646 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



fields, it would be brought in and stored some- 

 where — if there was no room in the body of the 

 hive, it would go into the sections. I don't 

 agree. Let me illustrate: I have sometimes 

 been so fortunate as to liave, in the spring, 

 enough drawn, or partly drawn, combs in sec- 

 tions to enable me to furnish a part of my colo- 

 nies with a full case each of such sections. Col- 

 onies so furnished begin storing honey in the sec- 

 tions at the very beginning of the harvest, and 

 often have the first case filled with honey, and 

 work begun in a second case filled with founda- 

 tion, when colonies simply furnished with 

 foundation in the first case are just beginning 

 work in said case. Those clean, dry, empty 

 combs just above the brood-nest are such a 

 temptation to the bees that they just pitch in 

 and fill them. This puts the bees in a mood to 

 stoie th( Ir honey in the supers, and they keep 

 on doing so. The colony thus early led to turn 

 its energy superward is more likely to lay up a 

 goodly store of surplus. But this is a digression. 



If no combs are given in the brood-nest, and 

 the supers of sections in all stages of com- 

 pletion are transferred from the old hive to 

 that of the new swarm, the bees are compelled 

 to begin storing honey in the supers; and where 

 they begin, there will they continue. 



Another advantage, although I consider it 

 the least, of allowing the bees to build their 

 own combs, is in saving the cost of foundation. 



Of the many bee-keepers who have tried this 

 system, I believe all, or nearly all, have secured 

 more surplus honey as the result; the only ob- 

 jection to the plan being the exacting condi- 

 tions necessary to secure the filling of the 

 frames with perfect worker-comb. Some have 

 even gone so far as to advocate the folI<'v\ing 

 of this system though it involved the fori'' g of 

 the combs in the fall, and the renderii'g into 

 wax of the imperfect ones. This is not neces- 

 sary. For the past ten years the majority of my 

 swarms have built their own combs, n arlyall 

 of the combs being perfect worker-combs, and 

 but few words are needed to tell exactly how 

 suchcombsmay alwa\sbe secured. Havei/oiing. 

 prolific (luecfts, and contract the brood-nettt. 

 That i< all there is of it. So long as the queen 

 keeps pace with the comb builders, all goes 

 well; but let them get the start of her,- so that 

 comb is being built to any great extent for the 

 storing of honey, and at once a change is made 

 to '• store " (or drone) comb. If the brood-nest 

 is too large, the first-laid eggs are likely to de- 

 velop into bees that will emerge from their 

 cells ere the brood-nest is completely filled with 

 comb; and it is when the queen deserts the 

 comb-builders to restock with eggs the centrally 

 located cells that are being vacated, that drone- 

 comb is being built. I don't remember having 

 seen a drone-comb among the fir^t built by a 

 newly hived swarm; it is the outer combs, 

 built when the bees have outstripped the queen, 



or while she is refilling with eggs the ones first 

 built, that contain the drone-comb. The reme- 

 dies are, a queen so prolific that she can keep 

 pace with the comb builders, and contracting 

 the brood-nest to such an extent that it will 

 be filled with comb before the bees from the 

 first- laid eggs emerge from the cells. 



Bulged or crooked combs are also the result of 

 a large brood-nest. The bees begin comb-build- 

 ing in the central frames. As a comb is com- 

 pleted, it is soruetimes sliglitly bulged into the 

 space between it and tlie adjoining outside 

 frame — particularly so if the S'cond frame con- 

 tains no comb, or a comb that is not so far ad- 

 vanced as the one in the first frame. This 

 causes the comb in the second frame to be 

 bulged into the next outside frame, and so on 

 with an increasing bulge as each succeeding 

 frame is i-eached. When the last frame is 

 reached, its space may be so encroached upon 

 that perhaps no comb, or only a thin, mis- 

 shapen one. may be built inside it. Proper and 

 exact spacing will do much to overcome this 

 state of afTairs; but with a medium or small 

 swarm in a large brood-nest, something of this 

 kind may be looked for. In the illustration 

 given, showing the side of a hive removed, a 

 swarm a little below the average in size had 

 been hived three days upon eight L. frames, 

 the bees also having access to and working in 

 the supers. It will be seen that the centra] 

 combs are half or two-thirds completed, while 

 in the two outer frames work has only been 

 commenced. Had " dummies " been put in at 

 the sides, reducing the number of frames to 

 five, all of the combs would have been com- 

 menced at the same time, advanced in growth 

 at about the same rate, been finished nearly all 

 alike, and there would have been no op/>o;fH- 

 nity for bulging. A comb is never bulged 

 when it is built between two o'hers. the growth 

 of which keejispace with its own. 



When I began the practice of hiving swai'tns 

 upon starters in a contracted brood nest. I was 

 u«ing the eight-frame Langstroth hive, putting 

 "dummies" at the sides, and contracting to 

 five frames; and I secured such straight worker- 

 combs that those built upon foundation might 

 almost look upon them with envy; but with 

 the Heildon hive, unless the swarm is unusual- 

 ly large, such perfect results, especially in the 

 one or two outer frames, are not secured. The 

 trouble is. that the brood nest is compressed 

 the wrong way. It is not the wrong way so far 

 as work in the supers is concerned; it is superi- 

 or in that respect, but it furnishes too large a 

 surface at the top of the brood-ue-^t; that is, 

 there are too many frames in which to begin 

 work. Reduce their nuinber to five, and all of 

 the combs will grow at the same time, and be 

 pi'rfect. as has been explained. 



Keep young queens, and contract the brood- 

 nest when hiving swarms on starters only, and 



