NOVKMBER, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



849 



fim FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



Advantages of the Shallow Extracting- 

 frame 

 On page 359, May, Mr. J. E. Crane re- 

 marks, " I agi-ee with R. F. Holtermann 

 that a shallow extracting-frame is a first- 

 class nuisance, p. 251, April." Now, ad- 

 mitting that the shallow frames have some 

 drawbacks, I cannot let such wholesale con- 

 demnation of them pass without making a 

 protest and saying a few words in their 

 favor. 



They really have many good points — 

 the principal one, in my opinion, being that 

 they are a great help to brood-rearing in 

 early spring. In a climate such as we have 

 in (he coast region of British Columbia, 

 spring often comes quite early, but the 

 weather is very changeable. Brood-rearing 

 often starts long before fruit-bloom; and 

 sometimes as early as the beginning of 

 April, or sooner, I have found it necessary 

 to give the queens more laying-room than 

 the single brood-chamber. It would not be 

 safe at this time to put a full-depth second 

 stoiy on the hives ; for, since much of the 

 warmth would rise to the second story, a 

 sudden drop in temperature would cause the 

 bees to cluster too closely, thus allowing a 

 lot of the outside brood to become chilled. 

 A great many beekG*epers would neve^r 

 notice this, as they do not care to disturb 

 the brood-chamber by examining it at this 

 time, and they would simply conclude that 

 the queen was reluctant to go into the upper 

 chamber; whereas the fact is, as soon as the 

 weather was favorable for expansion she 

 would be busy laying again in those cells 

 where the chilled brood and eggs had been 

 cleaned out. So, instead of increasing the 

 amount of brood, the colony with a deep 

 .super would suffer a decided set-back. 



If instead of a full-depth we had put on 

 a half-depth super, the difference in tem- 

 perature would not be so great inside the 

 brood-chamber. The warmth being kept 

 lower down would enable the cluster to ex- 

 pand more, covering the brood, and the 

 queen would more readily go above to lay. 

 If the queen is capable of occupying still 

 more room after the half-story above is fill- 

 ed with brood, another half-depth super can 

 be put on above the first. 



In this locality we aim to have veiy 

 strong colonies early in the spring, as we 

 have several sourcas of possible surplus be- 

 fore the clover begins to bloom. In 1014 I 

 sent a fully capped and ripened shallow 

 frame of honev that was taken from full 

 supers of surplus maple honey on April 15 



to the permanent exhibition of British Co- 

 lumbia products at Vancouver. Of course, 

 tliis was an exceptionally early season fol- 

 lowing a mild o])en winter; but it goes to 

 show that we caimot neglect any method of 

 coaxing our queens to early and continuous 

 laying, thus producing strong colonies ready 

 to store surplus from our abundant maples, 

 golden willows, etc. 



Then, again, the shallow frame is useful 

 as a means of separating honeys from dif- 

 ferent sources and of doing so with less 

 waste in the grading. Often we find our 

 deep supers contain a nice crop of clover 

 tliat only partly fills the combs when the 

 bees commence to bring in a darker-colored 

 honey. The combs may be nicely capped 

 half the way down the frame; but lower 

 down the cells will be only partly filled with 

 a thin unripe nectar. To extract from 

 these combs at this time means extra work 

 with the danger of having considerable un- 

 ripe honey; but if we allow such combs to 

 stay on the hives until properly filled and 

 ripened, we get a mixture that is below par, 

 with a consequent loss in grading. The 

 obvious advantage then of using the half- 

 depth or shallow frames is that we can take 

 off the capped clover or other first-class 

 honey separately, leaving the lower half to 

 be completed with the poorer grade. 



Another reason why I like the shallow 

 frame is that it is so much liandier to give 

 tliese for winter stores than to feed syrup 

 or liquid honey. The job can be done 

 quickly and easily, and is especially adapt- 

 able for fliose Avho winter on the summer 

 stands. 



A great deal has been written lately in 

 favor of wintering bees in two stories. Ap- 

 parently the main advantage in this plan 

 is that the space between the upper and 

 lower sets of frames enables the cluster to 

 move bodily from one side of the hive to 

 the other. To get the fullest benefit from 

 tliis plan, the combs above would have to be 

 full of honey right down to the bottom-bars 

 and the colony a fairly strong one. In the 

 first place, I consider that a full super of 

 honey is far more than is necessary for 

 wintering. And in a long winter of con- 

 tinued cold weather, if the colony was not 

 better than just fairly good, there would be 

 tlie danger that it might contract itself to 

 three or four frames and move steadily up 

 to the oilcloth under the cover, where the 

 bees would be in danger of starving with 

 cold slabs of honey at each side of them, 

 just as they often do in a single-stoi'y hive. 



