COMBINATION SUPERS.
Other comb-honey producers provide each comb-honey super with two shallow extracting combs. These are placed one on each side of the super with the sections between them ([fig. 11]). The purpose of this arrangement is to induce the bees to begin work in the super promptly without the use of "bait sections" (sections containing comb previously drawn) or an extracting super and also to do away with the usual poorly finished sections in the corners and outside rows. One great advantage of this system over the use of an extracting super to start early super work is that the combs are not removed. When shallow extracting supers are used for this purpose, they are removed as soon as the bees have started well in them and a comb-honey super substituted. This brings back much the same conditions existing before giving the extracting super, and while some colonies will begin work in the sections promptly when the change is made, many colonies hesitate about beginning the new work almost as though the extracting super had not been used. Such colonies are thus thrown out of "condition", ([p. 19]) and may begin preparations to swarm. The use of these combs in supers that are added subsequently allows the apiarist to place the empty super over the one already on the hive until the bees begin work therein without seriously crowding the super room, because each super thus added contains room in the form of empty comb into which the new nectar may be stored at once (see [p. 42]).
Other Apparatus.
Among the other apparatus needed in commercial comb-honey production are a honey extractor, wax press, bee-escapes, and escape boards ([fig. 12]), queen-excluding honey boards ([fig. 2]), feeders, tools, etc. It is not necessary to provide queen-excluding honey boards for each colony unless some special system is followed, yet a few excluders are very desirable for various special manipulations. Good feeders may be had by using tin pans in connection with an empty super. A handful of grass should be placed on the sirup to prevent the bees from drowning. In addition to these appliances in the northern States, if the hives are single walled, some means of protection is necessary if the colonies are wintered out of doors.
Fig. 12.—Bee-escape board for removing bees from supers. (From Phillips.)
Preparing Supers.
FOLDING SECTIONS.
Section presses and foundation fasteners are sometimes combined in one machine by which the section is pressed together square and the foundation is fastened by a single operation. Usually, however, they are separate machines requiring that each section be handled twice before it is ready to be placed into the super. Ordinarily the one-piece sections must be dampened before folding, as otherwise the breakage is considerable and the sections are greatly weakened by folding. A crate of sections as it comes from the factory may be dampened by removing one side so as to expose the V-shaped grooves, then directing a small stream of hot water into these grooves. Care should be taken that only the thin portion where the section is folded be dampened. Another very satisfactory method of dampening sections is to wrap the crates containing them in a wet blanket the day before they are to be folded.