230 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



SECURING GOOD COMBS 



July 



BY FRANK C. PELLETT 



ONE of the most difficult things to 

 impress upon the novice, is the 

 importance of good combs. To 

 save a few cents' worth of foundation 

 it is the common practice to use a 

 narrow starter. While this may se- 

 cure a straight comb, it is likely to be 

 composed largely of drone cells. Un- 

 fortunately, an article designed to ex- 

 plain the need of full sheets of foun- 

 dation is not likely to reach those 

 who need it most, for few of them 

 read the bee magazines. 



The writer has had occasion to ex- 

 amine hundreds of hives in the ca- 

 pacity of inspector and is fully con- 

 vinced that if it were possible to place 

 all the bees on the farms of America 

 on full sheets of foundation, this 

 alone would greatly increase the out- 

 put of honey by eliminating a large 

 proportion of the useless drones now 

 reared. So much has been written on 

 this point that it seems like useless 

 repetition to state that bees left to 

 themselves will build large quantities 

 of drone comb and that instead of a 

 large force of productive worker bees 

 the colony will largely exert itself in 

 rearing drones which are a tax on 

 the colony. 



In hiving swarms it is well if possi- 

 ble to use one or two drawn combs 

 in the middle of the hive to give sup- 

 port to the cluster. Where full 

 sheets are placed in all the frames, 

 the weight of the swarm will often 

 break them down. In the June issue 

 of this Journal, F. W. Luebeck, of In- 

 diana, tells how he hives swarms on 

 foundation by placing an empty hive- 

 body under the one containing the 

 frames with foundation. The bees 

 cluster under the frames at the start 

 until the combs are partly drawn. 

 Through an error Mr. Luebeck's 

 name was omitted from his descrip- 

 tion of this method. 



When a swarm has a young and 

 vigorous queen, they will sometimes 

 draw out combs composed almost en- 

 tirely of worker cells. The explana- 

 tion lies in the fact that the queen 

 fills the cells with eggs as fast as they 

 are built and it keeps the bees hust- 

 ling to keep ahead of her. Since the 

 queen is young, the bees feel no need 



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Fig. 2. This comb is built without foundation and is composed almost entirely of drone-cells 



of supersedure, and consequently have 

 little use for drones. As soon as 

 enough combs have been built to sup- 

 ply the needs of the queen for egg- 

 laying, drone comb is likely to be 

 built. 



We have lately received from A. H. 

 Pering, of Bloomington, Indiana, a 

 set of combs which show very efifec- 

 tively what happens when the bee- 

 keeper fails to control conditions 

 within the hive. The pictures here- 

 with tell far more than the printed 

 story. 



Figure 1 is nicely fastened to the 

 bottom bar, and aside from the large 

 area of drone-comb it is a serviceable 

 comb. Such a comb can be used in 

 the extracting super if an excluder is 

 used to keep the queen below. If the 

 queen has access to it, sooner or later 

 it will be filled with brood and a crop 

 of drones will be reared in the large 

 cells. Most practical beekeepers melt 

 up such combs to avoid possible use 

 by the queen. It is cheaper to per- 

 mit the bees to build a new comb on 

 a full sheet of foundation than to al- 

 low them to rear a crop of drones. 



Figure 2 shows a comb composed 

 almost entirely of drone-cells. Where 

 the bees build from starters or with- 

 out foundation, they are likely to 

 build drone-comb, unless the queen is 

 crowded for room in which to lay. In 

 neglected apiaries a large portion of 

 the combs often look like this. The 



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Fig. 1. An area of Uronc-cclls spoils that which would otherwise be a good comb 



larger cells require less wax and ap- 

 parently are easier to build, hence the 

 bees prefer to build drone comb 

 rather than the smaller cells required 

 for worker comb. 



Figure 3 shows a great waste of 

 both wax and room. This comb is so 

 badly gnarled that about one-fourth 

 of its area is useless. Such uneven 

 combs are common where no founda- 

 tion is used. 



Figure 4 shows the result of trans- 

 ferring naturally built combs without 

 selecting those of worker cells. This 

 appears very uneven and composed 

 very largely of drone cells. Such a 

 comb is almost worthless. It might 

 be used temporarily in an extracting 

 super, but when such combs are al- 

 lowed, to remain in the apiary, there 

 is always danger that the queen will 

 find access to them and fill them with 

 brood. 



Figure 5 shows a good comb which 

 has been damaged by moths. The 

 bees, in repairing the moth-eaten 

 space, have filled it with drone comb. 

 Even this amount of drone cells is 

 sufficient to condemn this comb. It 

 is expensive business to rear drones, 

 and it is safer to build a new comb 

 than to allow this to remain in the 

 hive. 



At figure 6 we see what happens 

 when the honey is cut from the top 

 of a comb and a portion returned to 

 the bees. In this case the bees were 

 robbed in the good old-fashioned way, 

 even though they were in a modern 

 hive and the combs built on founda- 

 tion. Of course the honey was in the 

 upper portion of the comb and, this 

 removed, the bees proceeded to re- 

 build the missing poi'tion with drone 

 cells. 



Good beekeeping lies in intelligent 

 control of conditions by the bee- 

 keeper. Langstroth's invention of a 

 frame surrounding each separate 

 comb, enabled the beekeeper to reach 

 any part of the hive at will. The in- 

 vention of foundation insured, not 

 only straight combs, but combs com- 

 posed mostly of worker cells. Good 

 combs are one of the first essentials 

 to successful bekeeping. 



