MANAGEMENT OF OUT-APIARIES 37 



last row next to the front of the super, and here there is only a place of 

 about two inches wide left which is not covered. Through this space the 

 bees pass up and down to and from the brood in the upper hive, so that the 

 brood is kept in as good shape as it was before putting on the super, and 

 thus the colony soon becomes very populous, without desire to swarm, while 

 this small passageway to the upper hive so nearly excludes it fronn the bees 

 that work is soon begun in the sections, although more or less honey will 

 be stored in these combs above as the brood emerges. But as this is to be 

 used for turning into bees the next season, no loss occurs on this fstoring in 

 brood-combs) account. If the season gives prospects that more than the 

 one super will be filled, another is placed above it, as in the usual plan, 

 raising the tin covering the sections to the top of this super, and the only ob- 

 jection which comes from this way of working in a very poor season is that 

 this upper hive must be raised or set off when we wish to manipulate the 

 sections in any way. In this way I secured during the extremely poor sea- 

 son of 1907 a little over sixty-one pounds per colony, on an average, while 

 multitudes of colonies in this locality, which were allowed to take their own 

 course, did not give a pound of surplus. If success is to crown our efforts 

 under all circumstances, conditions of different seasons, and especially dur- 

 ing an uncommonly backward spring, we must "have more than one string 

 to our bow," so as to get the bees and the season together, even in the worst 

 seasons which ever come ; and by thus doing, a very poor season may chron- 

 icle success on the right side of the ledger page. And because I believe the 

 above is the right "string-" to pull for success in a very poor season, I 

 have given this exceptional plan of working; while the other and more 

 fully described plan is the one to be used unless the season gives promise of 

 being very poor. 



■WHY AN EMPTY SUPER OF SECTIONS SHOULD BE PUT ON TOP OP RATHER THAN 



under sections partly pilled. 



It is now nearly noon, with the sun shining brightly, and the air be- 

 coming warni and balmy. To see the army of bees rushing in and out of 

 the hives containing the "shook" colonies is a sight to gladden the heart of 

 any beekeeper; and those returning from the fields seem quite heavily 

 loaded, though the nectar is very thin on account of so much rain. I tried 

 to count those coming in loaded during one minute, but they dropped down 

 so fast, almost in bunches of three, five, and sometimes ten or more, that it 

 was impossible to do it. I counted two hundred, and estimated that fully 

 twice that number went in without counting.^ Such colonies as these will do 

 something at securing nectar, even if it does rain the larg'er part of the 

 time. 



I now take a little time to look at the supers of sections, and a glance 

 at them shows the honey being sealed in the bait sections, with the most of 

 the other sections in the lower super, having the foundation fully drawn 



^ This would be 600 bees per miniite. or 36,000 per hour. If they worked at the 

 same rate for 10 hours, they would bring into the hive 360.000 load^ of nectar. Dur- 

 ing a good honey flow the loads of nectar should average about .040 gm. or 14,400 gm. 

 (about 31 lbs.) of thin nectar for the day. Of course, the bees do not carry maximum 

 loads when nectar becomes scarce, neither do they make as many trips. While a col- 

 ony does .not often .f.nTry in 30 pounds of nectar in a day. there are records of even 

 greater gains than this. In one case Doolittle reported that a colony at Borodino. 

 N. Y., stored 302 pounds in 10 days from basswood. Tn make this honey a much 

 greater amount of nectar had to be carried into the hive. If each of the field-workers 

 made an average of six trips to the fields in 10 hours the 360,000 loads of nectar esti- 

 mated above would represent a field force of 60 000 workers. 



