rHE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



213 



(^oxKcsi^onAtnct. 



This mark O indicates that the apiarist is 

 located near tne center of the State named ; 

 6 north of the center; 9 south; O east; 

 ♦Owest; and this d northeast; ^o northwest: 

 o» southeast; and P southwest of the center 

 of the State mentioned. 



For the American Bee JoumoL 



Tie Building Of Drone-Coml). 



Q. M. DOOLITTLE. 



I have read with interest the vari- 

 ous discussions of Mr. Hutchinson 

 and others on the drone-comb ques- 

 tion, and it seems to me that many do 

 not fully understand the conditions 

 under which it is built. The idea of 

 no drone-comb does not lie in a small 

 brood-chamber with a surplus ar- 

 rangement above it, by any means, as 

 many of the given reports show. My 

 own experience also convinced me of 

 this fact, years ago, when I among 

 the first, if not the first, advocated a 

 very small brood-chamber with the 

 surplus arrangement put directly 

 above it, to secure all worker-comb. 

 When the conditions are right, 

 worker-comb is just as apt to be built 

 where no surplus arrangement is used 

 as otherwise, and the only reason for 

 using the surplus arrangement is in 

 making the conditions more generally 

 right than they are likely to be with- 

 out it. 



What are the right conditions for 

 the building of worker-comb ? Simply 

 this : The right force of bees so that 

 the queen can follow them in comb- 

 building with her eggs, so that as soon 

 as the cells of any comb are deep 

 enough to receive an egg, a worker 

 egg is laid therein. As long as these 

 conditions exist only worker-comb is 

 built, 1 care not how old or unprolific 

 the queen is, or how prolific. 



From the above it will be easily 

 seen why a large colony with an un- 

 prolific queen builds mostly drone or 

 store comb, and a small colony with a 

 young prolific queen builds all worker 

 comb. 



That all may understand how to 

 easily get worker-comb built, I will 

 give the reader some of the experi- 

 ments I have tried, and the grounds 

 gone over, so that little by little I 

 arrived at the truth regarding the 

 above. 



Among my first recollections of 

 comb-building I found that, with a 

 good aueen and a large colony of bees 

 placed in a 12-frame Gallup hive 

 (giving 2,100 cubic inches of comb- 

 space), the 9 central combs would be 

 generally all worker-comb except the 

 lower corners or parts of three or four 

 of the outer ones, while the three out- 

 side ones and the parts noticed would 

 generally be drone-comb. The out- 

 side sheets would generally be filled 

 with honey, showing that these combs 

 were built especially as store comb, 

 while the corners mentioned would 

 have drones in them, showing that 

 •only a small portion of this drone- 



comb was really built for the rearing 

 of drones. Now while this large 

 amount of drone-comb was of little 

 harm the first year, yet during June 

 of the next year the surplus honey in 

 these combs was converted into drones 

 to till the combs, which drones, after 

 being hatched, consumed quite a 

 share of the honey gathered by the 

 colony ; thus making a serious thing 

 of what was built for store comb. It 

 the queen with the colony was an old 

 or unprolific one, matters were still 

 worse, as in this case one-half or more 

 of all the comb in the hive would be 

 of the drone size. 



The above and the amount of honey 

 stored in these outside combs caused 

 me to cut my hive down to 9 frames, 

 so as to obviate both diSlculties ; but 

 I soon found that I had only remedied 

 the latter, as I did not put on the 

 boxes until the hive was two-thirds 

 full of comb, for at that time all con- 

 sidered it an " unpardonable sin " to 

 pnt boxes on when a swarm was 

 hived, unless it was where two or 

 more swarms were hived together, in 

 which case the putting on of boxes 

 would not influence the comb-build- 

 ing any, for there would still be a 

 force of bees large enough to keep the 

 comb far in advance of the queen. 



I was almost ready to give up in 

 despair (no comb foundation being in 

 use at that time), when one day quite 

 a small swarm came out with a queen 

 only a year old. I was about to put 

 them back, when I decided to hive 

 them for increase, considering that 

 the colony in the fall would be worth 

 more than the honey they would ob- 

 tain if returned ; and in the hiving of 

 this swarm I got my first real light on 

 the drone-comb subject. I did not 

 look at this colony for three weeks 

 from the time it was hived, except to 

 see that the combs were being built 

 true in the frames ; therefore imagine 

 my joy to find the frames filled with 

 comb (except a few inches at the bot- 

 tom of the two outside combs), and 

 every bit of it was worker comb, and 

 filled with brood, except a few pounds 

 of honey along the top-bar. 



In a week or so I opened the hive 

 again, expecting to find that the two 

 outside frames had been finished 

 down with worker-comb, but was dis- 

 appointed, for it was drone-comb. I 

 asKed myself wliy, and soon reasoned 

 out what I thought was correct, in 

 believing that as soon as the young 

 bees began to hatch— which they were 

 doing when I first opened the hive — 

 the queen had all the egg-laying she 

 desired to do in the vacated cells, so 

 no longer kept " hand in hand, as it 

 were " with the bees, they built the 

 rest for store comb. 



The next year, to thoroughly prove 

 my position, I hived a part of a large 

 swarm which came out with an un- 

 prolific queen, in a hive containing 

 but three frames. I took enough bees 

 to just fill these three frames in three 

 weeks, according to my best judg- 

 ment, but got a few too many, as they 

 had the three combs built in 17 days, 

 the queen having a worker egg in 

 every cell except a few at the top for 

 pollen and honey. I now moved along 

 the division-board and placed an 



empty frame between two of the 

 others, and during the next four days 

 this was filled a little over half full of 

 worker-comb, which the queen occu- 

 pied with eggs ; but as soon as the 

 young bees began to hatch, she only 

 went over the vacated cells, which 

 caused the rest of the frame to be 

 filled with drone-comb. From this I 

 took the cue which has controlled me 

 in all my after work, and which is the 

 father of what is known as the Hutch- 

 inson plan of getting worker-combs 

 built in the brood-chamber while 

 working for comb honey. 



Without going over all the ground 

 of my failures, and how I was led 

 step by step along to perfect success, 

 I will simply say that success is only 

 obtained by getting such an amount 

 of empty surplus room above, with 

 the right size of brood-chamber be- 

 low, that the bees build comb below 

 only as fast as the queen occupies it 

 with eggs, while there is room above 

 for all their extra resource of wax and 

 comb-building propensities. The rea- 

 son why Mr. Ilutchinson has been so 

 eminently successful where others 

 have failed, is because his observa- 

 tions have led him to more nearly 

 comply with the above than have the 

 less successful ones. 



Before closing this article I must 

 notice an item bearing directly upon 

 this subject. I see it advised in a re- 

 cent paper, by a would-be writer on 

 the subject of apiculture, that an 

 empty comb should be given a swarm 

 at the time of hiving. In my younger 

 years I tried this, and as a result I 

 could get only drone-comb built in a 

 colony so treated, and the same holds 

 true in giving a comb of brood to a 

 swarm to keep them from absconding, 

 as advised by so many, especially it 

 any of the brood in the comb is hatch- 

 ing so as to give the queen room to 

 lay her eggs in this comb. Where 

 much brood is hatching in a hive, or 

 there is empty comb in the same, the 

 only remedy for drone-comb is fuU 

 sheets of foundation or frames of 

 worker-comb. 

 Borodino,© N. Y. 



Securing (Jooil Prices for Honey. 



WM. H. GRAVES. 



I feel greatly interested in the dis- 

 cussion of the subject of " obtaining 

 remunerative prices for our honey." 

 To me it is of more importance than 

 anything else connected with the 

 business. The wintering problem 

 has never burdened my mind to any 

 extent, as my losses have alwaya 

 been light ; but it is a subject of some 

 concern to me to convert a nice lot of 

 4,000 or 5,000 pounds of honey into 

 money, without selling it at a price 

 below cost of production, thereby 

 ruining future prices for other bee- 

 keepers, and myself also. As any one 

 who has been in " the business " any 

 length of time knows, it is no easy 

 matter to raise the price after having 

 been reduced. 



I have ever refrained from sending 

 any honey to our large commercial 

 centres; I have never shipped a pound 



