1260 



GLEANINGS IN liEK CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



a foot above the ground now. Only two or 

 three times in 45 years have I detected the 

 ta.sle or odor of basswood honey as gathered 

 by my bees. 



Fig. 3 shows another tree, horse chestnut, 

 that ought to be a great yielder, judging by 

 the sound of the bees among its blossoms 

 when the tree is in full bloom. But there 

 are two reasons why I don't get surplus 

 from horse chestnuts. One is that there are 

 no trees to speak of, and another is that all 

 the bees that work on it are bumble-bees. 

 Perhaps that last is reason enough. I may 

 as well 'fess up that I wanted an excuse to 

 show you the pretty picture. That tree 

 makes a delightful place of the piazza, and 

 sometimes on a hot day I enjoy sitting at 

 work at my typewriter under its shelter. 



To offset these sources upon which I can 

 not depend is the one plant, white clover. 

 Wipe out white clover and I'd have to quit. 

 But the sad 

 part of it is 

 that, while 

 some years, 

 perhaps most 

 years, white 

 clover yields 

 liberally there 

 are years like 

 1906 when it 

 blooms boun- 

 tifully with 

 never a yield. 

 There is, how- 

 ever, a saving 



n sections, 

 for the stock 

 that was ready 

 for the crop 



1 didn't get in 

 1906 will be 

 all right for a 

 crop another 

 year. 



If 1 were a 

 young man 

 looking for a 

 Honey loca- 

 tion I'd take my time to learning about it, 

 but not enough time to fall too much in love 

 with the place and the people until I knew 

 for certain the honey was there. 



Marengo, 111. 



well know that the wide-frame super is the 

 oldest good practical super in existence, and 

 every bee-keeper ought to know what it is. 



It would be difficult to tell just who in- 

 vented the wide frame. Mr. Doolittle, who 

 uses it exclusively, I think, told me that Mr. 

 J. S. Harbison first introduced it. Mr. A. I. 

 Root brought out the double-tier wide frame 

 adapted to the regular Langstroth or Sim- 

 plicity hive. I am too modest to mention 

 some other inventors who constructed sin- 

 gle-tier wide-frame supers that have not 

 been improved since in principle, except, 

 perhaps, making use of a fence or screen 

 separator instead of the plain wood separa- 

 tor and adding the double bee-space, so that 

 the first comb will not face the side of the 

 hive directly. I will mention this latter fea- 

 ture again to make it clear. When saying 

 that the wide-frame super is the oldest good 

 practical super I concede that there are oth- 



HG. 2.— DK. MILLEKS HOME, 



THE WIDE FRAME— AVHAT IS IT? 



How to Make it ; the Construction of the 

 Super. 



BY F. GREINER. 



It would seem almost needless to write an 

 article on wide frames and wide-frame su- 

 pers; but several inquiries have come to me 

 of late, one from across the watei", and I 

 have been asked to describe the wide-frame 

 super in Gleanings if I could not answer by 

 private letter, so I have gathered the cour- 

 age to ask the editor to allow me the space 

 to do justice to the inquirers, although I 



WITH A HORSE-CHESTNUT TREE NEAR THE 

 PIAZZA. 



er good supers in use such as the Ideal su- 

 per, T super, slotted-section super, etc. ; but 

 I think the wide-frame super is the oldest, 

 and a little the best for me, which, however, 

 does not preclude the fact that I am biased 

 in this matter. It is not my object to argue 

 the question as to which is the best super, 

 but to describe what the wide-frame super 

 is and what it looks like. 



The width of the frames which are to hold 

 the honey- boxes, commonly called sections, 

 depends, of course, upon the width of the 

 sections used. Suppose we use the 4iX4jX 

 1| regular section, then the end-pieces must 

 be 1| inches wide, and a hair's breadth long- 

 er than the section is tall. It is most im- 

 portant that this be not overlooked, other- 

 wise the sections will not go in easily; and, 

 worst of all, when crowded in they will 

 spring the bottom-bar down. If these end- 

 pieces are made i-inch thick there is a good 

 opportunity furnished for nailing the frame 



