948 



Nov. 15, 1906 



bottom of the one over it. The space 

 is, as you say, ?s-inch greater with the 

 wide frames ; that is, with the wide 

 frames the space is 3' 2 times as great 

 as with the T super. A fairer way, 

 however, is to count the distance, not 

 between the wood of the sections, but 

 between the combs, and that will make 

 your space 2'j times as great as mine. 

 You say you consider this difference 

 " insignificant." I don't; and that's 

 one reason why we disagree. You say : 



"With the amount of propolis gathered 

 here, it is often an impossibility to remove 

 the filled boxes from the surrounding case 

 without injury to the honey.'' 



No such difficulty occurs here, al- 

 though this has the reputation of being 

 a gluey region. The difference prob- 

 ably comes from the difference in our 

 practise, for if I understand you rightly 

 from statements elsewhere, you take 

 the sections out of the super singly 

 from the top, while I take them out 

 en masse, turning the whole upside- 

 down. That belief is strengthened by 

 your saying, page 833, "taking the 

 filled boxes out en masse,! consider of no 

 importance." There again we disagree 

 so widely as to account fully, without 

 anything else, for our different prefer- 

 ences. Of so much importance do I 

 count that matter, that if I were barred 

 out from its advantage, and obliged to 

 take sections out of the T-super, as I 

 understand you do, I would at once 

 capitulate and say, "I'd rather have 

 wide frames." Again you say : 



" ' It is my experience that sections do not 

 fold square.' Sometimes only a part in a 

 crate are faulty in this respect. Sometimes 

 the whole lot is so bad, some folding diamond 

 shape, that when placed in a T-super one cor- 

 ner of each section bobs up. There seems to 

 be no way to keep it down." 



With such a condition I don't blame 

 you for not liking the T-super. I 

 wouldn't like it either. But such a 

 condition does not exist here. Say, 

 Mr. Greiner, 15,000 to 20,000 sections 

 are piled up in T-supers over in the 

 shop, ready for a harvest that never 

 came, and I wish you were here to over- 

 haul the pile until you find a corner of 

 a section sticking up as you describe. 

 No, I'll not wish anything so hard as 

 that, only that you should overhaul 

 them till satisfied. Possibly you might 

 find one in 10,000; I don't know. I 

 can't tell whether the difference is in 

 the sections or the management, but if 

 my sections behaved as badly as yours 

 do, I'd be down on the T-super, too. 



In your third objection you are quite 

 right in saying that if an unfilled super 

 is dropped anywhere on the ground it 

 may be disarranged. It would if a 

 stub should project 2 or 3 inches up- 

 ward and raise some of the sections, 

 and when a super does come thus to 

 grief, the disaster is worse than you 

 have painted it. On level ground there 

 would be no trouble. But we don't 

 drop supers on the ground. There's 

 no need of it. When brought into the 

 apiary, if they're not on a wheelbar- 

 row they're put on the top of some 

 hive, directly on the cover. It's easier 

 to set them there than to put them on 

 the ground. Sometimes it is conven- 

 ient to set one on the ground, in which 

 case the most convenient thing is to 



American Ttee Journal 



set it on one end, leaning against a 

 hive, where it is as safe as a wide- 

 frame super. 

 Fourthly : 



" When sections are taken out of wide 

 frames they often are encumbered with little 

 ridges of the sticky or brittle substance — ac- 

 cording to the season of the year and the tem- 

 perature — along their edges, particularly on 

 the tops. The question now arises, which is 

 more difficult, to remove these ridges, or to 

 clean, scrape and sandpaper both top and 

 bottom of each honey-box? Any one need 

 not be familiar with this work, but he can 

 tell at a glance that 10 sections from a wide- 

 frame super can be made presentable in less 

 time than one can out of a T-super here in 

 New York State." 



It may be that propolis is worse with 

 you than with me. I doubt if I could 

 scare up so bad a specimen as you have 

 shown. With all that, one would be 

 misled whose glance would tell him 

 that 10 sections out of wide frames can 

 be made presentable in less time than 

 one out of a T-super. Yet I don't 

 blame you for thinking so, for you 

 were probably thinking of cleaning the 

 sections one by one. But with the T- 

 super that en masse business comes in 

 again, all the tops and bottoms being 

 cleaned wholesale. First, the rough is 

 taken off the whole surface by a cabi- 

 net-maker's scraper, and then No. 2 

 sandpaper makes a finish. You can 

 do that with wide frames, but must 

 make 24 separate jobs of what is one 

 job with T-supers. Of course, I don't 

 mean to say the 24 tops or bottoms 

 will be cleaned in thesame time as one 

 top or bottom out of a wide frame, but 

 I do mean to say that they will be 

 cleaned in less time than 24 of the 

 wide-frame tops, even allowing that 

 the latter have only the margins glued. 



" It is a practical impossibility to re- 

 move full sections from a T-super 

 while on the hive." I have removed 

 hundreds, if not thousands, in that 

 way. But of late I don't do it ; there's 

 no need. I cheerfully admit that it's 

 easier to take a single section out of a 

 wide frame. 



Finally, you say with regard to "go- 

 backs :" 



" It is very fussy work with the T, to fix up 

 a super full of these, but it is very easy and 

 simple with my super. Usually, if any sec- 

 tions in a super are unfinished, they are found 

 in the outside row. In a moment these 4 are 

 lifted out of one super and returned to an- 

 other." 



If you always take a whole frame full 

 of 4, then you have the best of it. But 

 I couldn't be induced to do that. For 

 generally the 4 do not proceed equally 

 toward completion. The end sections 

 may still be unfinished while the cen- 

 tral ones are fully sealed, and I 

 wouldn't want to send these latter 

 back to the bees. If taken while the 

 whole 4 of the outside frames are still 

 unfinished, then the 2 end sections of 

 the next frame are likely to be un- 

 finished, and the trouble comes with 

 that frame. On the whole, it would be 

 just as fussy with wide frames as with 

 T-supers "in this locality." 



Mr. Greiner, if I had your plans, con- 

 ditions, and views, I wouldn't have a 

 T-super on the premises, except as an 

 " awful example ;" as it is, I think I was 

 largely the gainer when I threw aside 

 my thousands of wide frames for the 



T-super. Moreover, I have a strong; 

 suspicion that my plan of management 

 would work all right in your locality. 

 Marengo, 111. 



Shaking Bees Off their Combs 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE 



I am bothered very much in getting bees off 

 their combs whan I wish to take them fron> 

 any colony for any purpose, and especially in 

 the fall, when the combs are heavy with 

 honey and the bees are inactive. Will you* 

 tell the readers of the American Bee Journal 

 how to do It? We are told to shake the bees 

 off, but there must be some particular way to- 

 shake them that I do not know of, for I can 

 not get half of them off by any way I have 

 used. — A Correspondent. 



In shaking bees off their combs there 

 are several items to be taken into con- 

 sideration, such as the kind of bees we 

 are keeping, the way the combs are 

 built in the frames, the amount of 

 honey they contain, the time of the 

 year we are doing this work, and the 

 hoiu of doing it, each of which should 

 be kept in mind if we are to be success- 

 ful in our undertaking. 



If the bees are of the black or Ger- 

 man variety, there should be very lit- 

 tle trouble in shaking them from their 

 combs at any time of the year, and 

 during the main working season with 

 the bees, nearly or quite every bee can 

 be shaken from their combs almost as 

 easily as a person can pour potatoes or 

 apples from one basket into another. 

 And with most varieties of hybrid 

 bees — these being more largely found 

 with the average bee-keeper to-day 

 than any other — even 99 percent of 

 these can be shaken off with very little 

 trouble. But with the Italians the case 

 is somewhat different, as they will hold 

 to their combs the most tenaciously of 

 any bees with which I am acquainted. 

 Yet, with these bees, I have very little 

 trouble at all times when work is being 

 done to any amount. At other times 

 I have to cause them to fill themselves- 

 with honey, as will be given later on. 



Then, the way the combs are built in 

 the frames has very much to do with 

 the matter of freeing the combs of 

 bees by the shaking process. If the 

 combs are built in the frames as they 

 should be, it aids very much in ridding- 

 the combs of bees, no matter what proc- 

 ess is used in doing this, but, espe- 

 cially so, where the shaking process is- 

 used. In visiting different apiaries, I 

 have found that very many of the 

 combs used or tolerated by various bee- 

 keepers, are almost totally unfit for 

 ridding them of bees, in that they are 

 bulged, crooked, full of holes, and, be- 

 yond all, each comb has a bee-space 

 between the bottom of the comb and 

 the bottom-bar of the frame. Such 

 combs are a very provoking thing 

 where a person wishes to rid them 

 speedily from bees. 



The point worth looking after by 

 every bee-keeper is to have every 

 frame full of comb which is in a. 

 straight, even line with the frame, 

 thus giving the bees no little holes or 

 open space along between the bottom- 

 bar of the frame and the comb, into- 

 which they can crowd in such a shape 

 that they can not be dislodged as long- 

 as they can stay there. With such a. 



