182 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Stock feeders make a distinction between the 

 food rcqnired simply for the sustenance of the 

 animal and that required for the production of 

 fat. The former is only what is needed for the 

 support of life; the latter is that additional 

 quantity Avhich every animal doomed to labor 

 or designed to be fattennrl must consume. The 

 case is precisely similar in bee-culture. During 

 the winter, the period of rest and repose, ex- 

 tending, perhaps, from the beginning of No- 

 vember to the close of February, bees consume 

 comparatively little honey, because then nature 

 designs the mere preservation of life. But so 

 soon as activity is resumed in the hive, when 

 brooding recommences, and in proportion as it 

 increases, the consumption of honey is in- 

 hanced. But consumption reaches its acme 

 when, in addition to enlarged brooding, wax — 

 which is the fat of these insects — has to be lib- 

 erally supplied by them for comb building ; and 

 bees thus engaged are the largest consumers of 

 honey. Repeated experiments and investiga- 

 tions have shown that, for the production of ^ 

 one pound of wax, from ten to twenty pounds 

 of honey are consumed. This result is indeed 

 much modified in practice by the influence of 

 various circumstances ; but the general fact that 

 bees consume most honey when engaged in 

 comb building is universally conceded. 



The experience of every observant practical 

 bee-keeper corroborates this statement. Place 

 one swarm, in the spring, when the weather is 

 favorable and pasturage moderately plenty, in a 

 hive furnished with empty worker comb ; and 

 another in an empty hive, and you will find a 

 very decided diilerence in the progress tlaey 

 make. Let the weather after awhile become un- 

 propitious, and the latter colony may need 

 Iceding to keep it from starving, while the for- 

 mer lias quite a suflicieucy of stores — and this, 

 though both have been equally industrious in 

 outdoor labor, and carried in equal quantities of 

 honey. The reason of the difference between 

 them is simply this, the latter had to build 

 combs, and was constrained to convert into wax 

 nearly all the honey it had gathered. Where 

 movable comb hives are used the difference can 

 be rendered more palpable, by supplying one 

 colony with frames filled with empty comb, and 

 requiring another to build all the comb it 

 needs. 



The ditFerence is still greater and more obvious 

 when pasturage is very abundant, because then 

 usually the construction or enlargement of 

 combs cannot be made to keep pace with the 

 supplies gathered, and requiring storage room. 

 I have known an instance where a colony regu- 

 larly supplied with empty combs as fast as 

 needed, had stored five times as much honey at 

 the close of the season as another equally 

 strong, which had to build its own comb ; and 

 after making due allowance for the empty 

 combs furnished, the yield was still fourfold 

 greater. In my practice formerly I used sec- 

 tional cylindrical straw hives. These hives en- 

 abled me to remove the sections containing 

 empty combs, and reserve them for use the en- 

 suing season. If then, at the height of the 

 gathering season, I removed the cover from one 

 of my hives and supered one of these sections, 



and gave to another colony an empty section, 

 the difference in productiven'ess between the 

 two wag speedily seen. Commonly those who 

 use cottage hives, set an empty section or box 

 under when the bees have tilled their hive, if 

 forage is still plentiful. If they were able to 

 supply their bees with empty combs at that 

 time, the yield of honey Avould be three or four 

 times as great in the same period,. 



These investigations and facts show : 



First. That bees require a great deal of honey 

 when building combs ; and 



Secondly. That colonies which are con- 

 strained to build comb during the honey sea- 

 son, will make much less progress in the pro- 

 duction of brood and accumulation of honey, 

 than those which are supplied with empty 

 combs. 



This is quite natural. A farmer who would 

 have to build a barn during harvest to receive 

 and shelter his grain, would need many more 

 laborers to enable him to get through with his 

 work, than one who has a barn ready built bc» 

 fore harvest begins. But the system of cutting 

 out drone- comb results in proportionately much 

 greater injury, for here the bees do not con- 

 struct their combs to serve as receptacles for 

 brood or honey, but literally to be appropriated 

 by the pruning knife of the bee-keeper. The 

 honey used, the time spent, and the labor be- 

 stowed, are all consequently a dead loss to the 

 bees themselves. The work is a sort of Sisy- 

 phian labor, never ending, still beginning. 



It is hence evident that the regular removal 

 of drone-comb in cottage hives is only to be re- 

 garded as a necessary evil. It resembles the 

 subduing of a weed which we cannot extirpate, 

 but which we have to mow down frequently to 

 prevent it from running to seed and producing 

 still more extensive injury. But if, in using 

 cottage hives, we were able to adopt the method 

 employed where movable hives are used, that 

 is, if as soon as the bees begin to build drone- 

 comb, we could at once supply them with 

 empty worker-comb, and thereby prevent the 

 construction of worker-comb in the brooding 

 chamber, we should secure the following ad- 

 vantages : 



First. The bee-keeper would be exempted 

 from the arduous and disagreeable labor of daily 

 removing drone-comb. 



Secondly. The bees would not have the task 

 imposed on them of replacing daily the drone- 

 comb thus removed, but could, instead, save 

 and store up the honey needed for the produc- 

 tion of wax, and devote their time to more use- 

 ful labor. 



Tldrdly. The worker-combs thus inperted 

 would in the usual course be supplied with 

 worker-brood ; the colony would thus more 

 speedily become populous, than where clrone- 

 comb is daily pruned away and daily rebuilt; and 

 the labor of the bees is thus turned in a more 

 profitable direction. 



But unfortunately the insertion of worker- 

 comb is, in cottage hives, unfeasible, and there 

 is consequently no alternative, where such 

 hives are used, but to resort to the regular re- 

 moval of drone-comb as fast as it is built, and 

 in this way of two evils to choose the least. 



