724 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



course you have usually pursued when you 

 have trouble with newly hived swarms build- 

 ing drone comb? " 



' ' I have been hiving them in contracted 

 brood- chambers, giving from five to six 

 frames." 



"If you gave them sections filled with 

 foundation at the time of hiving, that plan 

 should not give much drone comb, accord- 

 ing to my experience." 



' ' I gave them ample super room, shade, 

 and ventilation, as I considered it. But, 

 notwithstanding it all, they almost invaria- 

 bly fill the empty or starter frames with 

 drone comb." 



" What am I to understand by your term 

 ' empty or starter frames' ? " 



" Why, frames empty except a half-inch- 

 wide strip of foundation cemented to the un- 

 der side of top-bar, the same running the 

 whole length of the center to the same." 



" Yes, that is all right. And you use all 

 the five or six like that?" 



' * No. I always put in one or two frames 

 filled with comb, so as to make the hive ap- 

 pear more home-like to them, and to make 

 them stay better. And even then very 

 many of my swarms desert their hives the 

 next day after hiving." 



" Now you have given me the reason why 

 you have so much drone comb built. It 

 seemed a mystery at first. But those two 

 frames filled with comb explain it all." 



" How is that? " 



"Bees build worker comb most largely 

 only when the queen keeps pace with her 

 egg-laying. Nature has made it possible 

 for the queen to fly and keep up with the 

 swarm by her ceasing her egg-laying two or 

 three days before the swarm issues; for a 

 queen under the full height of egg-laying 

 can not fly to a greater extent than a fly- 

 ing-squirrel can— that is, by a sailing motion 

 she does not fall like a stone to the ground, 

 but she can not rise in flight; she must grad- 

 ually settle to the ground unless she has 

 ceased laying from two to three thousand 

 eggs daily, down to only a few hundred, or 

 none at all." 



" What has that got to*do with the mat- 

 ter? I don't see." 



" Wait a moment and I think I can make 

 it plain. Nature not only stops this egg- 

 laying at this time so that the queen can fly 

 with the swarm, but also that she need not 

 be pressed with a lot of eggs continually till 

 comb can be built in the newly found home; 

 for you are aware that the hollow tree or 

 cave, empty box, room, or space into which 

 they are likely to enter for a home, in a 

 state of nature, is not provided with any 

 comb; no, not so much even as frames with 

 starters in them. Now, as soon as such a 

 home is entered, the bees begin to clean and 

 prepare this home for their combs, which 

 will be barely started in from twelve to 

 twenty- four hours, and in this time the ova- 

 ries of the queen begin to fill with eggs so 

 that, by the time the combs are half as large 

 as your hand, she is on hand with eggs for 

 every cell as soon as deep enough for her to 



lay therein. This is what I meant by the 

 queen keeping pace with the bees in comb- 

 building, and just so long as she keeps right 

 up with her eggs in this way, laying an egg 

 in each cell as fast as the bees complete it 

 deep enough for her to lay eggs in, just so 

 long will the bees build worker comb. But 

 where comb is built much faster than she 

 can keep up with in this way, then the size 

 of cell is changed and drone comb is the re- 

 sult." 



" Admitting that you are right in this 

 matter, where does my giving a frame or 

 two of empty comb come in?" 



' * By your providing more empty comb for 

 the queen to lay in at the time of hiving 

 than the bees would naturally build in five 

 days, where only startered frames were used, 

 and thus the bees are that far in advance of 

 the queen at the beginning as well as at the 

 end of the five days, while in the beginning 

 she has no eggs to put in any of the eight or 

 ten thousand cells you have given. Conse- 

 quently the bees are way ahead of the queen 

 in the matter of comb, and for this reason 

 you almost invariably (as you put it) get 

 your startered frames filled with drone comb. 

 I wish I could emphasize this to such an ex- 

 tent that all the bee-keeping world could 

 hear; for on no other subject do I get so 

 much inquiry as I do on this. If you want 

 your swarms to build only worker comb, in 

 no case give those swarms any empty comb 

 at time of hiving." 



" Perhaps you are right in this. But 

 would not my swarms desert more than they 

 now do, did I not give the comb?" 



"Perhaps, under like conditions." 



" What do you mean? " 



"A large prime swarm, coming from a 

 ten-frame hive with supers on, is not likely 

 to be contented when hived in a hive so 

 small as five or six frames; and these are 

 the conditions under which you have placed 

 such a swarm." 



' ' But what other conditions can there 

 be when we use the contraction plan for 

 section honey in connection with swarm- 

 ing? " 



"My way has been to hive all such 

 swarms on the whole ten startered frames; 

 that is, give this swarm the full empty ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive. This places them 

 in the same position they would be in when 

 they found a home in a state of nature. 

 And not one swarm in fifty will desert such 

 a home with me." 



" But you can't use the contraction plan 

 in this way." 



" Let us see. I leave them thus for 48 

 hours, at which time they are fully estab- 

 lished in their new home, with no desire to 

 leave. They have more or less comb well 

 under way in from four to six frames; the 

 queen is keeping pace with her eggs, and all 

 is lovely. I now open the hive and take 

 away four to six of the frames having the 

 least comb in them (generally the starters 

 are little touched) , contract the hive to suit 

 the frames left, and put on the sections; the 

 result of which is a contented swarm, these 



