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James E. Tew
I gave you a “heads-up”
In the February 2022 edition of Bee Culture magazine, I wrote that I had found some of obvious artifacts in bee supply catalogs and in the bee world that are historically interesting. At the end of that piece, I wrote that I would return to this subject. Well, I’m back. As it were, you were warned.
Your local bank teller
Think about it. Why are banks the only places today that have “tellers?” Apparently, the word is a derivation of a Middle English word, tellen, which meant “to count.” As early as 1480, the word, teller, was used to describe anyone who counted anything – merchandise, animals, votes, or money – anything that needed to be inventoried. While in times past, teller seems to have been a common word used for multiple purposes, we now use it nearly exclusively to describe employees at banks who count our money. So, when you visit an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine), that modern contrivance is named after an ancient procedure. It’s interesting that we are using a very old word for a very modern procedure.
Language litter
Our English language is littered with words having interesting histories. Clue, quarantine, malaria (from Africa meaning bad air), and ketchup are but a precious few of the many, many words we use every day that have colorful, if not ancient derivations.
But my interest is in all-things-beekeeping and not so much bank tellers. Humans have apparently had a relationship with honey bees for about nine-thousand years1. We’ve been beekeeping about as long as we have been farming. I don’t think modern beekeepers realize just how old our craft is.
Naturally, beekeeping has evolved some words (terms) that have either been changed or have adapted to modern apicultural use. They go back a long way. But these words can require outright study when reading an older bee book or perusing a supply catalog. These words frequently make no linguistic sense in beekeeping context – or any other context for that matter. They have become unique to the beekeeping lexicon2.
Super and supering
Only beekeepers worry about their supers and supering. Who of you reading this have not had to explain to your friends who know nothing of beekeeping why you are supering your colony? Indeed, do you know why you are supering?
Readers, at this point, I am on thin ice. I am not a historian, grammarian, nor am I a linguist. I am only a beekeeper trying to determine why our industry uses bee boxes called “supers.” What follows is my effort. Patience please.
From the Wiktionary I post directly: From super– (prefix), from Middle English super-, from Latin super-, from super (“above”), from Pre-Italic or Proto-Indo-European *eks-uper, from *eḱs (“out of”) (English ex-), from *h1eǵhs + *uperi (English over). Cognate to hyper, from Ancient Greek3. Merriam-Webster defines “super” as: super- Prefix. Latin, over, above, in addition, from super over, above, on top of — more at over.
Beekeepers, it seems that we are using a very old definition of the word super when we use it as a name for a bee box. Super. Nearly everyone today, uses super as a prefix, while beekeepers use the word uniquely as a noun that names a bee box.
During the development of supering, glass domes or small wicker baskets were considered superior to simple wooden boxes. In our earliest years, wooden boxes were not our first choice for use as a super. It took the passing of time for the development of the wooden box that are now called supers to come into common use.
Does this information super excite you? So, go to your bee yard next Spring and super up. Put those empty boxes on top of your hive. You’ll be doing the right thing. But you can pretty much forget nadiring, eking, or collateralling. We don’t do that much now.
Nadiring and eking
In general, when adding space to a colony, beekeepers no longer employ nadiring, eking, or collateral positioning any more. Interestingly, beekeepers who use the Warré hive design will sometimes nadir their colonies, but that use is pretty much the limited range of beehive nadiring today. Nadiring is the process of adding empty boxes at the very bottom of the hive just as supering is the process adding additional space on the very top of the hive.
In The Handy Book of Bees4, A. Pettigrew explains that when nadiring, the empty added space below was separated by a crown board – what we now call an inner cover in the U.S. The crown board had a “large” hole in the center from which the crowded brood nest would move through and into the lower empty box, “hanging there to build new combs.” Essentially, the new comb would be used for brood and the original space that was previously used for brood would become filled with honey.
The now-full original brood nest that has been filled with honey could be removed as surplus honey. In a way, the original brood nest had become what you and I call a super. Pettigrew, with only anecdotal support, wrote that both nadiring and eking suppressed swarming. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t nadir my bee hives, so I can’t say one way or the other.
“Eking” was the procedure of adding an additional rim, commonly below a skep but sometimes a wooden rim beneath a hive much like nadiring. Eking seems to have been done primarily to forestall swarming by adding brood space to a crowded colony. There was no mention of using a crown board with the eking process.
Co-lateral hive management
During the 1750s, “Bee-Masters” of the day explored supplying additional space to the central colony on both sides rather than only on top or bottom. An important consideration of the time was that keeping bees in skeps required that a specified number of these colonies had to be killed with sulfur to harvest the honey. The collateral system was noted to be humane and that the bees would not leave the colony “in disgust” after having their honey taken from them.
The side compartments were primarily additional space to help dissuade swarming. By my and your standards, these were small colonies producing small crops. In many instances, there was a glass dome atop Thomas Nutt’s5 hive that was a kind of super. In general, the few surviving examples of Nutt’s Collateral Hive were superbly constructed and were referred to as parlor hives for gentlemen. If a Nutt Hive was put outside, it was generally kept beneath a shelter.
Figure 1
Thomas Nutt’s Collateral Hive, exploded view. Bottom drawers for feeding.
Along with Thomas Nutt, Stephen White and John Jones survive in the old beekeeping literature as beekeepers who supported collateral hive concepts, but there are no existing hives that they touted. Few procedural instances remain for today’s beekeepers to add additional space from the sides of the colony. Maybe stretching a point, but some management procedures of top bar hives, on occasion, may employ a kind of side space additions.
Supers and supering are paramount beekeeping terms
At the historical outset, placing additional space on top of the colony was called “Storying.” Later (I don’t know how long), the word super replaced the word “story.”
Beekeepers, I apologize for this discussion taking so much of your reading time, but I feel that it is necessary to understand that super and supering – as used by beekeepers – is essentially an archaic use of the word that has now evolved other meanings in the English language. As is so often the case in beekeeping, other techniques were in use, and each procedure had its loud and strident proponents and opponents. Storying, renamed supering, survives to this day, but nadiring (and it’s similar eking) and collateralling, have passed into beekeeping disuse.
So that’s why beekeepers super their hives. (There! I discussed that to death.)
Medium brood foundation – the story as it fades into history
For many years, and still today for some producers, medium brood foundation was offered for sale. In fact, medium brood was the primary wax foundation for multiple decades and is still available today. It may have been crimp-wired and either hooked or hookless. It was always Medium Brood Foundation – never MBF or any other shortened designation.
New beekeepers could logically think that this foundation was for medium supers. No, it wasn’t. One would need the correct sized medium brood foundation so it would fit in a medium super. These are two different bee equipment items. In a radical diversion, I suppose one could feel that this was the foundation to use if one wanted to use foundation that would produce medium-sized bees. That would be wrong, too. The cell size and not the foundation weight – apparently – determined the size range of the developing bee.
As early as 1900, several weights of foundation were offered for sale. Heavy, Medium, Thin and Thin Surplus weights of foundation were manufactured. Heavy was discontinued very soon after it became apparent that Medium Brood was all that was needed (Before 1910). Later, Thin Brood was also dropped. That left Medium Brood for typical use and Thin Surplus for comb honey production. Both of these old designations can still be found in some of today’s bee supply catalogs. But know this beekeepers, these designations are rapidly fading into history as plastic foundation inserts continue to replace pure beeswax sheets. Modern foundation inserts have proprietary names that are unique to the supplier.
Coating plastic comb inserts makes them more appealing to bees. While referencing this discussion for you, I found that one company advertises “Heavy Wax Foundation” inserts. This does not refer to the heavy designation of the early 1900s, but rather to the quantity of wax coating the plastic sheet. (I feel that it’s okay if you’re confused. This foundation subject is an industry morass and always has been.)
Division Board Feeders
If you keep bees more than a few years, no doubt you will acquire a Division Board Feeder. You all know what it is. Instructors presenting at field days will readily tell you – correctly – that Division Board Feeders go next to one of the outer walls to aid in filling them. Just shift the upper boxes a bit or slip the inner cover to one side and pour in about a half-gallon of feed into the feeder. Good. Good. That’s solid basic beekeeping. But why is it named a Division Board Feeder? Because at one time, there was an actual device named a Division Board.
During the 1800s, beekeepers were concerned that a small cluster could not control the temperature in a large, mostly empty box. A hive divider, the size and thickness of a frame, was used to partition internal space – a bit like a temporary wall. So, for instance, a ten-framed deep colony could be subdivided into a space for only three frames with the remaining space left open for future colony use. But for the moment, this ten-frame box was being used as a three frame nucleus colony.
These early division boards were padded on the ends and bottoms to make those areas bee tight. If needed, a quilt was frequently used to provide insulation and restriction across the hive top. The bees would propolize all of the canvas surfaces, cracks, and edges.
Figure 2
A beekeeper-made Division Board (circa 1888).
The padding shown in the drawing shows the duck canvas that was used on the ends and bottom. Note the small rolls that filled the frame rest lugs with a duck padding obstruction. This partition was intended to be bee tight. Internally, the divider was filled with chaff. During Winter months, two were used per colony and were positioned at the outer edges of the cluster or one against each of the outer walls.
The construction of the Division Boards was described in the 1888 edition of ABC of Bee Culture. I don’t know how much earlier it was designed. By the 1930’s, later editions of ABC dropped the listing for the Division Board but gave instructions for a simple improvisation of a Division Board by wrapping paper around a frame of honey in a wintering colony. Know this – as usual and is so often the case, prominent apiculturists of the day disagreed on the value of Division Board use. C.C. Miller (Illinois) saw no value while A.J. Cook (Michigan) used them year-round.
In my self-assigned role as Reckless Historian, I am unable to determine who first modified a Division Board from a divider into a feeder. That’s a pity. They should be acknowledged (again). As I have time, I will continue to search.
I’m out of space, but this won’t quit
A Division Board was intended to be bee tight. A Follower Board – a similar but different contraption – was not bee tight. It was usually much thinner – maybe even down to one-quarter inch. Another name for a Follower Board was Dummy Board. Rather than dividing colonies, Follower Boards were used primarily as a spacer. These spacers were usually along the box sides where they would also help some with insulation issues. Upon their removal, subsequent frames could be removed more easily. Follower boards are still available from some suppliers while Division Boards have faded from use.
Figure 3
Modern Follower Board (BetterBee)
Are you tired of this?
What about Hoffman Self-Spacing frames or section scraping knives or maybe foulbrood? But I need to stop. If I leave you with one thought, I hope it is that we, as beekeepers, are participating in an old craft with an incredibly long, complex history – the world over. I enjoyed preparing this piece and I thank you for reading it.
Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University and
One Tew Bee, LLC
tewbee2@gmail.com
http://www.onetew.com
www.go.osu.edu/april2022
Weekly podcast at: www.honeybeeobscura.com
1 Roffet-Salque, M., Regert, M., Evershed, R. et al. Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers. Nature 527, 226–230 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15757 (Summarized in: http://go.osu.edu/oldbeekeeping)
2 From Latin: Apis (Bee), Apiarium is beehouse or beehive. (Apiary) (Apiculture – the rearing of bees)
3 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/super
4 Pettigrew, A. 1870. The Handy Book of Bees – Being a Practical Treatise on Their Profitable Management. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 193pp.
5 Nutt, Thomas. 1834. Humanity to Honey Bees. Printed by H. and J. Leach, for the author, of whom it may be had at Moulton-Chapel or at 131 High Holborn, London. 270pp. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58229/58229-h/58229-h.htm (Shortened to: go.osu.edu/thomasnutt).
