§ VI. BAR SUPERS.
To these we have already made considerable allusion under the various hives to which they are applied. They are often made of glass, but many are of wood or even straw. It is desirable that the combs in supers should be made thicker than those for breeding—the bees will in fact deepen their honey cells to almost any extent—and therefore the bars are placed somewhat, further apart than in stock hives, thus allowing of one or two bars less. By gradually widening the spaces between the combs these can be brought up, Von Berlepsch tells us, to four inches in thickness. With the shallower form of all the older supers the bars are without frames. The cut exhibits the "Woodbury Super," which is of glass thirteen inches square and six deep, with eight bars to the ten of the hive. These can be either the Woodbury ribbed bars, or flat ones with guide-comb attached. Lee's supers are similar, but they contain seven bars with four Stewarton slides for giving admission from one to the other when more than one super is used.
The next figure shows our "Frame Super," already sufficiently described on [page 141]. It can be had as below, in glass with wooden framework, or in straw with three windows, as shown with the hive on [page 142].
Next in order we give our "Divisional Super," to which a prize was awarded at the Crystal Palace Bee Show in 1875. It is composed of seven divisions or frames, which are kept together by lateral strips of wood. Each division is intended to have one comb worked in it, rendering the contents of the super divisible without cutting the combs. As shown in the figure on [page 175], this super is now made with whole-glass ends. From the same figure it will be observed that these supers are adapted for placing one above the other, passages being cut out of the top bar of the lower of the pair. Slits are cut for the insertion of strips of wax sheets.
Both in this super and the next it is desirable to provide against the admission of cold through the numerous interstices by keeping a warm woollen covering on the top and pasting paper over the divisions, which can easily be cut through when the super is filled.
Neighbours' "Sectional Super" is the last of our series. The attention of apiarians has been so much turned of late years towards a cheap and compact receptacle for honeycombs intended for deprivation, that we have introduced this last invention, which is very much on the same plan as the preceding, but the longitudinal divisions are again divided across, forming boxes, as shown in the figure. Each section is about two inches wide, seven long, and four and a half to five deep; it will contain about two pounds of honey in the comb. This is a convenient quantity for placing on the table or for purposes of presentation. The fourteen sections occupy the same space as the seven divisions of the preceding. Any number can however be used according to the size of the hive: the Philadelphia hive, for instance, has space for eighteen. Again, any single section can be removed when full, and another substituted.