580 



American Itee Journal 



July 5, 1906 



soon gave it up, as it seemed to me too fussy and compli- 

 cated, and not nearly as well suited to practical work in a 

 large apiary as separate supers, used according to the needs 

 of the particular colony. 



The system I have outlined has been in practical use in 

 my apiaries for nearly twenty years. There are some small 

 advantages that I have not mentioned, but briefly, the advan- 

 tages of the system are that it secures more honey, a higher 

 grade of comb honey, saves a great deal of waste, and does 

 it with a control of the bees and an economy of labor that is 

 not to be secured by any other method that I am familiar 

 with. Jambs A. Green. 



Mr. Lyons — I think Mr. Green hit the nail on the head 

 as far as the arrangement of his supers is concerned. I would 

 like to hear some of the members tell their ideas with regard 

 to the excluders. 



Mr. Whitney — The method adopted by the gentleman 

 who wrote the paper is identical with that which I use 

 myself, excepting he used a half-frame for the extracting 

 super instead of a whole Langstroth. To build up in the 

 spring for the purpose of producing comb honey, I use the 

 same method he does, and always have, and successfully. 



Mr. Wilcox — Did you say you had made a success of both 

 comb and extracted honey at the same time? 



Mr. Whitney — As I understand the paper, he used some 

 of those frames for extracted honey after taking off comb 

 honey, by putting on some of the section frames. I do not 

 produce comb honey and extracted honey on the same colony 

 at the same time. 



Mr. Stewart— I produce both extracted and comb honey 

 on the same colony, at the same time, and very successfully, 

 and I bdieve it is a good idea to do it. We all know that we 

 can get the bees into extracting supers a great deal easier than 

 into sections. We also know that at the close of the honey season 

 it is the hardest work to get our comb-honey capped, and I use 

 shallow extracting frames or extracting supers and comb-honey 

 supers; the outsides of them are identical. My extracting frames 

 are only 4% inches, and they are closed in. The way I do it is, I 

 put a case of sections on those that I think are less apt to go 

 promptly in the sections, and after they get nicely started to 

 work I put a comb-honey super underneath them, and they 

 work in both of them, finishing up the extracting super and 

 going on with the comb-honey work. 



What I am most interested in is something that I have 

 not practiced at all; and it is in line with the paper that was 

 read, and I will give you an explanation of an idea that I 

 have: I will set up 100 colonies in the spring if I do not find 

 some obstacle to it. I have the bee-space in the bottom in- 

 stead of the top ; and to produce comb and extracted honey in 

 the same frame, my extracting frame is identical with 4 of 

 the honey-sections. I will put one frame of comb on each 

 side of each super, and I will fill in the inside of it with sec- 

 tions ; and my idea is that they will start up more readily 

 in this drawn comb; not only that, but when the weather is 

 cold, or for any reason, they do better work in the inside than 

 they do in the outside. My experience is, in grading honey 

 that 80 percent or more of the culls and unfinished honey 

 that does not come up to the grade is on the outside. If 

 I can have the outsides for extracted honey, I have my cull 

 honey all in the shape that I can extract it. The way I cal- 

 culate to use the T's in my supers is this: I will make some 

 T's that are shorter than these here, and my frames are made 

 of H-inch stuff all round. The ends are }i of an inch wider 

 than the tops or bottoms. They are reversible, and instead of 

 hanging at the top they rest upon a support at the end of the 

 casing. Then the extracting frames fit in there very nicely. 

 But the rub is to get the T-supers to fit your cases. The way 

 I will do that is, I will make some T's, and then take a little 

 piece of tin and have that soldered on so that it will project 

 out % of an inch further than at the top, at the apex of the 

 T. That % of an inch will just hook over the top of the bot- 

 tom part, and the bottom of the T will be flush with the bot- 

 tom of the extracting frame. 



There is another obstacle to overcome in using separators. 

 I use plain wooden separators, and in order to have every- 

 thing just as it should be you must have a fence or cleats on 

 the sides of your outside separators to hold them up to the 

 sections ; and if there are cleats placed on the outside you 

 have a separator between your extracting frames and outside 

 frames, and everything held up; and everything, as far as 

 the comb-honey is concerned, is identical with what it should 



be in the other case. The advantage is in starting bees 

 earlier than you can in any other way; and not only that 

 you do away with 75 percent of the culls. That I think is es- 

 pecially true in the after part of the season. In the early part, 

 and in the midst of the honey-flow, I could not see any advan- 

 tage in it at all, more than possibly it would give them a 

 chance to start seme more honey. 



Mr. Wilcox — Do you continue using those outside frames 

 through the season? 



Mr. Stewart — I don't know. I would use them to start 

 with and finish the season. Whether I would use them in 

 the center of the honey-flow I am rather doubtful; I don't 

 know. 



Mr. Ferris — I can see a great future for the comb-honey 

 producer in that line of thought. I believe there is some- 

 thing we would all do well to think upon, and put in prac- 

 tice. I believe we will find our culls will be lessened, and 

 our first-class finished article be more, and still have our 

 culls in an extracted form so that we can dispose of them. 



Dr. Miller — There still remains the fact that some of 

 us do not get any more unfinished sections than we want 

 to start in with the next year. 



Mr. Stewart — This applies to those that do get more 

 than they want. 



Mr. Ferris — To my mind we don't want any unfinished 

 sections left over at all. I wonder how many of us have 

 eufcr found as fine, first-class honey in the unfinished sec- 

 tions left over from the other year as those nice, new sec- 

 tions we put in this year? I never have; and this is to get 

 rid of all the unfinished sections entirely, and yet have the 

 extracting combs we can use in the commencement of the 

 season, and still do the same work as we would otherwise 

 with unfinished sections. 



Mr. Whitney — It seems to me that if the extracting 

 frames are put into a double-walled hive and then trans- 

 ferred to some other locality and the section-cases put in, 

 the outside sections will be filled just as quickly by the bees 

 in the center. That is the way I have produced comb honey, 

 and without any danger of having a lot' of culls on the out- 

 side. The bees gather right around the closed section, and 

 cluster inside of the outside shell so as to cover those cases 

 completely, and the outside sections are just as warm as the 

 inside; and they fill them out just as quickly, and often com- 

 mence capping first. 



Mr. Holtermann — The objection which I have seen to 

 the production of comb and extracted honey in the same 

 hive is this: It requires a good deal of concentrated energy 

 to produce good comb honey; and as far as skill and time are 

 concerned it requires more careful and skillful application 

 to produce comb honey than it does good extracted honey ; 

 and where you have a percentage of your extracting combs 

 in that super you are really producing extracted honey at an 

 increased expense compared with comb honey ; and the more 

 you produce the greater is the cost of producing that ex- 

 tracted honey. The question has been touched upon as to 

 the unfinished sections on the outer sides of the hives. It 

 has also been mentioned that it is not necessary to have 

 these unfinished sections. That I am thoroughly satisfied is 

 correct. I learned some years ago by putting in wedges be- 

 tween the bottom-board and the brood-chamber, the brood- 

 chamber was practically raised an increase of % of an inch 

 from the bottom-board, and by that means the bees were 

 compelled to go up at the side. By having a dou.ble bee- 

 space at the sides, by careful experiment, I have found that 

 the outside sections are in many cases even better filled 

 than the center. 



Some objected to the suggestion Dr. Miller threw out 

 about cull sections, and an exception was taken by Mr. 

 Ferris, which is perfectly right and legitimate. I have 

 never seen a bait-section as well finished as a section built 

 upon comb foundation. But on the other hand, I want to 

 plead this, that for these bait-sections you can get a better 

 price than you can get for honey after it has been extracted 

 from those extracting frames. That is the reason I do not 

 consider the system without its faults. 



Mr. Wheeler — There is a point that has not been 

 touched on, and that is the fact that when the bees have room 

 to store extracted honey they stop the production of wax. 

 To prove this, it is an easy matter to put on an extracting 

 super when you take off the section-comb honey. Then after 

 a few days put on a super of sections, and you almost in- 

 variably stop that colony of bees from working for comb 



