^70 



THE BEE-KEEPERS* REVIEW 



fancy comb honey; and that is just what 

 this combination does. If the foundation 

 is put in properly, so it hangs true and 

 even in the center of the section as it 

 should, and the honey flow is fair, every 

 section produced in this super will be 

 fancy, unless it may be a very few at the 

 close of the season, which will have to go 

 into the number one grade. 



It was along this line that we produced 

 the exhibition honey that won the first 

 prize at the Michigan State Convention a 

 year ago; the only time ever on exhibition. 

 Another point, we have not produced, and 

 sold, during the last two years, to exceed 

 two per cent, of number two honey, and 

 75 per cent, would grade fancy. 



By using a few sets of these shallow 

 supers full of comb with which to finish 

 up the season, then feeding a few supers 

 at the last, to get them finished, we have 

 not had over two supers of what would be 

 called bait sections, in two years. This 

 not having any old, dirty, propolised sec- 

 tions left over, and being able to com- 

 mence the season each year with new 

 clean sections, is enough, in itself, to cause 

 any one desiring to produce a fine article 

 of comb honey, to make the change. 



May 20th, before going home, as the 

 weather conditions were favorable, the 

 paper was removed from the hives and 

 upper stories given to all the medium and 

 strong colonies. This proved to be just 

 30 days before the season opened. Much 

 of the time during the first 19 days of 

 June the weather was cold and disagree- 

 able. Had our bees been confined to 

 their one story hives during these 30 days 

 previous to the honey flow, many of them 

 would have swarmed at the opening of 

 the honey season, but, as it was, of the 

 84 colonies in this yard, worked for ex- 

 tracted honey, only five or six swarmed; 

 and the queen was confined to the lower 

 story, with queen-excluders. 



The 84 colonies that were worked for 

 comb honey were treated the same as 

 the extracted colonies, before the honey 

 season opened. We placed one section of 

 a brood-nest under all the strongest col- 



onies; that is, this was done as long aS 

 these bodies lasted, for they were the 

 hives where the bees had died the pre- 

 vious winter. There were enough for 

 about half of them, counting some that 

 were taken from a few that were so light 

 as to need only one section of their hive. 

 What others there were that needed more 

 room before the season, were given a 

 shallow extracting set of combs on top, 

 first putting on a queen-excluder, as we 

 did not want brood reared in our nice 

 white combs. At the first signs of the 

 honey season opening, these extra half 

 stories were removed and supers of sec- 

 tions given. This was June 19th, the 

 date of my third visit to this yard. As 

 the second stories were already on the 

 extracted honey colonies, there was noth- 

 ing to do with them. After removing 

 these extra stories from the comb honey 

 colonies, and getting them into their regu- 

 lar size hive, and uniting all the little, one- 

 section colonies, making all strong, we 

 gave each a super, arranged as I have 

 explained heretofore. 



TIERING UP BY PUTTING SUPERS ON TOP. 



This being done, 1 was ready to start 

 for home; and m.y son Delbert. who was 

 to stay here clear through the season, was 

 instructed to give an additional super on 

 top, as soon as these first given were one- 

 half to two-thirds full. When the bees 

 were nicely started in this top super, 

 when it was, say, one-fourth full, it 

 would indicate that the first-given super 

 was about full. The combs might not be 

 capped, but the foundation would be near- 

 ly drawn out. and the time had come to 

 change places with the supers, by plac- 

 ing the full one ^on top. Then another 

 empty super is to be placed on top again; 

 and then when this third super is a fourth 

 full, or so, lift up the two lower supers, 

 and place this last, or light super next 

 the hive. It will not be long now before 

 some of this first will be capped and 

 ready to come off. 



From now on there will be work, and 

 lots of it, for as soon as these supers are 

 X capped, or a little more, we put a bee- 



