874 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



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-.e 





ABOUT DRONE COMB. 



"Good morningf, Mr. Doolittle. I have 

 come over to have a little out of- season talk 

 with you. It is like this: I have been try- 

 ing all summer to get over here, but I have 

 been so busy that I could not get here till 

 now." 



"Well, Mr. Smith, the old saying is, 

 ' better late than never,' so perhaps we can 

 talk on an out-of- season topic to advantage 

 at this time. What was it you wished to 

 talk about? " 



"Can you tell me why my bees built so 

 much drone comb last summer? In hiving 

 my swarms I gave them one or two combs 

 already built, by way of a starting at 

 housekeeping with them, and I find now, 

 in getting them ready for winter, that fully 

 half the comb they built was drone comb. 

 Can you tell me how I can prevent this in 

 the future? '' 



"Yes, it is easily told. Put in full 

 frames of nice worker comb, filling the hive 

 full of these; or fill every frame set in any 

 hive full of foundation. See how easy it 

 is?" 



" Y-e-s. But I have not got the worker 

 comb, nor do I feel like spending so much 

 money for foundation. What I want to 

 know is how to make the bees build worker 

 comb. Can't you tell me something about 

 how comb-building is conducted, so that we 

 may find some solution to this difficulty? " 



" Perhaps so. All observing apiarists 

 know that, as the day of swarming draws 

 near, the queen ceases her prolificness so 

 as to be able to fiy and go with the swarm. 

 Otherwise she could not; for if a queen is 

 taken from a colony when she is most pro- 

 lific in egg-laying she can not fly at all." 



"Is that so? This is something new to 

 me, as I have been keeping bees onlj' two 

 seasons. Then the reason she lays so few 

 eggs just before the swarm issues is that 

 she may be able to fly with the swarm? " 



" This is one of the reasons; and another 

 is that she need not be inconvenienced with 

 an over-accumulation of eggs on arriving at 

 their new home before any comb can be 

 built; for it takes some time for the bees to 

 get started in a new home when they enter 

 some home not provided for them by men. 

 And so we find that all queens do not be- 

 come fully prolific again, after swarming, 

 till they have been in their new home some 

 three or four days. During this time comb 

 is being built quite rapidly where honey is 

 coming in plentifully from the fields, and 

 under such conditions the bees build comb 

 faster than the queen occupies it with eggs; 

 but where honey comes in slowly the queen 



is able to keep up with the comb-building 

 by depositing an egg in each cell as built." 



" But what has this to do with the matter 

 of drone comb? " 



" When, for any reason, the queen does 

 not occupy the cells with eggs as they are 

 built, and honey is coming in plentifully 

 from the fields, the bees, to economize, com- 

 mence to build store comb, which is of the 

 drone size of cells, and is mainly filled with 

 honey the first season, so that the trouble 

 from this store comb does not usually come 

 till the next spring, when, being emptied of 

 the honey, it is used to rear drones in." 



"I think I begin to see now, for honey 

 was coming in rapidly at the time these 

 swarms were filling their hives." 



" Yes, undoubtedly. But let me go a lit- 

 tle further: If, in addition to the above, we 

 give the swarm a frame or two of comb at 

 time of hiving, as you say 5^ou did, we 

 make matters doubly worse, in that we fur- 

 nish a place for the queen to deposit nearly 

 all the eggs she would naturally lay during 

 the first week after hiving, consequently 

 nearl.v all the comb built by the bees during 

 this time will be for store comb, or of the 

 drone size of cell, as you furnished for the 

 queen all the room in which to lay that she 

 needed." 



" That looks reasonable to me now; but 

 I never thought but that I was doing the 

 right thing when I gave the two combs. 

 This helps me much; but, if you have no 

 objections, tell me how you manage in this 

 matter." 



"The swarm is hived in a hive of the 

 same size as the one it came from, the same 

 being full of empty frames, each having 

 only a starter of comb foundation in it, the 

 same being about half an inch wide. They 

 are left thus for a da}-^ or two till a little 

 start is made at comb-building. At this 

 time half of the frames are taken out, leav- 

 ing those having the most comb built in 

 them, and the hive contracted to a size to 

 suit the frames left by means of dummies or 

 division-boards, and at the same time put- 

 ting on the sections, some of which have 

 combs for baits in them." 



" What is the object of this? " 



" Preparing the hive in this way gives 

 the bees pleniy of room above to store honey, 

 thus not crowding them in the brood-cham- 

 ber, so that only comb of the worker size is 

 built below, and that only as fast as the 

 prolificness of the queen demands it. As 

 her ability to lay increases, more comb is 

 built; so that at the end of the season I 

 have the hive filled with nice worker comb 

 and a good supply of honey in the sec- 

 tions." 



"But is there not considerable work to 

 this?" 



" Yes, some work, and so there is to any 

 thing well done. By the above plan three 

 important items are secured — lots of section 

 honey, no drone comb, and a hive full of 

 nice straight worker comb; and as these 

 latter will, with careful usage, last nearly 

 or quite a lifetime, it well pays to spend a 



