82 THE BOOK OF BEE-KEEPINa 



Storey of the first hive, the quilts being taken from off its frames, and 

 placed on top of the upper one. A quantity of the bees from 

 the lower will ascend into the upper storey and rear the brood ; 

 this, continually hatching, will provide a large population, who 

 will hasten to bring in the harvest, storing it away in those 

 cells recently vacated by the brood ; thus, the combs on 

 top act as a super, the honey being extracted from them as 

 soon as sealed over. In some cases, directly all the brood 

 has hatched out, a third storey with combs is placed 

 between first and second ; this, together with the lower, will 

 be used by the queen for breeding in ; the upper one, after being 

 extracted from, is placed beneath the second tier. Four rows 

 of frames in some districts can be used, but a stock to be able 

 to fill this number must be exceptionally prolific, and the country 

 around a good honey-producing one. We do not recommend 

 this system, as the honey is usually not of so good a colour — a 

 very important factor in the sale of same — as that from shallow- 

 frame supers. 



130. Working with. Shallow-frame Snpers. — Extracted 

 honey is far superior in colour, flavour, and aroma, if produced 

 in the most modem form, i.e., by using shallow-frame supers. 

 Considerable opposition was offered to this system when first 

 introduced some few years ago, but the great superiority of the 

 product when stored in these appliances has very rapidly overcome 

 the opposition to their use. The cause of this opposition was the, 

 at first sight, very natural one of having two different-sized frames 

 in the apiary. Now, if it were proposed to have two different 

 sized body-box frames the opposers would have very good 

 grounds for their opposition, the reason being that the body- 

 box frames of one hive would not be interchangeable with the 

 body-box of another hive. With shallow frames we know 

 that these simply belong to the supers, while the standard-size 

 frames belong to the body-boxes only ; that is, one description 

 of frame fits supers only, the other size body-boxes only, in just 

 the same manner as sections fit supers and standard-frames 

 fit body-boxes. As a matter of fact the shallow-frame supers have 

 come to stay for good. A shallow-frame super can be used to 

 produce honey in combs of varying thicknesses. This is accom- 

 plished by spacing the frames further apart, so that the bees 

 have plenty of room to elongate their cells on each side of the 

 septum (midrib) of a comb (see "Frame Spacing," paragraph 47, 

 page 26). It is well known among apiarists that bees when 

 storing their honey elongate their cells, where there is suf- 

 ficient space to do so, almost indefinitely. We have measured 

 a cell just over 2in. in depth as against the normal size of a 

 little over fin. The advantage of having these thick combs 

 is that a larger quantity of honey can be stored in proportion to 



