> disadvantage of top supering is tracking on the combs below.

Right, during the comb honey era there were various systems of supering to prevent staining of the comb. This is mentioned by Lee Watkins in 1940:

> An interesting example is the practice of top- supering. It is only recently that it has been generally adopted in the Middle West (U.S.), but here, in the San Joaquin Valley, the top-supering method has been used for close to 40 years. The belief that bees would take a fresh super of combs better if added just above the brood nest is probably a hand-over from comb- honey production, where the oldest sections were put on top so that they would not become travel-stained. Though Root's A.B.C., for 1940, now advocates top-supering for comb-honey production also, in spite of the danger of travel-stain. 

Lee H. Watkins (1940) Arena, Bee World, 21:7, 75

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