108 HOW TO KEEP BEES 



If the brood-chambers are crowded when the super 

 is put on, the queen may go up into it and start 

 brood. This rarely occurs with us, but in case it 

 does a queen-excluding honey-board may be intro- 

 duced between the super and the brood-chamber. 

 Sometimes a colony seems unwilling to go into the 

 super after it has been added, and the bees will hang 

 on the outside of the hive and threaten to swarm, 

 and through doubt and vacillation lose two or three 

 of the precious days of the basswood harvest. 



The usual reason why the bees will not go into 

 the super is that they are not sufficiently crowded 

 below; if they have room they prefer to store their 

 honey in the brood cells rather than carry it to the 

 upper story. 



If a colony is strong and has plenty of brood and 

 honey and is still obstinate, men of experience 

 advise the taking of a frame of sections from a colony 

 which is storing in the supers and putting bees and 

 all in the midst of the unused super of the reluctant 

 colony. We have never tried this because we were 

 never obliged to. It sounds very practical and 

 sensible, and it is practised by Mr. Root, and that 

 is sufficient recommendation. 



Our way of coaxing the bees into a super which 

 they have sedulously ignored is to place in it some 

 of the imperfect sections, which are not worth much 

 in the market and which contain some capped 

 honey and many empty cells. One section-holder 

 filled in this way seems to encourage the reluctant 

 colony to climb and to store as rapidly as possible. 



