460 HONEY PRODUCTION. 



frame only 4^ inches deep is inadequate when the extractor 

 is used. The smallest super that we woud use on Langstroth 

 hives is that with a 5% inch side bar to the frame. The frames 

 of our supers have a 6-inch side bar. 



761. Colonies, which do not have the breeding apartment 

 nearly full of brood, honey and pollen, need not be supplied 

 with supers till they show a marked progress. After the open- 

 ing of the honey crop, which is very easily noticed by the 

 greater activity of the bees and the whitening of the upper 

 cells of their combs, a regular inspection of their progress is 

 necessary. The season is short, but the daily yield is some- 

 times enormous. 



762. Mr. A. Braun stated, in the Bienenzeitung , Septem- 

 ber, 1854, that he had a mammoth hive furnished with combs 

 containing at least 184,230 cells, and placed on a platform 

 scale, that its weight might readily be ascertained at stated 

 periods. On the eighteenth of May it gained eighteen pounds 

 and a half. On the eighteenth of June, a swarm weighing 

 seven pounds issued from it, and the following day it gained 

 over six pounds in weight. Ten days of abundant pasturage 

 would enable such a colony to gather a large surplus, while 

 five times the number of equally favorable opportunities would 

 be of small avail to a feeble one. 



Weights of colonies taken regularly by Swiss Apiarists show 

 that twenty pounds a day of harvest is frequently gathered by 

 strong colonies. A part of this amount is evaporated during 

 the following night, according to the greater or less density 

 of the nectar harvested (349, 261). 



The largest yield of extracted honey, ever harvested by 

 the colonies of one apiary under our control, was 13,000 

 pounds in about fifty days, the most protracted honey crop 

 we ever knew. This was harvested by eighty-seven colonies, 

 making a daily average of three pounds a day per colony of 

 evaporated honey. Such seasons are scarce. 



As some colonies harvest much more than others, they need 

 more attention. 



