840 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
of food a day, of the strength of about three pounds of sugar 
to one quart of water. When there is sealed brood in three 
or four of the frames, I add two more—making eight—and 
serve them in the same manner as the rest; then when 
there are six with sealed brood, the colony will be sufficiently 
strong to have the remaining frames added. The same plan 
is adopted with the thirteen-frame hive. They must be con- 
stantly watched, so as not to allow them to store too much 
food, which would diminish the space available for egg-laying ; 
and if such is found to be the case, food should be withheld 
for a day or two, or until they are getting short of it. In 
this way I keep them going from day to day, watching them 
carefully, or it might happen that a hive full of bees—and 
at swarming point—might, if not watched and supplied with 
requisite food for existence, starve or decamp. So, by the 
time there is an abundance of honey abroad, the hives are 
completely filled with bees, and contain brood in every frame 
in the hive; and then it is that I put on my supers, and 
discontinue stimulative feeding. 
In place of the crown-board, I place a sheet of perforated 
zinc, with openings of five twenty-fourths of an inch, and 
supers same size as hive, and five inches deep. The supers 
are provided with bars, which are sawn down the centre, 
enabling me to fix a strip of impressed wax-sheet without 
any difficulty. The bees generally take to these supers at 
once ; and in a day or two the crown-board of super is 
removed, and I place a second super on the top of the first, 
or sometimes I interpose a second super without top-board 
between the first one and stock-hive. The supers are also 
provided with traps to enable bees to leave them after they 
have deposited their load, instead of passing through the 
stock-hive. Now it sometimes happens that for some days 
the weather is fine, and the bees begin storing a large 
quantity of honey in the supers (as they have no room in 
stock-hive), then suddenly the weather changes and cold and 
wet set in. As soon as this happens I remove supers and 
watch the bees, and if they require small quantities of food 
I give it to them, and when the fine weather returns they go 
