84 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



whatever might be true as to extracted honey. At one time I 

 had two hives with shallow frames, and the amount of pollen 

 in sections filled over those shallow frames was greater than in 

 all the other thousands of sections filled over the Langstroth 

 frames. 



Please do not misunderstand that all my combs look like the 

 four in Figs. 32 and 33. Many of them do, but more do not, 

 because so many of them were built in seasons of comparative 

 dearth. 



There is another way to get combs built down to the bottom- 

 bar. Suppose you have a comb with a passageway under it 

 more or less of its length. Cut it free from the bottom-bar, and 

 then cut straight across an inch or more above the bottom-bar; 

 then turn this piece upside down and let it rest on the bottom- 

 bar. The bees will immediately fasten this piece to the bottom- 

 bar (of course it must be at a time when bees are working 

 freely), and \'ery soon they will fill in the gap above the piece. 



HIVE-DUMMY. 



A good dummy is a matter of no light importance. It ih 

 handy to fill up vacant space, its chief use being to make an 

 easy thing of removing the first comb from a hive. With self- 

 spacing frames there can be no crowding together of the frames 

 so as to give one of them extra room, as is the case with loose- 

 hanging frames, and if a hive be filled full of self-spacing 

 frames it will be about impossible to remove the first frame 

 after a fair amount of propolis is present. A dummy at one 

 side is the thing to help out. 



An eight-frame dovetailed hive is 121/8 inches wide inside. 

 Eight frames spaced 1% inches from center to center will occupy 

 11 inches, leaving at one side a space of IVs inches, abundance 

 of room to lift out the first frame easily. A dummy put into 

 that space will keep the bees from filling it up with comb, and 

 it ought never to be diificult to lift out the dummy. If a dummy 

 a trifle more than a fourth of an inch thick be put in, leaving 

 a fourth of an inch between dummy and frame, there will be 

 left between the dummy and the side of the hive a space of a 

 little more than half an inch, a space that the bees will never 



