THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



329 



the iane view that he did; and I can now 

 explain. That photograph was taken at 

 the request of Mr. Root with a view to 

 show the difference in the fiUing of the 

 sections with the different kinds of sep- 

 arators in use. I could see scarcely any 

 difference in this respect, but I did no- 

 tice that there was a difference in 

 the color, and called attention to it, but 

 did not intend to convey the idea that the 

 style of separator used had anything to 

 do with the color of the honey. 



Reinersvillp:, Ohio, Nov. i, 1898. 

 THE BUILDING OF URONE COMB. 



Do Bees Without a Fertile Queen Invariably 

 Build Only Drone Coml)? 



I. W. BECKWITH. 



¥HIRTY years ago I was taught that 

 this question should be answered in 

 the affirmative; and as nearly as I now re- 

 member, in years past, they did; although 

 I never experimented for the purpose of 

 proving it, but always tried to avoid al- 

 lowing queenless colonies to build comb, 

 and am not sure that I ever noticed any 

 comb that they had built. 



Langstroth Revised, page 103, says 

 "If the queen of a swarm is removed, or 

 dies while the bees are building, all the 

 combs made during her absence will con- 

 sist of drone cells." On page 239 it says 

 "It is one of the laws of the hive that bees 

 that have no mature cpieen seldom build 

 any cells except such as are designed 

 merely for storing honey, and are too 

 large for rearing workers." 



Now, I would like to know if my ex- 

 perience during the past season has been 

 entirely exceptional, or have other writers 

 on the subject all been mistaken? Last 

 summer I noticed that some queenless 

 colonies were building straight worker 



comb; and so universal was this that when 

 I divided the colonies I allowed each 

 queenless part to raise a queen from the 

 brood I gave it, and to build comb to 

 fill the hive while she was maturing. 

 Very few built any drone comb, and those 

 but little, unless they were hopelessly 

 queenless. My bees are three band- 

 ed, with a little mixture of five-banded. 



Dadant says the builders prefer making 

 the large sized cells, and almost in- 

 variably build that kind except when the 

 queen is depositing eggs in the cells close 

 to the builders, and so superintending 

 their work, and then there will be no drone 

 comb built. He also says the queen dis- 

 likes to lay in the large cells, and only 

 does so when there are no others at her 

 disposal. 



Here, again, my experience is at vari- 

 ance with that of that writer. Wherever I 

 put an empty comb in the brood nest at 

 the height of the breeding season, I find 

 that any patch of drone cells that it may 

 contain are first utilized by the queen. 

 I fill the sections with drawn comb before 

 putting them on the hive, and when one 

 contains drone comb, and there is but 

 little below, I have known the queen to 

 go above and fill that comb and then re- 

 turn without disturbing the other sections. 

 So, from these observations, I conclude 

 that the queen does not lay either kind 

 of eggs simply because it pleases her best 

 to lay that kind, but because instinct 

 prompts her to lay the kind that best 

 suits the intere.sts of the colony. 



Dadant also saj-s "If all, or part of the 

 store combs of a hive are removed, the 

 bees will rebuild large cells, at least three 

 times out of four." This last statement 

 is the reverse of all my experience witli 

 bees. Whenever I want some comb 

 built, I usually remove most of the combs 

 from a populous colony, and it is always 

 replaced with the small sized cells. 



I think the experience of bee-keepers 

 generally is about the same as mine in 

 these last two cases; but, if my experience 

 is exceptional, or if I have been mistaken 

 in an}' of these points, I should be glad 



