776 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



June 1 



How they were subsequently adopted by 

 thousands of others is a matter of history. 



We found Mr. Hoffman to be a man ex- 

 ceptionally modest, claiming no particular 

 distinction as an inventor, but insisting that 

 he had made only a modification of Ber- 

 lepsch's frame in order that he might use it 

 in a top-opening hive. He never thought of 

 communicating his invention to any bee-jour- 

 nal, much less of patenting it; but Mr. J. H. 

 Nellis, then editor of the Bee-keepers'' Ex- 

 change, seeing the successful and rapid man- 

 ner in which Mr. Hoffman handled bees on 

 this particular frame, began its manufacture 

 and endeavored to popularize it as early as 

 the early '80's. 



Shortly after, Mr. Nellis went out of busi- 

 ness, and but little seems to have been known 

 of the frame until we began to write up its 

 merits in 1890 and 1891; and even since that 

 time Mr. Hoffman has written only two or 

 three articles, and then only on special re- 

 quest that he explain how he came to invent 

 the frame, which he did in an article in May 

 15th Gleanings, page 533, 1905, and subse- 

 quently in another article by him June 1, p. 

 593, of the same year. 



Mr. Hoft'man was born in Silesia, Prussia, 

 October 25, 1838, and would have been 69 in 

 October of this year had he lived. While he 

 was not able to span the great length of life 

 of his great teacher. Dr. Dzierzon, yet it can 

 not be said that he lived for naught to the 

 bee-keeping world, for practically all the 

 apicultural literature on this side of the At- 

 lantic at least, and all bee-supply catalogs, 

 have his name scattered all through. He 

 was known, not for his voluminous writings, 

 for to our certain knowledge all the articles 

 he ever wrote could be counted upon the lin- 

 gers of one hand. He was made famous for 

 an invention which he never felt was worthy 

 of the name of invention, so modest was he 

 of his attainments. During his many years 

 as a bee-keeper, however, he made a com- 

 fortable living, and even away back in 1890 

 was reputed to be well off. 



Mr. Hoffman left a large circle of friends, 

 for he was loved and honored by all who 

 knew him. He is survived by his widow; 

 his son Julius, of Brooklyn; three daughters. 

 Miss Hattie, who lives with her mother; Mrs. 

 Augustus Offermann, of Brooklyn, and Mrs. 

 Louis Bierbauer, Jr., of Canajoharie. 



COMB AND EXTRACTED HONEY FROM 

 THE SAME SUPER. 



The Construction of the Super; Why the 



Bees Enter them Readily; the Control 



of Swarming in Colonies Run for 



Comb Honey. 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



[This article and the one to follow in the next issue 

 are of special value, and we hope that comb-honey 

 men, at least, will give them a careful reading. It 

 should, perhaps, be understood that Mr. Townsend 

 has been working on this system for about two years, 

 and a customer of his in the East said that his 4x5 



comb honey in plain sections was about as fine as any 

 thing that he could secure in the country; in fact, he 

 took it oft his hands about as fast as he could produce 

 it, and sold it at prices considerably in excess of the 

 ordinary comb honey produced by bee-keepers gener- 

 ally. How to produce this fine honey, and at the same 

 time control swarming to a great extent, is explained 

 in these articles. 



From some experiments we made in years back we 

 feel satisfied that the plan he here proposes is most 

 excellent, and we see no reason why most bee-keepers 

 using a tall s ction could not put this scheme into ef- 

 fect this season. It is possibly true that those who use 

 the shallower supers — those for 4i4x4i4, square sec- 

 tions — could use the same principle. We will now 

 let Mr. Townsend explain the system in detail.— Ed.] 



As the sectional hive is now having its in- 

 nings, I thought it a good time to describe 

 my hive and system that we are using for 

 producing both comb and extracted honey 

 from the same super. 



The hive is of the ten-frame Heddon pat- 

 tern 5| inches deep, the inside length being 16^ 

 inches. The frames are 16 inches long by 5^ 

 deep, and have closed ends. A flat tin is 

 nailed on the bottom of each end, projecting 

 in i inch, for the closed-end fi'ames to rest 

 on. The supers are the same as the hive- 

 body. Each section of the hive is of the ca- 

 pacity of five Langstroth frames. The hive 

 is used one, two, or three sections high; thus 

 one can have a hive of five, ten, or fifteen 

 Langstroth-frame capacity without moving a 

 frame. We never handle brood-frames in 

 normal colonies in the production of either 

 comb or extracted honey. 



The inside furniture of the super consists 

 of 6 plain slats, |Xl§X16, for the 34 4x5Xlf 

 plain sections to rest on, two combs with 

 center bars, as shown in the engraving, and 

 seven L fence separators, built for four rows 

 of sections. This completes the super, except 

 two little pieces J inch thick and 5 inches 

 long. Two of these are nailed to one side of 

 each super, one in each corner, to hold the 

 frames away from that side of the hive. 



Super springs in the opposite corners hold 

 the frame on that side about the same dis- 

 tance away. Arranged this way, the space 

 in a super 14^ inches v\ ide is all used to good 

 advantage. 



An eight-frame super could be used with a 

 comb on each outside, the same as the ten- 

 frame; but there would be room for only 20 

 sections instead of 24. It might be necessary 

 to buy a certain width of section to make 

 things come out even. 



The Danzenbaker super would be especial- 

 ly adapted to this "comb and extracted hon- 

 ey from the same super " system, for a ^-inch 

 wide top and bottom bar in the two outside 

 section-holders, with a center-bar in these 

 frames to get the compression in the middle 

 of the super (see engraving), and the two J- 

 inch pieces, would be all the changes nec- 

 essary. This would then make one of the 

 best supers on the market. 



All our shallow brood and super frames 

 are made with the double-groove-and-wedge 

 top bars for fastening the foundation. By 

 making the top-bar f inch thick, the double 

 groove and wedge can be used. 



The center bar holds the center of the su- 

 per up square^and even; and with this short 



