THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



2-69 



shape when they went into winter quar- 

 ters. 



Our comb honey hives are of the Hed- 

 don style, only they have ten frames in- 

 stead of eight, as in the regular Heddon. 

 The bodies and supers are the same, and 

 are the regular, deep, ten-frame supers, 

 shortened up to 16>s inches long, by 14 '4 

 inches wide and 5'4 deep, inside measure, 

 with flat tins nailed on the bottom of the 

 ends, the tins projecting in % inch, for 

 the frames or pattern slats to rest on. 

 The brood frames are 16 inches long, 5>^ 

 deep, outside, and are closed end with 

 1 -I's spacing. As the body is 5 -'4 inches 

 deep, this leaves the regular % inch bee 

 space at the top. To make it into a super, 

 we use six slats 16x1 :'sX;?s inches. These 

 are for the twenty-four, 4x5x1 -^s plain 

 sec''Jon to rest on. Seven fence separa- 

 tors are used, and on each side, next the 

 side of the super, is a frame of new comb, 

 (not bred in) the same as the brood 

 frames, with an extra end-bar nailed in 

 the middle. This middle bar is for the 

 purpose of pressing the sections together 

 in the center, and two, or three, soper 

 springs can be used, at the option of the 

 bee-keeper. This is our comb and ex- 

 tracted honey super, the extracted honey 

 coming from these two, outside combs. 



ADVANTAGES OF THIS SYSTEM. 



There are several advantages in this 

 combination super; the most important is 

 the stimulus these tvto combs give the 

 colony. The fact is, the bees enter the 

 super and work just as readily as in ex- 

 tracting combs. No matter how high you 

 tier up. there is a continuous comb clear 

 up both sides of the super. There is real- 

 ly no breaking of the cluster, when rais- 

 ing up one super and placing another un- 

 der it. as the bees form a cluster clear 

 down along these outside combs. With 

 the Barber plan of giving a full set of 

 shallow combs to get the bees started, 

 they start all right, but the trouble ccmes 

 when we lift up this super of combs and 

 place our empty super under. The cluster 

 is then broken, and if the bees are not in 

 a comb building mood, they sulk, and 



many times swarm, when the super of 

 combs is full. These full supers of combs 

 are just the thing to give at the close of 

 the seeson. instead of a late super of 

 sections, that would be likely to get only 

 partly full. 



A super, to work to the best advantage, 

 ought to be often-frame width; this gives 

 room for 24 sections in a super, and 

 leaves room for the two combs. Some 

 one has said that this super produced ex- 

 tracted honey at the cost of comb. To 

 this I would say, the only time the ex- 

 tracted costs the same as comb, is when 

 we are getting our foundation drawn out, 

 the first time used. Later, after the 

 combs are drawn out, any one trying this 

 system will soon be convinced, when he 

 sees how freely the bees work in these 

 supers, right from the start, that there 

 will be no sulking, as we used to have, 

 when we depended on bait sections to 

 start the bees above. Before we used 

 extracting combs in our supers, we used 

 to put our bait sections in the corners of 

 the super. The idea was to get the bees 

 started first in that part of the super 

 they usually work last. The trouble with 

 this system was, each season we would 

 try to get all the sections finished, if pos- 

 sible, so we had baits for only a few, 

 using four to the super. As far as they 

 went, they did very well. Having had 

 these experiences, you caji see how natur- 

 al it would be for me to adopt the combs 

 instead, when my attention was called to 

 them. A great advantage, perhaps I 

 ought to say the great advantage, this 

 super has over the bait comb plan is, we 

 start the bees at work in that part of the 

 super that usually is the last to be worked. 

 If we can accomplish this, our battle is 

 won, as far as getting the bees to work in 

 the super is concerned; but I have left the 

 best for the last. It is this: Our being 

 able to get the bees to work in the out- 

 side first induces them to take possession 

 of the whole super of sections at once; 

 and in thus getting the bees to work every 

 section in a super at the same time, lies 

 much of the secret of the production of 



