46 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEVI^. 



point that I have often thought of, but I 

 don't know as it has been touched upon in 

 print. Well, read what he says and you 

 will see what it is. 



"This subject of drawn combs has receiv 

 ed much attention the past few years, and 

 it is an important matter; and as I- have had 

 some experience along this line I will give 

 some of my ideas. There is no doubt in my 

 mind as to these combs being valuable to a 

 certain extent. lu each row of sections I 

 very much wish to have about three of the 

 central ones contain drawn combs, to be 

 put on each hive run for comb honey at the 

 opening of the surplus-honey flow. I find 

 work is begun sooner than when only foun- 

 dation is put in. All colonies will begin 

 sooner, and with some a difference in time 

 of a week or more. In others it will make a 

 difTerenceofsicarminfj or no sivarmingfor 

 the sea.so»i. The apiarist with long expen- 

 is aware of this. A point that no comb- 

 honey producer should overlook is that of 

 setting his bees started in storing in the 

 supers: and every inducement should be 

 made to this end so as to secure such. Once 

 well at work in the boxes, more supers add- 

 ed at just the right time will do very much 

 to prevent the swarming impulse, and thus 

 secure the largest possible amount of sur- 

 plus honey. " 



The next is a California man. Mr. E. H. 

 SchaefEe. He says:— 



"I was under the impression that the use 

 of drawn combs in securing comb honey in 

 ' off ' years was common; but from late arti- 

 cles in Gleanings I see that it is new to many. 

 The fact that bee-keepers working for ex- 

 tracted honey have a crop when comb honey 

 is a failure should have suggested this to 

 everyone. That 'bait' combs are a good 

 thing, has been generally admitted. In the 

 season of 18a"> the honey-flow was very 

 strong up to March, and the sections had 

 their combs well drawn out, and many of 

 them full, when the flow ceased and the bees 

 emptied them of their contents. During 

 the remainder of the season the bees just 

 about made a living. This left me two 

 thousand sections filled with comb. This 

 season I put all of these sections on. The 

 flow was very poor, but the sections with 

 drawn combs were all filled, while no comb 

 was made in any of the other supers, nor did 

 any of the other bee-keepers in the section 

 ( who make only comb honey ) have a 

 pound. " 



Drawn Combs in Sections. 



At present there is no subject in which the 

 apiarian world is more interested than the 

 one that heads this article. In the last copy 

 of his Quarterly Mr. Heddon expresses his 

 views on the subject in the following 

 language:— 



" On page 88.") of Gleanings, dated De- 

 cember 15, is an article by our old-time 



honey producer and co-worker, M. M. Bal- 

 dridge, entitled, ' Drawn combs for sections 

 not a new idea. ' We were much interested 

 in reading the article, because we were con- 

 versant with the experiments referred to by 

 Mr. B., and further because Editor Root's 

 foot-notes diff'er with our years of experi- 

 ence in that line. We do not believe in the 

 practice of having foundation drawn out in 

 large frames in the brood chamber, or any- 

 where else, and then cut up and transferred 

 into sections. 



What reason can the advocates of such a 

 practice give for not having the foundation 

 drawn out in the sections ? Surely there 

 can be but one, and that their experience is 

 that bees will not draw the foundation read- 

 ily and promptly when placed in sections in 

 surplus cases, but that the same bees will do 

 so when placed in the brood chamber. 

 That this may and probably has been their 

 experience, we do not doubt, hut early in 

 the season, just as soon as they are ready to 

 place their foundation in their brood cham- 

 bers, we will put ours into our sections and 

 surplus case, and place that on top of our 

 divisible brood chamber, after alternating 

 the brood cases, and we will demonstrate 

 that we will have our foundation drawn in- 

 to comb promptly, and as quickly as theirs 

 will be. 



Somebody has said that with our system 

 of management, with our horizontally di- 

 visible brood chamber, trouble is 

 liable to come from the bees placing pollen 

 in the sectiDiis. How does Mr. Root expect 

 to keep the pollen out of the combs drawn 

 out in the brood frames ? We never had 

 any trouble from pollen and these contra- 

 dictory statements seem very strange, do 

 they not? All can plainly foresee the no 

 small amount of increased labor, much of 

 which is among the bees, and so all will 

 see the great advantage of placing the 

 foundation just where it is wanted, at first, 

 and be sure of practical results. None who 

 use our hive and system, will ever think of 

 adopting so tedious, laborous and round- 

 about a system as transplanting comb foun- 

 dation. In his ' Review, ' Brother Hutchin- 

 son places great stress upon drawn combs 

 for sections, stating that with them he ex- 

 pects to get as much comb as he would of 

 extracted honey. We have no such experi- 

 ence, and don't believe he ever made a fair 

 test of the matter, and we give our reasons 

 for our position, as our readers cannot see 

 our past experience. 



Bees are always slow at patching up all 

 kinds of transferred combs: they are also 

 slow a. capping the same. When Bro. H. 

 talks ' as much comb as extracted honey, ' 

 provided the sections are supplied with em- 

 pty combs, we think he reckons wrong. 

 With shallow extracting ca-es. properly 

 tiered up. we get our honey for the extractor 

 thoroughly ripened, without its being one- 

 third capped. Beside this, it must not be 

 lost sight of, that if that it takes the bees 

 longer to complete their work of capping, 

 than to do all the rest of it. The last one- 

 eighth of that work, that which we must 

 have done well, to make our comb honey 



