•JO Oct.. 1910.] Tlic Advantages of Good Combs. 617 



they usually do with drone cells. When the heads of the drone brood are 

 shaved off with the honey knife, the bees remove the drones and the queen 

 .again deposits drone eggs in the cells. 



A worker cell measures 1-5 inch in diameter, and a drone cell \ inch. 

 There are thus 25 worker cells or 16 drone cells in a square inch of 

 comb. As a comb has two faces 32 drones are raised in the space which 

 should produce 50 workers. The food used, and the labour of the bees 

 involved in raising the former, are wasted, while the presence of drone 

 i^omb in the hive is a check on the development of the colony in early 

 ^spring and an inducement to swarming later on. 



Beginners in bee-keeping usually shrink from the expense of. full 

 sheets of foundation. They buy well made hives and frames but use 

 starters, raise enormous numbers of drones, lose a large portion of the 

 honey yield in consequence, and then have combs which are liable to melt 

 down in hot weather or break in the extractor. If economy is necessary 

 ir, would be better to use home-made makeshift hives for a start, but good 

 frames and full sheets of foundation. When the bees have earned new 

 hives it is easier to effect the change than to replace the brood nest. 



A frame of fully built out all worker comb is worth is. to the bee- 

 keeper ; one largely consisting of drone cells is only worth the value of 

 the wax it contani.s — about 3d. But the use of full sheets of foundation 

 results in good combs only when due attention is paid by the bee-keeper 

 to several details. 



Combs, whether for brood-rearing or the storing of honey, should be 

 perfectly straight and built on to the frame on each of the four sides. 

 To insure these qualities the frame should be properly wired and the 

 foundation cut, so as to allow for expansion under the influence of the heat 

 of the hive and the weight of the bees hanging on the sheet; further, it 

 .should not be given to the bees till the conditions are such that it will be 

 worked on at once. 



There are .several different ways of wiring frames — horizontal, vertical, 

 diagonal, W., ^L, &c. After trying them all I have found four horizontal 

 wires the best for keeping the foundation straight without drawing in the 

 top and bottom bar. as in vertical wiring, or leaving large unsupported 

 surfaces of foundation, as in some of the other methods. 



When four horizontal wires are used the bottom one should not be 

 more than \ inch from the bottom bar. The sheet of foundation should 

 be less than the inside measurements of the frame by f inch in length and 

 width. The exact dimensions cannot be given as they vary according to 

 the different thicknesses of the bars of the various styles of frames, 

 i^'astening the foundation to the top bar and embedding the wires should 

 be done when the foundation is warm and pliable, otherwise buckling is 

 sure to result and the sheet will come away from the wires in places when 

 the v.^ix expands with the warmth in the hive. The board on which the 

 frame is laid to embed the wires should be kept wet to prevent the founda- 

 tion adhering. The bottom wire is embedded last and drawn upwards as 

 far as it will allow, so as to form a low arch ; the other wires are, how- 

 ever, kept straight. In this way a slight strain is kept on the founda- 

 tion which will take up any subsequent expansion of the wax. 



The trade size of foundation is such that the sheets are large enough for 

 simplicity frames with \ inch top and \ inch bottom bars. In the case 

 of frames with thicker bars the foundation .should be reduced in width to 

 leave a clear f inch between the edge of the sheet and the bottom bar. 

 Badly buckled combs may, however, result even when all these points have 

 been observed, if the foundation is poorlv made. Quite a number of 



