2S8 BEE MANIPULATION. [Ch. v. 



frame hive ; and then it is that I put on my supers and 

 discontinue stimulative feeding. 



" In the place of the crown-board I place a sheet of 

 five-thirty-second perforated zinc, 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 without top board between the first one 

 and stock hive. The supers are also provided with traps 

 [page 201] to enable bees to leave 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 the stock hive), 

 when suddenly the weather changes and cold sets in. As 

 soon as this happens I remove the supers and watch the 

 bees, and if they require small quantities of food I give 

 it them, and when the fine weather returns they go again 

 into the supers when replaced on top. In this way it some- 

 times takes only a week to fill a thirty-eight or forty pound 

 super with some of the best honey that can be obtained 

 in this part of the country [Horsham]. I discard old 

 queens and generally select young and prolific egg-layers." 



Agreeing as we do very much with the hints Mr. 

 Cowan gives, we commend them to the careful carrying 

 out of inteUigent and painstaking apiarians. 



