1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



595 



market any, and are quite likely to cause 

 less consumption of comb honey. 



Perhaps the next most marked system is 

 Mrs. Barber's plan of giving each colony a 

 shallow super of drawn comb to start them 

 above. After they are well started the 

 drawn-comb super is removed and a super of 

 clean new sections with full sheets of foun- 

 dation is substituted. The bees being used 

 to working above do not hesitate about going 

 into the sections when substituted for the 

 combs. 



I now think the reader's mind is in the 

 right channel, so it will be easy to convince 

 him of the superiority of the Townsend 

 plan, which I am about to describe. 



THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE SUPER TO PRO- 

 DUCE BOTH COMB AND EXTRACTED 

 HONEY. 



In arranging the super, use two super- 

 springs to each super, one at each end; and 

 when I speak of extracting-combs I mean 

 those that are white and nice— no brood 

 ever raised in them. The first super given 

 each colony at the approach of the honey- 

 flow is arranged with one shallow extract- 

 ing-comb at each side, and one in the cen- 

 ter; the rest of the super is filled with clean 

 sections, with full sheets of foundation; then 

 when this super is partly filled with honey, 

 the usual time for giving a second super, in 

 fact, all the supers given after the first are 

 placed under the previous one, and are al- 

 ways arranged with one comb at each outside 

 of the super. 



Now, when we guess we shall need only 

 one more super to hold the rest of the hon- 

 ey-flow, a super of all drawn combs is given 

 on top. 



Doesn't it begin to appear to you that 

 there are great possibilities for this system 

 in the future ? Mr. Townsend claims for 

 this system much ynore comb honey, and 

 quite a quantity of the finest grade of ex- 

 tracted per colony. 



The great point in favor of this system is 

 the stimulus the extracting-combs give a 

 colony, causing them to go above immediate- 

 ly, as soon as there is just a little honey in 

 the field; thus the brood-nest is kept in al- 

 most the same condition that is secured in 

 the production of extracted honey, this 

 causing very much less swarming, and keeps 

 the colony in that condition so essential to 

 the best results in honey production. Then 

 the bait-comb nuisance is done away with. 

 This in itself is enough to make it worth 

 while to adopt this new system. 



Mr. Townsend uses a closed-end extract- 

 ing-frame that fits his super. Any one can 

 figure out the size and thickness of frame 

 that will fit his super; but we prefer If- 

 inch spacing in our extracting operations, 

 but of course there are no separators used 

 in them. If separators are used, as would 

 be likely in a comb-honey super, 1| or per- 

 haps 2 inches from center to center would 

 be nearer right. Likely the width of one's 

 super would determine to quite an extent 

 the spacing he would have to adopt. Make 



them fit your super. Isn't this a grand 

 idea, this using an extracting-comb in the 

 outside of each super, making this part 

 of the super that is usually finished last the 

 first that is commenced, with this condition 

 secured. Is there any question in the mind 

 of the experienced comb-honey producer 

 that the rest of the super containing sec- 

 tions will be drawn out with astonishing ra- 

 pidity, thus securing that ideal finish so 

 much sought after, and heretofore secured 

 in only a lavish honey-fiow? I predict a 

 great future for this system. 



PRODUCING BOTH COMB AND EXTRACTED 



HONEY IN THE SAME FULL-DEPTH 



EXTRACTING UPPER STORY. 



In producing extracted honey we use the 

 ten-frame Langstroth hive, and use eight 

 combs in a ten-frame upper story to extract 

 from. Now, when starting a new yard, 

 usually by buying most of the bees, our 

 practice is, in furnishing them with combs 

 to be used in their upper stories, to go to a 

 yard having their upper stories all full of 

 drawn combs, and take half their combs to 

 the new yard. This leaves four drawn 

 combs for each upper story at both yards. 

 Now we put in the place of the combs re- 

 moved four wired frames with full sheets of 

 foundation. Some of you by this time are 

 likely wondering what this has to do with 

 raising comb honey in an extracting upper 

 story. It is this. We find with the upper 

 stories arranged with half-foundation and 

 half-drawn combs we can prevent swarm- 

 ing to nearly the same extent as when full 

 sets of combs are used. Taking advantage 

 of this fact the question arises. How many 

 wide frames of eight sections each can we 

 substitute for these four frames of founda- 

 tion, and still prevent swarming? If we 

 could sandwich in only three to each upper 

 story, that would be 24 sections to each 

 upper story. 



Perhaps it would be well to close the sea- 

 son with a full set of combs, placed on top 

 the same as I told you heretofore, with the 

 single-depth super. The idea is, to get all 

 our partly filled supers exclusively in the 

 extracted form. The object is this: Every 

 wide frame of sections we can get in this 

 way is worth in the market about twice 

 what it would be in the extracted form. It 

 is a quicker sale, and the tendency of the 

 times is that specialists, with their increas- 

 ing number of yards that are at the present 

 time starting up over the country, will in 

 the future produce such large quantities in 

 the extracted form that there is a possibili- 

 ty of a still wider margin in prices between 

 the two articles unless some such arrange- 

 ment as I have outlined above can be work- 

 ed, so quite a per cent can be taken in the 

 comb-honey form, and still control swarm- 

 ing in the outyards. 



In conclusion I want to add that I am an 

 enthusiast over this idea that was brought 

 forward at our convention at Grand Rapids 

 last month, and during the next few years I 

 shall test this system thoroughly in both my 



