1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



115 



starters only in the brood nest, con- 

 tracting the space to about five Lang- 

 stroth frames, or to one section of the 

 new Heddon hive. With this manage- 

 ment all of the honey that a newly- 

 hived swarm brings in must of neces- 

 sity go into the sections, and as fast as 

 comb is built in the brood nest it is 

 occupied by the queen. A queen ex- 

 cluder is necessary; if it is not used, 

 the queen will at once invade the part- 

 ly completed combs in the super. 



cases. I have done this way many- 

 times and see no objection to the plan, 

 I prefer to use bee-escapes in removing 

 supers, although it can be done with- 

 out by using smoke to drive down most 

 of the bees. If the harvest is good and 

 no robbers are troubling, the case may 

 then be set down near the entrance, or 

 leaned against the hive in such a way 

 that the few remaining bees may find 

 their way back into the hive. If there 

 are robbers, then the cases must be 



Apiary of W. 



As to whether it is best to wait until 

 all of the sections of a case are com- 

 pleted before removing it depends upon 

 circumstances. If honey is not coming 

 in very freely, and me colony is not 

 crowded for I'oom, rather than to tier 

 the cases more than three high, I 

 would wait until all the combs are 

 completed; or at least until only one or 

 two in each corner remains unfinished. 

 If honey comes in very rapidly it 

 sometimes happens that some colonies 

 will have three cases of sections full of 

 honey with only a few of them capped. 

 In such cases I might remove a case in 

 which only half of its sections were 

 capped; but rather than do this I would 

 take a nearly finished case (bees and 

 all) from a three-case colony and give 

 it to a colony having only one or two 



. Hutchinson. 



carried into a room and the bees al- 

 lowed to escape upon a window from 

 which they can crawl out at the top. 

 When the sections are free from bees I 

 sort them over and put the unfinished 

 ones in a case by themselves. When a 

 case is filled it is given back to the bees 

 to have them complete the sections. 



When the season is finally over, sec- 

 tions that are one-half or more finished 

 are completed by feeding back. Sec- 

 tions less than half finished are placed 

 on top of colonies that are the lightest 

 in stores, and the bees allowed to carry 

 down the honey. The combs thus 

 emptied are saved to give the bees a 

 start the next spring. 



Colonies that are weak as the result 

 of contractions of the brood nest, are 

 united in September. Before uniting 



