44 The Townsend Bee Book 
the honey to be of a somewhat darker color and perhaps of a poor- 
er quality. 
THE COVEYOU PLAN 
Mr. E. E. Coveyou, of Petoskey, Michigan, has a very good 
plan for handling his bees during the fore part of the honey-flow. 
He uses ten-frame hives, and before the honey-flow he gives the 
colonies another story of combs without putting an excluder be- 
tween. The cells of these combs should be of the worker size, for 
the queen is allowed full sway through this story until the colony 
needs a first one. At the time this third story is given, the queen is 
placed below in the first story, a queen-excluder is put on, and then 
the third story of empty combs put over it. Finally, on top of all, 
the second story partly full of honey and brood is added. This 
plan has the advantage of giving the colony an abundance of comb 
room and also an unlimited amount of breeding-space for the 
queen during the critical swarming period previous to the honey- 
flow. This is one of the best systems I have heard of to be used 
for this purpose in connection with the queen-excluder, for, aside 
from the advantage gained by allowing the queen unlimited breed- 
ing-room during the early part of the season, all of the advantages 
of the excluder are secured in extracting-time, for the brood lifted 
above with the second story will all be hatched and the combs 
filled with honey long before extracting-time, for Mr. Coveyou 
does not extract until late in August—perhaps 30 days after the 
close of the raspberry flow. 
Before putting on any upper stories Mr. Coveyou clips his 
queens, for he works three yards practically alone with the excep- 
tion of extra help made use of at extracting-time, or when some 
extra work is to be done. By having his queens clipped, and by 
being with the bees every day during the swarming or honey sea- 
son, he can hive any swarms that may issue. It is obvious that, if 
the queens had not been clipped, the swarms would have gone to 
the woods and been lost. If aswarm should issue when he is work- 
ing at some other yard, and returns to the hive, he is very likely to 
reach this yard by the next day; and when they come out again, 
as they almost assuredly will, he can hive them. 
PUTTING ON EXTRA SUPERS 
Knowing by experience that bees will enter upper stories 
without any hesitancy when placed on top of the hive or on top 
of any story that may be already on the hive, and as our extracting 
is not done until after the white-honey season is over, we have no 
