ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 109 



can be induced to begin working' in the sections at the opening- of 

 the main honey flow, it relieves the "pressure," so to speak, upon 

 the brood nest, which results in more brood, while the turning of 

 the energies of the colony into the storing of honey, does much to 

 keep down the swarming fever. The greatest attraction that can be 

 placed in the supers is that of drawn comb. Unfinished sections 

 saved over from the previous season are excellent for this purpose. 

 As has been explained in a previous chapter, the honey must be ex- 

 tracted, and the bees allowed to clean up the combs, when the latter 

 must be packed away in supers where no dust nor mice can get at 

 them. I have given supers full of these partly drawn combs to col- 

 onies, (one super to a colony) and had these combs filled and capped, 

 and ready to come off, just as other colonies supplied with sections 

 containing foundation only, were only making their first start in the 

 supers. In this case, a super of partly drawn combs was worth as 

 much as a case of finished honey. There is, however, a still better 

 method of managing this part of the business. It is that of putting 

 on an extracting super first, and when this is filled and removed, the 

 bees are always ready to go to work in the sections immediately. 

 For this purpose, shallow supers are preferable; those containing 

 frames half the depth of the regular brood frame being the size that 

 is usually employed for this purpose. The greatest objection to the 

 use of the full-sized combs is that it requires so much honey to fill a 

 super of them, that it would materially reduce the crop of comb 

 honey. The use of a shallow extracting super removes this objec- 

 tion. Again, the beginning of the white honey flow is sometimes 

 mixed with an earlier, darker flow, and the taking of the first of the 

 white flow in the extracted form, insures the perfect whiteness of 

 all honey stored in the sections. Still further, these half-depth, ex- 

 tracting supers can be used to fully as great advantage at the end of 

 the harvest as at the beginning — perhaps to greater advantage. As 

 the time approaches for the close of the harvest, instead of giving 

 more sections, simply set on top of the sections one of these half- 

 depth, extracting supers. If more honey comes in than is needed 

 to fill and complete the sections already on the hive, it will "over- 

 flow," so to speak, into the extracting super that is on top; thus the 

 honey that would otherwise go to the making of a lot of unfinished 

 sections, is secured in the extracted form. Getting extracted honey 

 at the opening and closing of the season, as just explained, certainly 

 has some very decided advantages. It leads the bees to begin work 

 promptly in the supers at the opening of the season, keeps all 

 "mixed" honey out of the sections, and practically does away with 

 unfinished sections at the end of the season. 



