THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



25 



the uniform testimony has been that 

 they are stuck from end to end, a solid 

 mass of burr-combs and honey on the 

 under side, attached to the tops of the 

 brood frames, making an examination 

 of the brood nest anything but a pleas- 

 ant task, and the cleaning up of the 

 queen excluder a still more disagreea- 

 ble task. 



Now all this bother is done away 

 by my new system of management 

 and the use of the continuous passage- 

 way queen-excluder. 



THE PREVENTION OF BURR-COMBS. 



All comb-buildiug by the instinct 

 of the bees is an extension of the 

 brood combs outward and upward from 

 their brood. Hence we find the first 

 evidences of a readiness to enter the 

 supers in a deposit of new wax along 

 the upp^r edges of the brood combs. 

 If we now put on an empty super the 

 bees extend their first comb-building 

 in bridges to the super, which we call 

 burr-combs. If now the top bars be 

 cleaned of all wax and the queen ex- 

 cluder adjusted, and we put on a super 

 of empty combs, no burr-combs will be 

 built fnmi the brood frames to the 

 queen excluder, or at the most but 

 very few. 



Often the queen excluder can be 

 left on the whole season without a sin- 

 gle burr-comb attached to it if the bees 

 have plenty of storing room above. 

 Again, if at the beginning of a honey 

 flow we take an empty story with foun- 

 dation starters in the frames and put 

 on the excluder, then a super of sec- 

 tions for storing and the brood cham- 

 ber of any colony ready to work in the 

 sections on top of all, we shall have no 

 t burr-combs attached to the excluder 

 and generally no swarming from that 

 colony. The queen of course is to be 



put below the excluder in the new 

 story. This practice has given most 

 extraordinary yields of comb honey. 



Now some one will say that the sec- 

 sions will be so badly travel-stained by 

 this practice as to be unsalable. Well, 

 if the brood combs are old and black 

 w T e prevent this by putting between 

 the sections and the brood a 



BROOD BOARD, 



(So called because a part or all of the 

 brood is placed upon it.) This board 

 is made like the queen excluder, ex- 

 cept that it is made solid so that the 

 bees cannot get through it except a 

 piece of two- rowed zinc placed in the 

 whole length of one side. Thus ar- 

 ranged the bees cannot travel stain the 

 combs in the sections except at the out- 

 side of the 4 combs on the side of the 

 super beneath the two-rowed zinc. 

 We may, however, compel the bees to 

 go down through a short strip of two- 

 rowed zinc placed at each end, with a 

 blank piece in the middle, so only the 

 two sectious at the corners of the super 

 will be soiled. The brood board may 

 be made without the zinc, but in this 

 case the drones will follow the bees 

 down into the super and are stopped 

 by the excluder and many of them 

 will die there. This is remedied by the 

 single strip of two-rowed zinc in the 

 brood board and a ^ puiger hole in the 

 front end of the brood chamber near 

 the lower edge. Queen cells will be 

 started in the brood chandler and the 

 young queen that hatches will fly out 

 at the auger hole and mate and retnrn 

 to the auger hole, notwithstanding the 

 flying bees at the entrance below to 

 attract her there. This is one of the 

 exceptions where queens are allowed to 

 mate from upper stories where a good 

 laying queen is in the lower story. 



