FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 121 



TOP VENTILATION OF SUPERS. 



In working for extracted honey it is an easy thing to give 

 a good deal of ventilation to each story, and it works well as a 

 great hindrance to swarming. It makes no great difference if 

 the bees should not seal the combs so well at the openings for 

 ventilation. For years I dreamed of trying to have some way 

 of having the same advantage for comb honey. To be sure, it 

 had worked well enough, at least part of the time, to have a 

 space for ventilation between hive and super at the back end. 

 But to have ventilation between each two supers could hardly 

 fail to make bad work about sealing where the openings came. 

 If we could only have ventilation at the center, where sealing 

 is first done, instead of at the ends where the last sealing is 

 done' Well, why ncti at the center? In 1912 I tried it, making 

 a ventilation-cover. Here is the bill of material for it : 2 piects 

 20 X 4% X % ; 2 pieces 4 x 4% x 1/4 ; 2 pieces ISYs x V2 x V2 ; 2 

 pieces 7 x Vg x 1/2. 



At each side will be one of the 20-inch pieces, and between 

 them, one at each end, the 4-ineh pieces. These will be nailed 

 upon the 13% pieces, one at each end, and the 7-inch pieces will 

 come at the inside ends of the 4-inch pieces. We now have a 

 cover with a central opening 12 x 4% inches. This is laid upon 

 the super with the %-inch square pieces uppermost, and on this 

 is placed the usual cover. If desired, this ventilation-cover can 

 be lightly nailed to the hive-cover, to be removed at the close of 

 the super-season. These ventilation-covers have not been thor- 

 oughly tested, but gi\e promise of being an acquisition. 



SDPEE SPRINGS. 



Until the introduction of super springs, my supers of 

 sections were wedged together by crowding in behind the fol- 

 lower a straight stick about as long as the inside length of the 

 super, and % x Vi inch. I find the super springs a very great 

 improvement. When the sections are filled into the super, the 

 corners, which have been wet, are not yet entirely dry, and no 

 matter how tightly wedged, as they dry out there will be a 

 shrinkage of the contents of the super, so that in some cases the 

 wedge-stick will drop down. The metal springs will adiust 



