-glue, and of sending 

 me a sample. I didn't know till reading your article from 

 whom the sample came, but the piece from the T-super was 

 bad beyond anything, I think. I ever had. Now listen: 



With me there is more glue in wide frames than in T- 

 supers. I can easily believe it is just the reverse with you, 

 and I think I understand why. 1 think you are a buckwheater, 

 and when buckwheat is on, glue is so plenty that the bees not 

 only fill all cracks with it. but plaster it plentifully on any 

 exposed surface. My surplus is practically all from white 

 clover, and at that season, although I'm counted to be in a 

 gluey region, the bees have no more glue than they can use 

 in filling cracks; so there is no glue deposited on the exposed 

 top-bars and bottom-bars. The earliest supers scarcely need 

 scraping, with T-supers, while with ide frames there will be 

 lines of glue packed in, top ->,.., Dottom, because there are 

 cracks there that are not it i'-supers. Yet even if glue were 

 worse with T-supers. that would not counterbalance the 

 advantages, especially the advantages of filling and emptying. 



Now, Mr. Greiner. I've tried to clear my position, and 

 you'll not any longer think that, for me, the T-super is "the 

 most worthless super ever invented." will you? 



Marengo, 111. 

 **• 



7— Dadant Methods of Honey-Production 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



IF the reader has noted what I have previously written on 

 our method of artificial increase, he will readily under- 

 stand that we had no desire for natural swarms. We 

 have several reasons for this. In the first place, as stated 

 before, the natural swarms, if they come at all. will be from 

 those colonies which would be most likely to produce the 

 largest amount of honey. We have no control over the time 

 of issue or over their number. They may issue at a time 

 when we are very busy— they usually do. for the honey season 

 is always a busy season. Neither are we alone in this matter. 

 Many apiarists are also farmers or business men and must be 

 away from the house during the greater part of the day, and 

 would surely prefer to decide for themselves as to the num- 

 ber of colonies of increase, and the time to make that in- 

 crease. Besides, there comes a time when we think we have 

 enough colonies of bees, and want only honey. Thus, if a 

 method may be devised by which we can almost entirely avoid 

 natural swarming — avoid it so that the number of swarms 

 issuing in average seasons will be too small to make it worth 

 while to watch the bees— we have gained an immense point. 

 No one has so far been able to claim an absolutely infallible 

 method, neither is there any such thing as an absolutely non- 

 swarming hive, but with a certain management the number 

 of swarms is reduced to the minimum. 



In two seasons, some years ago, an out-apiary of 87 

 colonies, at the home of a friend (Mr. P. Champeaul. har- 

 vested 13,000 and 12.500 pounds of honey, or a total of 25.500 

 pounds in the two seasons; and in the same length of time 

 the number of swarms was only 5, Three colonies having 

 died during the winter between those two seasons, the total 

 increase was only 2 colonies. I trust the reader will not take 

 this as an average of results, for we have many bad seasons, 

 but it shows what may be done in the way of large crops and 

 reduced swarming when all is favorable. 



Connected with the prevention of swarming is the use of 

 large hives, both in the brood-chamber and the supers. This 

 has been our hobby for over 30 years, but it is a hobby which 

 is well sustained by facts. 



The manner in which we became convinced of the supe- 

 riority of large hives has been mentioned by me in the bee- 

 papers in years past, but good things will bear repeating. 



We began with comparatively small hives, mainly the 

 8-frame Quinby and the American. Then we began to manu- 

 facture 12-frame hives, for the purpose of trying side-storage, 

 which, by the way, was discarded. A friend of ours made 

 some 16-frame Quinby hives, in which he had planned hiving 

 three swarms each, but his pet scheme was not practical and 

 he failed and sold us the hives. We used them 10 or 12 

 years for single colonies. 



Then we had an apiary in charge for several seasons, Of 

 about a hundred 10-frame Lang-troth hives. We finall 

 tied on a 9-frame Quinby hive with 2 divisions-board, which 

 was later changed to 10 frames, with one division-board. By 

 trial, side by side, of large hives with wide super-, and small 

 hives with narrow supers, we were convinced that the large 



