116 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



almost nothing- for days when other 

 colonies are storing rapidly, the only 

 apparent difference being- that the 

 backward colony seems disinclined to 

 make a start. Sometimes after they 

 have once begun they will thereafter 

 do well, but often their comparative 

 idleness, at a time when honey is 

 coming in freely, results in the con- 

 traction of the swarming fever. With 

 a short honey flow these delays and 

 hindrances result in a serious curtail- 

 ment of the honey crop, often indeed, 

 in an entire failure. The cramming 

 of the brood chamber with honey is 

 not the least of the evils, and with an 

 old queen effectually spoils the chances 

 of the colony doing well later. The 

 man who has only a few colonies, and 

 plenty of time to give to eachindividuail 

 case, can remedy these evils in various 

 ways, but the aim of the apiarist who 

 expects to make money at the business 

 must be to accomplish results with as 

 little manipulation as possible. 



IT SECURES A SURPLUS EVEN FROM 

 WEAK COLONIES. 



The second argument against ex- 

 clusive comb honey production is that 

 a colony that is weak or only moder- 

 ately strong in numbers cannot pro- 

 duce comb to the best advantage. 

 That foundation principle of bee-keep- 

 ing, *'keep all colonies strong," ap- 

 plies with far greater force to colonies 

 producing comb honey; for a colony 

 that will do very fair work storing 

 honey in combs already built, may do 

 nothing whatever at building comb in 

 a super. I have frequently heard bee- 

 keepers say, at the close of a very fair 

 honey flow, that many of their colonies 

 had not made an ounce of honey. This 

 is sheer waste. There is something 

 radically wrong with a colony, or its 

 management, when a colony that has 

 its combs in the brood chamber com- 

 pleted, and is beyond the nucelus 

 stage, cannot be induced to store honey 

 in combs in the super, if there is any 

 to be gathered in the fields, 



IT LESSENS THE NUMBER OF UNFINISH- 

 ED SECTIONS. 



My third reason for advocating the 

 mixed system is the fact that ordin- 

 arily the close of the honey flow finds 

 a great many sections on the hives 

 only partially completed. These sec- 

 tions are seldom salable at any profit- 

 able price. To extract the honey 

 from them is a tedious and somewhat 

 unprofitable job, wh'le the honey, be- 

 ing mostly unsealed and unripe, is not 

 of very good quality. Moreover, care- 

 ful observation for years has convinced 

 me, that beyond a very limited num- 

 ber, that may perhaps be found profit- 

 able, a section that is filled with 

 emptj' comb is simply a section spoiled. 



Many, I know, will not agree with 

 me here, but when we consider that 

 honey stored in such sections will very 

 seldom grade higher than No. 2, worth 

 in most markets two cents per pound 

 less than No. 1, it should be evident 

 that it would be more profitable to 

 have this honey in the extracted form, 

 or in a more salable and higher priced 

 comb. A still stronger argument 

 against the use of drawn combs in 

 sections is that many times (almost 

 always, when the honey flow is good) 

 sections filled with full sheets of foun- 

 dation will be drawn, filled and com- 

 pleted, even sooner than the sections of 

 drawn comb will be entirely finished. 



All these drawbacks to be met in the 

 exclusive production of comb honey 

 are easily avoided or remedied by an 

 intelligent combination of the two 

 systems. Take notice that I say a 

 combination of the two. The man who 

 sets aside a portion of his apiary to 

 be run for extracted honey throughout 

 the season, while the other part is de- 

 voted to the production of comb, is not 

 using a combination system. He is 

 using both systems, and using them 

 independently, whereas, in a true 

 combination system, the advantages of 

 the one are made to supplement the 

 shortcomings of the other throughout 



