704 



Aug. 16, 1906 



wide. On the side next to you is another 

 the same. These form the supports for 

 the tins One side of the end tins slips 

 on top of the inside end pieces, and un- 

 der the ends of the side strips. The T's 

 are 12^2 inches long for 8-frame hives. 



These side strips want to behalf of a 

 bee-space thick, and when tiered up 

 there will be a bee-space between them. 

 The last lot I got I forgot to give in- 

 structions, and they were made a bee- 

 space thick, and when tiered up made 

 two bee-spaces, and the bees will build 

 brace-combs between them. I use 10 

 tins to a super, 5 below and 5 above. If 

 the cracks between the sections are not 

 covered by tins the bees will glue them 

 up. After filling up with sections and 

 separators, I put a K-inch strip and 

 then a wedge strip at the ends to tighten 

 up, and when all is put together you 

 would not know which was the top or 

 bottom except by the buttons. I have 

 one of your kind. The tins are sup- 

 ported by bent wires, but I never used 

 it much. One difficulty I saw in it was 

 in getting these supports in the right 

 place— either too high or too low, or the 

 right distances apart laterally, while 

 in mine the sections are bound to come 

 together regularly. I slip the end tin, 

 then put in the corner section. Slip the 

 next tin up to it, then the next section, 

 then the tin, and so on until filled up. 



I think if Elvin Armstrong had not 

 gone out of the business after getting up 

 his hives and super, he would have 

 brought them into use. I don't favor 

 this super because its inventor was an 

 Armstrong, for he is no relative of mine, 

 or if so it is so far back that it doesn't 

 count. 



Marshalltown, Iowa. 



Dr. Miller, to whom the foregoing was 

 addressed, comments as follows : 



I don't fully understand your difficulty 

 in using the T super, but plainly it is 

 from a wrong use of a right thing ; and 

 that's probably the case with all who 

 have tried the T super and found it un- 

 satisfactory. You say one difficulty is 

 in getting the supports in the right 

 place ; either too high or too low. There 

 is just one place where the supports that 

 hold up the T tins should be, and there 

 ought not to be the slightest difficulty in 

 having them exactly in the right place. 

 I suspect that you have made the mis- 

 take of having the supports M inch 

 above the bottom of the super, making 

 a bee-space under the sections. Instead 

 of that the bee-space is at the top of the 

 super.' Set a super filled with sections 

 on a table, and the sections should rest 

 down upon the table. That, you will 

 see, makes the supports exactly flush 

 with the bottom of the super. If a 

 square piece of sheet-iron is used as a 

 support, it is nailed Hat upon the under 

 edge of the super, so that when the 

 super rests upon a table the support 

 rests flat upon the table. If a bent 

 staple is used, it must also lie flat upon 

 the table, when finished. Possibly there 

 may be a better way, but here's the way 

 I have put in the staples : Lay the su- 

 per upside down before you, drive the 

 staple down vertically deep enough to 

 have a good hold, putting it about % 

 inch from the inner edge, and then bend 

 the staple over at right angles, and 

 hammer it down so that when the super 



American Bee Journal 



is turned right side up the staple will 

 rest flat on the table. 



As to getting the staple at the right 

 place laterally, there ought to be no dif- 

 ficulty. On each side there are 3 sup- 

 ports. The middle of the middle sup- 

 port comes exactly at the middle of the 

 super, measuring inside. Then half way 

 between the center and the inner end of 

 the super is the right spot for each of 

 the other supports. Nothing difficult 

 about that, surely. 



With regard to filling the super with 

 sections, it would be hard to find any- 

 thing easier. I can put 24 sections in a 

 super in less time than I can set 24 sec- 

 tions on a table. If you set a section on 

 a table, at least a little care must be 

 used or it will topple over. And when 

 you set a second one beside it, there is 



danger of pushing the first one out of 

 place. In the super no such care is 

 needed. The sections can be almost 

 thrown in. When the first row is put 

 in, a tin is shoved under, when the sec- 

 ond row is in, the second T tin is shoved 

 under, and the third T tin after the 

 third row. But, of course, to do this a 

 "super filler" must be used, as de- 

 scribed on page 148 of " Forty Years 

 Among the Bees." If any one hasn't 

 the book, and wants to know how to 

 make a super-filler, I'll give the descrip- 

 tion later. 



As I have said before, I have no per- 

 sonal interest in the T super ; it is not 

 my invention ; but for one who knows 

 how to use it, I don't believe a better 

 super has yet been devised. 



Marengo, III. C. C. Miller. 



Conducted by Louis H. Scholl, New Braun6fels, Tex. 



Some New Experiences— Some 



Nuts for the Veterans to 



Crack 



I find with more than 20 years' expe- 

 rience that one will continually be hav- 

 ing new experiences with the bees, as 

 we shall see from what follows : 



I had a very strong colony of hybrid 

 bees in the home apiary that I had 

 secured from the woods. I had not 

 destroyed their queen and replaced her 

 with an Italian, as is my custom, as 

 her bees were extra-good workers. The 

 season up to about June 10 was very 

 poor for bees. In fact, it was, and is 

 yet, the hardest year I ever saw for 

 bees. But about the above date the 

 mesquite furnished a light honey-flow, 

 and all the bees in the apiary were 

 making a rush for the bloom by the 

 time it was light in the morning. 



But this hybrid colony was doing 

 nothing whatever, which was a great 

 surprise to me, as I knew they were 

 about the strongest colony in the 

 yard, and hybrids were usually the" 

 best workers. They were just hang- 

 ing clustered in front of the hive doing 

 nothing. So I decided to give them a 

 good feed that night to start them to 

 work. I prepared it of the best granu- 

 lated sugar, but to my surprise they 

 refused to take the feed, and allowed it 

 to stay in the hive and sour. This 

 caused me to open the hive and make a 

 careful examination. The old bees 

 seemed to be in perfect health, and 

 were ready to sting on short notice, as 

 was their custom. They had a good 

 supply of stores of both honey and 

 pollen, and plenty of hatching brood, 

 but every cell of the unsealed brood 

 was dead, and the bees had not at- 

 tempted to remove any of this dead 

 brood, which had apparently just dried 



up and died. There was no bad smell 

 about the hive or combs, and none of 

 the sealed brood was dead so far as I 

 could discover ; the unsealed brood 

 had not turned brown or dark as " foul 

 brood " is said to do when bees are 

 afflicted with that disease. The dead 

 larvse still looked white, but was set- 

 tled down in the bottom of the cells, 

 dry and hard, and had died, seemingly, 

 of starvation. 



I requeened them with a young Ital- 

 ian queen, and now they have cleaned 

 up their combs and gone to work after 

 a rest of about 10 days, and the light 

 honey-flow they might have taken ad- 

 vantage of has passed. This is a new 

 experience to me, and I should like to 

 have the comments of such men as Dr. 

 C. C. Miller, G. M. Doolittle, L. Stach- 

 elhausen, and other bee-experts, on 

 this case, through the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal. 



New Experience No. 2. 



I removed the queen of a good, 

 strong 3-frame nucleus, leaving eggs 

 and brooiin all stages of development 

 with the colony. After 24 hours had 

 elapsed I gave them a ripe queen-cell 

 which hatched in due time. After a 

 few hours the bees commenced " ball- 

 ing " the young queen. I caged her, 

 and she remained in the cage at least 

 48 hours before the bees released her ; 

 but she was promptly destroyed by the 

 bees. 



Nothing so very strange about the 

 above, but here is the strange part of 

 it to me : These bees never started a 

 single queen-cell during all this time, 

 and plenty of honey and pollen was 

 coming in from the fields at the time. 

 Now all the brood is capped, and no 

 queen-cells yet, and no laying workers 

 have developed. I left them for the 



