•684 



Jounial i>i Agriculiurc, Victoria. 



lo Oct.. 191 1 . 



instead of commencing comb-building on the small starters in the section 

 so far away from the brood and separated from it by empty space and 

 the woodwork of the section, they frequently store the honey they gather 

 into the cells from which young bees emerge. This restricts brood-rearing 

 and causes the crowding of bees in the brond chamber, which is such a 

 fruitful source of excessive swarming. 



This difficulty may be overcome by inducing the bees to enter the sec- 

 tion, or bv compelling them. Bees may be induced to enter the section 

 super by putting on one or rr.ore sections already partly built 

 and containing some honey amongst the empty ones in the super. 

 These partlv filled .sections are known as bait sections. When 

 none are available the bees may be compelled by first putting 

 a super of full sized frames of empty combs, or failing this, ct 

 full slicets ( f fr.undatiiiii <,n the brood-chamber. If thrrc is M-alnl lnniry 



S\\'ARM RE! 



.\F!ER LOSING THE QUEEN. 



along the top bar of the brood combs, the cappings of the honey may f)e 

 lightly scratched with a fork, which will induce the bees to remove it and 

 the queen to deposit eggs therein, thus bringing the brood right up to the 

 top bar. When this stage has been reached, the bees may be brushed off 

 the combs of the upper story and a section super put in its place. As 

 there is now brood in the combs of the hi^•e right up to the top bar of the 

 frames, and as the bees want to place honey above this brood, they will 

 as a rule at once commence work in the .section, pro\ided that honey is 

 coming in. 



The upper story remo\-ed from the hi\e may be u.sed on another hive 

 for a similar purpose, or as an extracting super. If it contained brood 

 at the time of rem.oval, the largest sheets of it may be put into the brood- 

 chamber. Remove from the latter .any combs containing little or no 

 brood, the oliject being to crowd into the lower story of the section hive as 



