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Vol. LVL— No. 7 



HAMILTON, ILL, JULY, 1916 



MONTHLY, $1.00 A YEAR 



Importance of Full Sheets of Foundation 



in the Broodnest 



Some Observations on Losses in the Average Apiary Because of 



Neglect to Secure Good Combs 



— By Our Staff Correspondent 



ONR of the things to be impressed 

 upon the writer as a result of his 

 worlt as a bee inspector, is the 

 enormous losses among the beekeep- 

 ers generally from rearing useless 

 drones. It is not uncommon in neg- 

 lected apiaries to find hives with 

 from one third to more than one half 

 drone comb. In some apiaries where 

 good equipment is used and fairly 

 good practice followed otherwise, this 

 fault is still common. It is very 

 evident that the owners of such out- 

 fits cannot realize the great cost of 

 rearing such large numbers of loafers 

 in the hives where they should be 

 producing a profitable working force, 

 otherwise such conditions would not 

 be tolerated. 



It requires as much food and atten- 



tion from the nurse bees to rear 

 drones as workers, and drones will 

 continue to be a tax on the colony 

 when mature, as they are consumers 

 and not producers. It will readily be 

 seen that a colony that is raising 

 twenty-five percent or more of drones, 

 will seldom yield a satisfactory prof- 

 it to the owner. At the last Iowa 

 convention, C. E. Dustman had an in- 

 teresting paper on drones. He esti- 

 mated that a square foot of drone cells 

 would produce more than two thou- 

 sand drones, while the same amount 

 of space would produce more than 

 three thousand workers. [Drone 

 comb over 5,000; worker comb over 

 8,000.— E.] 



The writer has often found it hard 

 to convince the novices of the full 



FIG. i-FRAME OF SEALED WORKER BROOD AS A RESULT OF USE OF 

 FULL SHEETS OF FOUNDATION 



value of full sheets of foundation. 

 The first cost looks big to them, and 

 they prefer to let the bees build their 

 own combs with a narrow strip to 

 insure that they will not be built 

 crosswise. To show something of the 

 habit of the bees, we have gone to 

 considerable trouble to get a series 

 of pictures that show the real con- 

 dition more clearly than any amount 

 of description. The Impressions on 

 the foundation being exactly the 

 shape and size of worker cells, the 

 bees will build most of the cells of 

 this size where the foundation is 

 used. Drone cells, being larger, re- 

 quire less wax in the construction of 

 an equal amount, and probably less 

 labor as well. This being the case 

 wherever worker cells are not needed 

 for immediate use to meet the needs 

 of the queen, drone cells will be 

 built, for they serve as well for stor- 

 ing honey. Figure 1 shows an ideal 

 comb attached to all four sides of the 

 frame and composed entirely of work- 

 e'' cells, most of which contain seal- 

 ed brood. Such a comb can be used 

 anywhere, whether for a brood comb 

 or an extracting comb. Figure 2, 

 shows a comb which is composed 

 mo.stly of drone cells, as the result 

 of using a narrow s^tarter instead of 

 a full sheet of foundation. The high 

 arched cappiiigs show that many of 

 these cells contain drone brood. The 

 cost in honey necessary to raise a 

 single brood of drones, in such a comb, 

 would pay for a full sheet of founda- 

 tion. This comb can be used as an 

 extracting comb, but is a nuisance, 

 since if it chances to get into the 

 brood nest, a lot of drones will be the 

 result. Usually it will pay to melt 

 up such combs at once and replace 

 them with full sheets, rather than 

 risk getting them used in this man- 



