ADVANCED EEE-CUI/rURE. 



17 



the operator must always be on the look- 

 out for brood in the extracting supers. 

 Some combs will be found containing 

 only a little boood, yet they cannot be 

 extracted without throwing out some of 

 the brood into the honey. Some bee- 

 keepers, when they find brood in the 

 upper story, exchange the combs for the 

 outside combs of the lower story, if they 

 can find any such without brood, but this 

 takes time. To successfully conduct an 

 apiary, the fixtures and methods should 

 be such that the work will move along 

 smoothly and in a systematic manner, 

 without any "hitches." There is also 

 another point to be considered in con- 

 nection with the use of queen-excluders 



when raising extracted honey, and that 

 is the freeing of the supers by the use of 

 "bee-escapes." If the super contains 

 several combs of brood and the queen, 

 it is doubtful if the bees could be made 

 to desert it by the use of the "escape." 

 If they did desert it, then something 

 would have to be done with the brood 

 when it was discovered. In short, ad- 

 vanced bee-culture has divided the bee- 

 hive into two distinct apartments — brood 

 and surplus; and unless this division can 

 be maintained, many profitable plans 

 must be relinquished. The queen ex- 

 cluding honey board enables the bee- 

 keeper to thus set a boundary, beyond 

 which the brood cannot go. 



>^>P<^'S^'6^^l-^^<^- 



Sections and Their Adjustment on the Hives. 



NI/Y those who have kept a 

 dollar and cent account with 

 their bees, fully realize that 

 labor is the most expensive 

 factor entering into the cost of honey. 

 Let us suppose that a man cares for 100 

 colonies of bees, and by a series of crooks 

 and turns and complicated methods he 

 secures a good yield; a yield somewhat 

 increased we will suppose by the labo- 

 rious rrianipulation. Let us suppose still 

 further, that by improved methods and 

 fixtures he can manage 150 colonies 

 equally as well with no greater expendi- 

 ture of labor, it is evident that his profits 

 would be greater; they would be greater 

 even though the new departure did not 

 bring the yield quite up to that of the old 

 system. Of course, there is a limit to 

 the increase of colonies that may be 

 made on account of lessened labors re- 

 sulting from the adoption of improved 

 methods and fixtures, as the further we 



advance in this direction, the nearer and 

 clearer looms up the spectral head of 

 "Overstocking." 



But it is a pleasure to note that the 

 fixtures and methods of to-day are supe- 

 rior to those of a few years ago. In this 

 matter of sections and their management, 

 the plan of putting them on the hive and 

 taking them off one at a time has been 

 most completely discarded. A few bee- 

 keepers still manipulate them by the 

 wide frame-full, but the majority has 

 adopted some sort of a case or super by 

 means of which twenty-five or thirty sec- 

 tions can be handled at one time; and 

 with which "tiering up" may be prac- 

 ticed. The old, cumbersome, complica- 

 ted, laborious, side-storing system is laid 

 upon the shelf. It is perfectly safe to 

 say that "top storing" and "tiering up" 

 with some kind of a case, crate, or rack, 

 furnishes the best method now known 

 for securing comb honey; that is the only 



