456 HONEY PRODUCTION. 



during all this time, the honey is flowmg in the blossoms, and 

 the other colonj- is fast increasing its supply of sweets. Mean- 

 while, the few bees, which have found a place for their load, 

 go back after more, and, finding no room, they watch for the 

 appearance of each hatching bee, from its cell, and at once fill 

 that cell with honey ; thus depriving the queen of her breeding- 

 room, and forcing her to remain idle, at a time when she 

 should be laymg most busily. 



The loss is therefore treble. First, this colony loses the 

 present work of all the bees which have to remain inside to 

 help make wax. Secondly, it loses the honey of which ihis 

 wax is made. Thirdly, it loses the production of thousands 

 of workers, by depriving the queen of her breeding-room, in 

 the brood-chamber. All this, for what purpose? To enable 

 the owner to eat his honey with the wax; when, as every one 

 well knows, wax is tasteless and indigestible. 



One word more in regard to the loss of production, by the 

 eroAvding of the queen. This loss is two-fold in itself. When 

 the bees find that the queen is crowded out of her breeding- 

 room, they become more readily induced to make preparations 

 for swarming (406). 



It is then that a large number of young bees would be 

 necessary to make up for the loss which the colony will sus- 

 tain, in the departure of the swarm; and yet the diminished 

 number of eggs laid produces exactly the reverse of the de- 

 sired result. 



There is perhaps a fourth item of loss, in failing to furnish 

 empty combs to this colony, and that when the season is not 

 very favorable. Many practical bee-keepers have noticed that, 

 in rather unfavorable seasons, it is difficult to induce bees to 

 work in an empty surplus box, in which they would work 

 readily if it were furnished with combs. It is a question which 

 may remain doubtful, whether the bees do not sometimes, in 

 such cases, remain idle for a day or two, rather than begin 

 building comb in a box which they do not expect to be able to 

 fill (745). 



