COMB HONEY. 



IIU 



COMB HOXEY. 



top and only two-thirds down (';;c!i tide. L.iy tin-- 

 filled form down to cool, and take tlie next, givinfi 

 the wax of the first four sections a few niinUes' time 

 to harden. Tlien place the form over the troug-h: 

 press the tray down out of the sections suid you will 

 have the wide frame of set tions, and with the foun- 

 dation ready for the super without darjicr of bui k- 

 liiig. One of our men filled 3000 sections in a day. 



HOW TO FBODUCE COMB HONEY 

 A strong force of bees, of the right working 

 age, should be in readiness jn.'^t before the 

 exi)ected supply of nectar. It is i)enny wise 

 and pound foolish to let the bees run short 

 of stores in spring, just at the time of the 

 year when brood-rearing should be stimulat- 

 ed to its utmost. If necessary, stimulative 

 feed'ng should be practiced. If the weather 

 is not cool, brood may be spread to advan- 

 tage. This is done by inserting an empty 

 frame of comb between one or more pairs of 

 frames filled.* But this should not be done 

 if tiiere is a scant supply of bees, or if the 

 weather is cool. If the bees need more room, 

 as some of them undoubtedly will, then put 

 on another story. If the colony is strong 

 enough let them keep it, even after putting 

 on a super of sections. If it is not strong 

 enough take away the upper story, crowd 

 all the frames of brood into the lower brood- 



bUPKU SPRINGS— nOAV TO USK. 



chamber, and then put on the comb-honey 

 supers. If we can get a colony . strong 

 enough the bees will boil up into the super 

 wlieii it is put on. 



Sometimes all the plans are brought to 

 naught from inability to control swarming 

 just as the bee.sare beginning or have begun 

 to work on the sections. This inopportune 

 swarming can generally be held in check by 

 entrances on all four sides of the hive (see 

 Entrances) or by the "shake-out" or 

 "brushing" plan spoken of under Swarm- 

 ing, to which the reader is referred. He 

 should read very carefully the means for 

 preventing or controlling swarming before 



* See Spreading Brood. 



he goes any fnrther with this subject, or 

 lie may lose a large part of his crop. 



WIIKN TO PUT ON SUPERS. 



If the colony is in one story and the bees 

 IjL'gin to come in from the field, and combs 

 are whitened near the tops, frames fairly 

 well filled with brood and with honey, we 

 put on supers. If we have supers contain- 

 ing half-depth extracting-combs, we prefer 

 to put these on first, even if we desire to pro- 

 duce comb honey, for the bees will enter 

 them much more readily, and begin storing 

 above. Then when they are once loell started 

 we raise the extracting super up and place 

 under it a comb-honey super containing sec- 

 tions filled with full sheets of foundation. 

 (See Co:mb Foundation.) 



The usual practice is to put the comb- I 

 honey super on at the start; but in our expe- ' 

 rience, Italians especially are loath to enter 

 the boxes. If they once get into the habit of 

 going above, they will keep it up, even if the 

 super is changed. The extracting-super can 

 remain on top of the same hive on which it 

 was put in the first place, but we would put it 

 on some other colony to give it the " upstair 

 fever," after which it should be replaced by 

 a comb -honey super. After a little there 

 will be some filled extracting-supers as well 

 as those of comb. By proceeding on this 

 plan we have found that we can produce just 

 about as much comb honey as we should if 

 we put the comb-honey supers on in the first 

 place, with the additional advantage that 

 the extracted honey obtained is just so 

 much clear gain. 



Two of our correspondents sent to Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture their method of using 

 extracting-combs to bait the bees above. 

 One uses a whole super of shallow extract- 

 ing-combs, and the other uses both sections 

 and extracting-combs in the same super. 

 We have thought best to give them both 

 here. The first mentioned writes: 



I have been, for several years, very much interested 

 in trying and comparing different methods of han- 

 dling bees for comb honey. I have been in the busi- 

 ness for eight years, and have had fair success. For 

 the first five years I tried a different method each 

 year. Three years ago I tried an experiment that suc- 

 ceeded so well I have followed it up, and have in a 

 measure overcome the two greatest difficulties that I 

 had to contend with— loafing and swarming. We u.se 

 the eight-frame Dovetailed hives with section-holders 

 for -l^i X4;<( sections. Our bees would always begin to / 

 loaf or hang out on the front of the hives when we put 

 on the sections, and most of them would do but little 

 in the sections until they had lost several days, and 

 then would swarm, thus losing several days of the 

 first alfalfa bloom. 



I had sixty colonies of Italians in my out-apiary, and 

 in trying my experiment I tried to be fair. I took 30 



