21S 



THE AMERICAN' BEE-KEEPER. 



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to store liouey in the broed chain her 

 \\\ preference to the sections, if the 

 queen does not have it occupied with 

 brood when the honey sea-on com- 

 mences, and if any colony of bees has 

 room to store from forty to sixty lbs. 

 of honey in the brood chamber, they 

 will very likely not go into the sec- 

 tions at all, but keep crowding the 

 queen until the bees get few in num- 

 bers, and at the close of the honey 

 season we shall find that there is little 

 brood and but few bees with a hive 

 full of honey, while if we had remov- 

 ed all the combs which the queen 

 would not occupy with brood at the 

 commencement of the honey season, 

 putting sections in their places, we 

 should have had a fair return in sur- 

 plus. Large brood chambers have 

 more to do with bees not working in 

 sections than all other causes combin- 

 ed, except a poor honey flow, accord- 

 ing to my experience along this line. 

 If bees refuse to work in sections 

 when the brood chamber is of the 

 proper size, they can generally be 

 coaxed into them by adopting one or 

 more of the following plans : 



Take a section, or wide frame full 

 of sections, from a hive where the 

 bees are nicely at work above, and set 

 them on the hive (in the center of 

 those already there) where the bees 

 are loth to enter the sections, and it 

 will usually incite the sluggish colony 

 into active work in those sections 

 which have hitherto been left unoccu- 

 pied. In doing this, take all of the 

 bees which adhere to the sections car- 

 ried to the slothful colony along with 

 them, for the mixing of bees often in- 

 cites to activity, even where no newly 

 worked out combs are used as an addi- 

 tional incentive. 



If this does not work, fit a ])iece of 

 drone comb, having brood in it, into 

 one or two sections, and the bees will 

 genei'ally commence work in the rest 

 right away. If this does not answer, 

 drum or shake from the frames the 

 larger pait of the bees and the queen, 

 and put them in a box or hive, and 

 when they goto building comb finely, 

 put them back again where they came 

 from. Where this plan has been used 

 I have never known them to fail to 

 work, going right to the sections and 

 building comb in short order. In 

 drumming out the bees do not drive 

 too clo.se, as bees enough must be left 

 to protect the brood. .The nice white 

 comb which the drummed out colony 

 builds while in the box should be 

 placed in the sections for starters, for 

 there is no greater incentive to com- 

 mence work than new white comb. Of 

 course all of this is given on the sup- 

 position that the bees are strong 

 enough as to numbers to work in the 

 sections, and still refuse to do so. If 

 the hive is not filled with bees to over- 

 flowing it is useless to attempt to make 

 them work in sections, for it needs all 

 the bees that are in the hive at the 

 commencement of the season to care 

 for the brood properly. Many are de- 

 ceived in this way during the first part 

 of the season, and quite probably the 

 trouble with our correspondent lies in 

 the fact that he has few bees in his 

 hives when the honey harvest is at its 

 height, and many after it is over, so 

 that their lying "about the hive in 

 clusters " comes at a time when there 

 is no honey to be had, rather than at 

 a time when there is plenty of honey 

 producing flowers in bloom ! To be 

 successful the bees most be on the stage 

 of action ready for the honey when it 



