BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
So before putting on supers the colonies are reduced to one story each. If a colony has 9, 10, or more frames of brood, all but 8 are taken away. The surplus frames of brood are given to those which have less than 8 frames of brood each, the effort being to have in each live 8frames well filled with brood when a super is given. The season may be such that it will not be possible to have as many as 8 brood in each live. A colony strong enough to have 6 frames well filled with brood is likely to be in condition for good super-work, but the work will be better if it has 7 or 8. On the other hand the season and the early condition of the bees may be such that when each colony is brought up or down to its 8 frames of brood, a considerable surplus of brood may be left.
## disposal of extra brood
Circumstances will decide what shall be done with this extra brood. It may be needed for building up nuclei, or for new colonies. It may be piled up temporarily in piles of three, four, or five stories each, to be used later in any manner desired. It does not take three times as many bees to care for the brood in three stories as it does to care for the brood in one story. If two or three stories of brood with adhering bees are piled up, in two or three weeks there will be enough bees there so that when reduced to one story it will be all right for super-work. Or, it may be left just as it is, and allowed to store in combs for the next spring's use.
### burr-combs
At the time of putting on supers, it is desirable that there shall be as little inducement as possible toward the building of burr-combs between top-bars and supers. A very strong inducement of that kind consists in the presence of any beginnings of such combs already there. Formerly I had a space of 3% of an inch over top-bars, and if a super of sections were placed directly on the hive. burr-combs in abundance would be built.
## hedon honey-board
In such conditions the Heddon slat-honey-board (Fig. 6) was a boon. Between the top-bars and the honey-board was a mass of burr-combs filled with honey, making a disagreeably dauby, sticky, dripping mess when the honey-board was removed; but the space between the honey-board and the bottoms of the sections was left beautifully free from burr-combs, so the section bottoms were left clean. This while everything was new; for if honey-boards were put on a second year without cleaning there would be the beginnings of burr-combs between honey-board and sections, or more than the beginnings if the honey-boards had gone more than one year without cleaning. So at some time before putting on the honey-boards they were carefully cleaned. But cleaning the honey-boards was not enough. The tops of the frames had to be cleaned as well, and this cleaning was done with a common garden-hoe, an assistant smoking the bees out of the way while the top-bars were hoed.
## correct bee-space
It was a great step in advance when we learned that instead of a space of 3/8 of an inch there should be only
Figure 42. Hive-Dummy.
\(\chi_{4}\) inch, or perhaps a shade less. In other words we learned that a bee-space, or that space in which bees were least inclined to put either comb or propolis, was a scant quarter of an inch. With a correct bee-space between top-bars and sections, we can dispense entirely with anything in the shape of a honey-board. There will be a little trouble with the building of bits of comb under the sections, but not enough to make it worth while to use a honey-board. But that trouble will be greatly aggravated if there be any beginnings of burr-combs on the tops of the frames when supers are given. So the tops must be cleaned off wherever there is anything to clean off before the supers are put on the lives.
## thick top-bars
Another thing that may help to keep down burr-combs is the thickness and width of top-bars. My top-bars are \(\%\) thick and \(1\%\) wide, leaving a space of \(\%\) inch between them. There are more burr-combs than I like built between them, and I have wondered whether any other space would be better. If the sides as well as the tops of the top-bars were cleaned off at the time of giving supers, it would help to keep the bottoms of sections clean, but I doubt its paying.
## thick top-bars for white sections
Even if the \(\%\) thickness of top-bar were of no other advantage, I should want it for the sake of keeping the cappings of the sections white. At one time I had wide-frames of sections facing brood-frames (the brood-frames were used to bait the bees up into the supers), and if the brood-frames were left there till the sections were sealed, the sealing would be almost if not quite as dark as the sealing of brood-combs. The bees seem to carry bits of the old, black brood-combs to use in capping the sections. So the thick top-bar increasing the distance of the sections from the brood-combs helps to keep the former white
"Before putting on the super, would you advise me to put a queen-excluder (Fig. 56) over the brood-chamber?" It would increase the space between the brood-combs and the sections, and in that way would be a further help toward prevention of dark cappings on the sections, and it would make a sure thing as to preventing burr-combs on the bottoms of the sections. But I don't believe there would be enough advantage in both ways to pay for the excluders.
I think I hear you say, "But wouldn't it pay to use excluders for the sake of keeping the queen out of the supers?" I may reply that the queen so seldom goes up into a super that not one section in a hundred, sometimes not more than one in a thousand, will be found troubled with brood. So on the whole I hardly think that all the advantages to be gained from using excluders would pay for the time and trouble of using them. I need not consider so very much the cost of them, for I have a lot on hand lying idle. At one time I thought I had a plan for prevention of swarming by the use of excluders, and was so sanguine about it that I got 150 of them. I think a great deal of queen-excluders, and wouldn't like to do without them, but I did not need 150 of them, for my excluder-swarm-prevention plan did not turn out to be a howling success.
## 10.2. experimenting on too large scale.
Allow me to digress long enough to confess that one of my weaknesses is being a little too sanguine about new plans while they are yet in the raw, and so experimenting on too large a scale. More than one crop of honey has been lessened by means of some foolish project that I thought might increase the crop. But I haven't done as badly as I might have done, for my good wife has acted somewhat as a balance-wheel, advising me to "go slow" and not experiment on too large a scale, and she has al ways been abetted by her sister, who is perhaps over-conservative. I could have tested my plan with 15 excluders just as well as with ten times that number, but I knew the plan would work, and I couldn't wait! I think I didn't consult my wife about ordering the 150 excluders. As I grow older I may learn caution, and experiment on a smaller scale, but too much should not be expected of me.
_Fig. 43--Crock-and-plate Feeder._
## pleasure of experimenting.
As an offset to the mischief done by experimenting on too large a scale, I may say that one of my keenest enjoyments is the working out of problems connected with bee-keeping. There is never a time, summer or winter, when I am not cooking one or more schemes, plans or projects connected with the business. No doubt more money could be made at bee-keeping if everything in the business were fully settled and we knew beforehand just exactly the right step to take in any given case, but there wouldn't be nearly the fun in it.
It may be asked why it is that I have so little trouble with queens laying in sections, while some others are much troubled in that way. Possibly the thickness of top-bars may have something to do with it, but very likely it may be that the amount of foundation in sections has a bearing on the case. Some use small starters in sections, while my sections are filled as full as possible with foundation. When drone-comb is absent from the broad-nest, there seems such a desperate desire for drone-brood that I have known the queen to leave the brood-nest and fill with eggs a patch of drone-comb two or three frames distant from the brood-nest. On the same principle she would go up into the sections if drone-comb were there, and nearly always when I find brood in the sections it is drone-brood. With small starters in sections there is plenty of chance for building drone-comb, but when the sections are full of worker foundation there is no chance for it, hence no special temptation for the queen to go above unless very much crowded for room.
Of course, when brood enters the sections, pollen is likely to follow. Perhaps a more common cause of pollen in sections is the shallowness of brood-frames. Against this, an excluder is powerless to help. I had a little experience with frames shallower than the _Langstroth, and had more pollen over one live with the shallower frames than over fifty of the others.
This work is done in the winter, or at least so early in spring that it will not interfere with other work, but as an understanding of it may help just a little toward understanding some of the summer work, I will talk about it here.
cleaning supers and t tins.
The propolis is scraped from the supers by means of the hatchet already mentioned. Cleaning \(T\) tins is an other matter. The plan used is the invention of my assistant, and I think I can not do better than to let her tell about it by copying the following article which she wrote for Gleanings in Bee-Culture:
"When we commenced work in the shop, the first super I filled with the nice clean sections, I looked at the T tins all covered with propolis and thought to myself, 'If we are to have sections unstained by propolis it will never do to put them on these dirty T tins. But, oh dear! it will be an endless task to scrape them all. I can never do it.' Just then a happy thought struck me. Why not boil the propolis off? Sure enough, why not?
"I repaired to the kitchen, placed the wash-boiler on the stove (one we use for such work), filled it with water and T tins, then went back to the shop to work, and left them to boil at their own sweet will, delighted to think I had such an inspiration. In about an hour I went back to the kitchen to see how my T tins were progressing. I fully expected to see them all nice and clean, and was most bitterly disappointed to find that they looked even worse than they did when I put them in, as the propolis was more evenly distributed all over them.
"I next tried scrubbing them with a broom in the boiling water, but it would not work. I meditated awhile, then concluded I would try concentrated lye, provided Dr. Miller did not object. I did not know what effect the lye would have on the tins. He said I might try it. I put the boiler back on the stove to try once more. I did not feel quite so sanguine as I poured in part of a can of concentrated lye.
"I did not leave it this time, but anxiously watched to see what effect it would have. It brought it off pretty well, but was not quite strong enough. I put in the rest of the can of lye, and, Eureka! the propolis disappeared as if by magic. I stirred the tins with the poker to insure the lye reaching all parts of them; then with the tongs I lifted them into a tub and rinsed them off with cold water and set them up in the sun to drain, as bright and clean as when they came from the tinner's.
"I filled up the boiler with T tins again, and so on, until the strength of the lye was all used up, when I turned it out, filled up the boiler afresh, and began all over again, continuing until they were all done. I used a can of lye to a boiler of water.
"Every time I fill up a super with the nice clean T tins I feel more than paid for the work it took to make them so. I am pretty sure that washing-fluid would clean then almost if not quite as well as the concentrated lye, providing it were used strong enough, although I have never tried it. However, I think I should prefer the lye, as it does the work most thoroughly and does not hurt the T tins in the least, that I can see.
"If you have a lot of dirty T tins I advise you to clean them in this way, and see if you are not as delighted as I was to see them come out so bright and clean. Be sure to use plenty of water in rinsing them off."The well-known Hubbard section-press is used for putting the sections together. If the sections are fresh from the manufacturer and as good as they ought to be, they can be put together at once without any preparation. If they have been held over from the previous year they may be so dry that too many of them will break in folding. The joints of these are wet in a somewhat wholesale manner. If they are crated in such a way as to be favorable for it, the whole crate of 500 are wet before being taken from the original package, one side of the crate being removed so as to expose the edges of the sections. If the crate is not of the right kind for this, then the sections are taken from the crate and put in the proper position in an empty crate lying on one side with the top and one end removed. Of course the sections do not lie flat, but on their edges, the grooves of each tier corresponding with the grooves of the other tiers, so that a small stream of water poured into the grooves at the top will readily find its way clear through to the bottom. If necessary the sections must be wedged together, so there will be no room for water to get between them only at the grooves.
A pint funnel is specially prepared for the work. A wooden plug is pushed in from above, projecting below two inches or less. The lower end of the plug is whittled to a point, and either by means of a bad fit or by means of a little channel cut in one side of the plug, there is just leak enough so that when the funnel is filled there will be a continuous fine stream of water running from the point of the plug. Holding the funnel in one hand I pour into it _boiling_ water from a tea-kettle held in the other hand, at the same time holding the funnel so that the stream from the point of the plug shall be directed into the grooves, moving the funnel along just fast enough so that the water shall be sure to go clear through to the bottom. Cold water will not work well.
A plan I like better is to have a vessel of hot water somewhat elevated, with a small rubber tube running from it, so that the stream from it can easily be directed into the grooves. A fountain syringe works nicely.
Before wetting, the box of sections should be stood so that the sections are on end, and then jolted heavily, so as to make the grooves correspond the whole depth of the box. After the sections are wet they swell immediately, making them fit too tightly in the box to be gotten out without much difficulty. The boards are torn off one end of the box, and after the sections are taken out the boards are nailed on again, if it be desired to preserve the box.
## Folding sections.
Sometimes I put sections together myself, but generally some boy or girl does the work unless my wife be pressed into service. The operator seated at the machine (Fig. 57) has a pile of sections laid at a convenient height at her left hand, the sections piled so that ends correspond. As fast as the sections are taken from the press they are neatly piled in order on a board at the right of the operator. (I know that some throw the sections indiscriminately into a basket as they leave the press, and it seems this ought to take less time, but I think in the long run my way saves time.) It is desirable that the board upon which the sections are piled should be light, as no great strength is required, and sometimes several thousand folded sections will be piled up ahead, and it is pleasure to handle the light board. A dummy or almost any board will answer, but oftener wood-zinc queen-excluders are used. One of these is of such size that there may be placed upon it side by side three rows of sections with ten sections in each row. Upon these are placed three other rows, break-joint fashion, with nine sections in each row, and this piling up may continue till the upper rows contain four or less each. Generally the piling goes no higher than to have six sections in the proper rows, making 120 sections a board-full. As fast as one board is filled another takes its place, and the filled board is piled up, unless Miss Wilson is putting in foun dation at the time and is ready for a fresh boardful of sections.
## 113 Size of starters in sections
Foundation for sections comes from the factory in sheets large enough to fill several sections. At different times the sheets have been of different sizes, but for some time past they have measured \(3\%\) x \(15\%\).
This size is just right to make four top-starters\(3\%\) inches deep, and four bottom starters \(5\%\) inch deep. Occasionally a bottom-starter of this depth makes trouble by hopping over, but not often, and a shallower starter is more likely to be gnawed down by the bees. Moreover, I think the deeper the bottom-starter the more promptly the two starters are fastened together.
With two starters of this size in a \(4\%\) section, there should be a space of \(1\%\) inch between the two if it were not that the space is made larger by the melting away of the edges of the starters when they are put in the section (Fig. 113).
Two knives are needed, one to be heating while the other is cutting. For heating I use a common kerosene lamp put in a box deep enough so that when a board is laid over the top of it and a knife is laid on that board the end of the knife-lade shall be directly over the lamp, nearly or quite touching the top of the chimney. I don't know what kind of a knife is best.
A Barlow knife makes good work, but I think I like better a common tea-knife with a thin steel blade broken off, so it is 2% or 3 inches long, and somewhat square at the point.
Preparatory to cutting, the foundation must be carefully and evenly placed on the board. Take seven sheets and even them up true and nice, and lay the pile with one end tight against the end-stop and one side against the side-stops. Now lay a similar pile close beside it.
Beginning at the right-hand end, place your rule against the left-hand side of the nails, and with a quick stroke make a cut with the knife held flat against the rule. If you don't look out your'll hold the rule so that you'll cut a piece off the tip of the thumb or finger of the left hand, but you'll not be likely to do it many times. If you are not careful to hold the knife flat against the rule you will be likely to cut into it. To avoid this I have tried covering the rule with tin, but do not like it so well. The rapidity of the stroke is important. If your knife is hot enough you can cut clear down through at one stroke, but that's bad. The edges of the foundation will be melted together, and you will have trouble getting them apart. Turn down your lamp, and get it so three or four strokes will be needed.
Letterly I have given up heating the knife, and like it better. The small blade of a pocket knife is used, and it is kept very sharp, especially at the point. Several rapid strokes do the business. The rapidity of the strokes is important, but some practice is needed, for with the very quick stroke there is some danger that the knife will cut into the stick.
Although this plan takes more strokes, it still saves time for there is no heating or changing of knives. It also saves the time of pulling the pieces apart, for with the hot knife there will always be at least a little melting together at the edges. Of course the cutting must not be done when the foundation is too cold, or it will be more or less broken.
Cutting foundation in a miter-box with a corrugated bread-knife was highly commended. I tried it, and was quite pleased to think it made faster work, although hardly such exact work. Then I timed it by the watch, and was surprised to find that it took more time than the old way.
When the boardful is cut I take a super with a bottom in it, gather up and put into it 56 bottom-starters, also the 56 top-starters, making them in a neat pile.
-Instead of using a single rule, I have for some time preferred to have a rule for every cut, making a saving of time. Take seven rules and lay them on the board on the proper places for cutting. On the ends of the rules, at each side, lay a thin strip of wood 15 inches long or longer--a one-piece section without the grooves does nicely--with one end of each strip tight up against the end-stop. Now nail together in this position, clinching the nails. You will use this with the other side up, the rules above, the side-strips below (Fig. 61). Of course the guide-nails are not needed with this arrangement. In the picture three of the rules appear all right, but the other four, which are very close together, look as if they were all one.
The cutting-board rests on a little work-table (Fig. 63), which is quite convenient for this and other purposes.
The sections being folded and the foundation cut, we are now ready for putting starters in the sections. This is the work of Miss Wilson and she is an expert at it. After trying a number of foundation-fasteners, I have found nothing with which I can do better work than with the Daisy fastener.
## division of labor.
I may remark in passing that when I speak of doing things it does not always mean that I do such things personally, for it may be that some one else does the work entirely. But when any new implement is to be used or new plan tried, I first carefully study it up and try to learn just how it ought to be used. and then I instruct the one who is to make a specialty of that part of the work, and in a short time the specialist far exceeds the instructor. Miss Wilson can put in, I think, five starters to my one; my son Charlie, when a little chap, could distance me in putting together sections; and I think Philo can beat me at taking sections out of supers.
The Daisy foundation-fastener is so well-known that I need say nothing about the use of the machine itself.
* As the operator sits at the machine with a small pile of starters in the lap, a boardful of sections is at the left hand at a convenient height, the side of the board toward the operator (Fig. 87). The bottom-starter is put in first, then the top-starter. When the section has its two starters, it is put directly into the super. With a starter as deep as 3/4 inches it would hardly do to throw the section in a basket. Formerly the sections when filled were placed in order on a board the same as the board from which they were taken, and it was a separate job afterward to fill them in the super.
## Putting sections in supers.
By means of an implement of my own devising, which for want of a better name may be called a "super-filler" (Fig. 63), the separate job of filling sections in supers is now entirely dispensed with, and the sections go directly from the Daisy fastener into the super, taking no more time to be put into the super than it would take to put them on a board. Indeed, I think it takes a little less time, for there is not the same need of care in placing the sections so other sections will not be knocked off the board, but the sections are shoved into place in the super in a sort of automatic way. Then, too, it is a comfort to get them directly into the super, for while on a board, even for a short time, there is always danger of some mishap by which a boardful may tumble over and come to grief.
## super-filler
I'll tell you how to make a super-filler. Take a board as large as the outside dimensions of your super or larger. (The one in the picture is a board hive-cover.) Nail a cleat on one end of the board, and another cleat on one side as in the picture. These cleats may be \(
ot\!\!V_{2}\) by \(
ot\!\!V_{4}\) inch, but the dimensions are not important. Now put a super on the board, showing one corner \(\,\) snug up in the corner made by the cleats. With a lead-pencil, mark on the board, on the inside of the super, where the sides of the super come.