26 DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



bees work with more entrain and often yield much greater 

 results. 



An experiment made by us upon a number of supers, in 

 which both pound sections and full length combs were used, left 

 us not a shadow of doubt as to the bees' preference. Every 

 practical beekeeper knows that bees begin the storing of honey 

 in the super in that part of it which is nearest to the brood, 

 usually the center of the hive. Placing both full length combs 

 and sections, supplied equally with comb foundation, together 

 in supers, but with the sections in the most favorable part, near- 

 est the brood, we saw the bees invariably begin their storing in 

 the full length combs, although remoter from the brood, and 

 they were filled before the sections were fairly begun. Any 

 experimenter can easily test this himself. 



Side Storage 



In a former chapter, we mentioned very wide hives, with 

 side storage, under what is now termed "the long idea" system. 

 Such hives are used in a number of localities, but the very deep 

 hives are better suited to this method. So the most persistent 

 system of side storage is followed with the De Layens hive, con- 

 taining as many as 20 or more frames, 12 or 13 inches deep or 

 nearly square. The difficulty is that the queen is at liberty to 

 roam from one comb to another and may have a little brood in 

 most of the frames. Then the honey is difficult to extract. We 

 even tried section boxes and storage boxes in the sides of those 

 hives. The bees prefer to place their honey close to the brood 

 and as much as possible above it. This side storage proved 

 inacceptable, whether in frames or sections. 



Queen-Excluders 



It is quite the custom for beekeepers to use queen-excluders 

 between the brood apartment and the supers, whether running 

 for extracted honey or for comb-honey. This is because the 

 average beehive is too small in its brood-chamber to accommo- 



