1894. 



THE . I Mi: II If. 1 X BEE- KEEPER. 



75 



a comb of honey and empty combs. 

 Place the caged queen upon the frame 

 to keep them quiet. 



At the end of three days take away 

 the queen in the evening, and the next 

 morning give them a frame of cells 

 with just-hatching larvae, on the Alley 

 plan. Not more than 20 larva; should 

 be given them. Now feed them well 

 for five days. Eggs may be given in 

 the same way, but they will not quiet 

 the uproar in the colony like the 

 young larva', and black bees have the' 

 singular habit of eating all of the eggs, 

 but will accept the larvse. 



Should a comb of just- hatching 

 eggs be given to the colony instead of 

 the 15 or 20 cells prepared on the 

 Alley plan, it will be found in a few 

 hours that every larva in the comb 

 will be swimming in royal jelly, show- 

 ing that all are reared as if to rear 

 queens, although but 15 or 20 queen- 

 cells will be completed. 



Thus reared, 1 have many times got 

 queens that lived four years, and 

 were highly prolific to the last. With 

 such queens I have obtained the equiv- 

 alent of two 10-frame Langstroth 

 hives full of brood by the 10th of June 

 but the ordinary queen would hardly 

 fill eight Langstroth frames under the 

 same conditions. 



Of late there has-been some talk of 

 having two queens in a hive in the 

 spring to build up large colonies,, but 

 from the above it will be seen that 

 one good queen is enough for any 

 colony. — Dr. Tinker in A. B. J. 



(Ohio.) 



THE VALUE OF COMB FOUNDATION. 



If thesecuringof perfect worker combs 

 in the brood nest is not the chief ad- 

 vantage to be obtained by the use of 



foundation, it certainly stands second 

 on the list. To be able to hive swarm 

 after swarm, as bees are ordinarily 

 managed, and that each and every 

 comb will be a perfect worker comb, 

 is a comfort indeed. To have each 

 comb in the apiary perfect and 

 straight, so exact a counterpart of all 

 others that there will be no difficulty 

 in interchanging, is a great conveni- 

 ence. To have such combs that no 

 honey or labor of the bees will be 

 wasted in tne rearing of a horde of 

 useless consumers, may be a factor 

 that will throw the balance on the 

 right side of the ledger, and there is 

 only one way to procure such combs — 

 that is by using full sheets of found- 

 ation. I used to think that more 

 honey was obtained by the use of 

 starters only in the brood chamber, 

 but after putting in practice for years 

 along with full sheets of foundation, 

 I have to confess that I can't see that 

 swarms hived on starters store any 

 more honey than those hived on full 

 sheets of foundation. The gain in 

 preventing drone comb is so much, 

 in addition to having combs prompt- 

 ly ready for the grand harvest, that 

 it is true economy to have all the 

 frames which the bees are to fill with 

 wax, completely filled with founda- 

 tion. We can get frames as straight 

 and a smooth as a board by putting 

 frames with starters in between full 

 sheets of comb. The bees will build 

 such combs clear to the bottom bar, 

 and no sagging, and as a rule, by the 

 time the comb is built down it is full 

 of brood. If it were not for theextra 

 wmk, and that the bees will insist on 

 building drone comb, we could in this 

 way have straight and smooth combs. 



