AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



627 



this, and against this we must guard in 

 order to avoid making the article un- 

 popular. 



I use a bait (one of last year's sec- 

 tions) in the supers. I have also tried 

 supers without, but can find no great 

 difference. 



Swarming is an important factor in 

 the production of comb honey, and the 

 longer one works for this the more con- 

 fident one must feel. No one who wishes 

 to produce comb honey to perfection, 

 will ever care for any advice to prevent 

 swarming entirely. No apiary should 

 be run for comb honey alone, and in 

 running for comb honey the only object 

 kept in view should be the production to 

 perfection of this article. To do this, 

 swarming must take place. From clean 

 parent colonies good comb honey may be 

 secured, but rarely as good as from 

 swarms. 



When the bees swarm, they should be 

 hived on the old stands, and either on 

 very narrow strips of foundation, about 

 half an inch deep, or on full sheets. 

 Localities undoubtedly vary as to the 

 amount of pollen deposited in the combs, 

 and in a locality in which the bees 

 gather an undue amount of pollen, I 

 should say, try to make the bees draw 

 out and fasten to frames of foundation 

 early in the season, and hive the bees 

 upon these combs ; failing in this, use 

 full sheets of foundation. The object of 

 using these full sheets, or combs, is to 

 assist in preventing pollen from being 

 in the sections. In localities where pol- 

 len is not troublesome, the bees should 

 be hived on starters, and after allowing 

 one complete day to pass after the time 

 of hiving, put the supers on the hive. I 

 have not much faith in added energy 

 through swarming, but the bees have at 

 the commencement no brood to care for, 

 and feed, and they give better results as 

 to surplus. If sections on some old col- 

 ony are about ready, it is a good plan to 

 give these to swarms to finish ; they 

 will make very rapid work in finishing 

 them. 



Now as to the combs which will be 

 built from the starters : We know that 

 when a young queen is in the hive, the 

 bees will be less inclined to build drone- 

 comb, but is this condition practically 

 for the comb-honey producer? I think 

 uot. The plan of re-queening with 

 young queens before the honey-flow, is 

 not desirable, from the loss of time re- 

 sulting from the introduction of a new 

 queen, and taking out of the old one. 

 The truly successful comb-honey pro- 

 ducer must be ever on the watch to im- 

 prove his stock in this direction ; he 



should know by numbers what supers 

 have been finished by every colony, and 

 when he notices section supers of well 

 capped comb, and free from brace-comb 

 and propolis (this latter characteristic 

 should be especially observed), he should 

 note that hive, especially if the amount 

 of honey secured has been large. Next 

 season he should breed from such a 

 queen, and so on, producing from year 

 to year a better strain of bees. 



I am not saying a word against queen- 

 breeders (I am a queen-breeder myself), 

 but a comb-honey producer should have 

 a strain of bees which, although they 

 may not be the best in the world, yet 

 must be of sufficient value to him to 

 cause him to replace them with extreme 

 caution, and only with something tried 

 by himself. To prevent deterioration, 

 some new blood must be introduced each 

 season ; it is then impractical to have 

 young queens with swarms, and often 

 with such queens there will be an un- 

 desirable amount of drone-comb. I have 

 within the last two weeks seen the result 

 of an extensive experiment conducted by 

 Mr. S. T. Pettit, of Belmont, Ont., under 

 the following directions : 



The swarms were given one or two 

 combs entirely drone, the balance start- 

 ers, with the hope that the bees would be 

 furnished with worker-comb, but they 

 appear to have no powers of reason, 

 and in every instance appear to build as 

 much drone-comb as if the first combs 

 had never been given. 



For extracted honey I favor full sheets 

 of foundation, every time, but for comb 

 honey my arguments for starters, unless 

 in exceptional cases, are these: We are 

 trying to get the most honey out of these 

 bees, and we want the best product ; if 

 we do not care for much increase, we 

 can shake the bees from these combs 

 after the season is over and destroy 

 them ; if we wish to winter them we can 

 put them on good combs, and feed them 

 sugar syrup for winter stores. The 

 combs built by the bees can be patched 

 up to the best advantage, and the old 

 hive placed directly behind. The new 

 colony can be treated thus : 



Almost six days after swarming, shake 

 a good many bees from the combs, ad- 

 ding them to the new swarms in front, 

 and either utilize the combs in another 

 place, or put the colonies on new stands, 

 and let them build up for winter. I am 

 never troubled with second swarms. 



The location of an apiary has much to 

 do with swarming. In places where the 

 air can freely circulate, the amount of 

 swarming will be reduced ; the nature 

 of the soil even will have an influence. 



