THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



183 



If two or even three swarms should issue 

 at the same time, and all settle on the same 

 limb,or other object, I wouldn't separate the 

 bees, nor even look for a queen, unless they 

 are valuable ones. I would put all the bees 

 in one tiive and give them all the sections 

 they could work in to advantage. Whew! 

 what a pile of section honey such a horde of 

 bees would store. I have had two swarms 

 that united, fill the brood-chamber and 100 

 one-pound sections in less than three weeks. 



I wouldn't bother about wiring brood 

 frames if I could purchase the Van Deusen 

 wired brood foundation. This celebrated 

 foundation is made by placing the wire be- 

 tween two thin sheets of wax and then the 

 wax is subjected to powerful pressure. The 

 wire never works out, nor do the bees ever 

 gnaw the wax ofiE the wire as they do in all 

 cases where the frames are wired, instead of 

 the foundation." 



Empty Brood Comblb. — Their Most Profit- 

 able Use. 



In some parts of the country bees have 

 died quite extensively thfe past winter, and 

 many bee-keepers will find themselves the 

 possessors of large numbers of empty combs. 

 Before deciding to hive swarms on them it 

 would be well for them to read carefully and 

 consider well the following advice given by 

 J. A. Green in the A. B. J. : 



" Sooner or later every bee-keeper is apt 

 to find himself the possessor of a number of 

 empty brood-combs. If he seeks informa- 

 tion from authorities as to the best way to 

 utilize them, he is liable to receive very con- 

 tradictory advice. 



Some will tell him that these combs are 

 very valuable ; ' as good as money in the 

 bank;' 'the sheet anchor to success,' etc., 

 while others will say that the best thing he 

 can do with them is to melt them into wax. 

 As usual, the truth will be found to lie some- 

 where between the extremes. Their value 

 for use in the hives will depend very much 

 upon circumstances. At times they are very 

 valuable, and at other times they might bet- 

 ter be thrown away than used. 



The most natural and common use is to 

 hive swarms upon them. We know that a 

 new colony must have brood-combs before 

 it will do much at storing honey, and nothing 

 could be more natural than to suppose that 

 by giving them these combs already built, 

 they will be greatly helped and enabled 

 thereby to commence sooner the profitable 

 work of filling sections. 



But if we experiment carefully, we will of- 

 ten find that what looks so plausible in theo- 

 ry, does not turn out so well in practice. 

 The colonies that we had supplied with full 

 sets of ready-built combs somehow do not 

 give as great a surplus of honey as those 

 which had to build their combs anew. There 

 are several reasons for this. One is, that 

 bees, as well as human beings, will often take 

 more time to patch up an old thing than to 



make a new one. Combs usually require 

 considerable fixing over before the queen 

 will lay in them. 



The most serious objection to their use in 

 this way is, that the bees will begin to fill 

 them with honey at once, and will do little 

 or nothing in the surplus department until 

 the brood-combs are full of brood or honey. 

 Very often they are filled first with honey, 

 and unless the queen is an unusually smart 

 one, this honey stays there, reducing the 

 brood-rearing capacity of the hive, weaken- 

 ing the energy of the bees for storing in the 

 supers, and lessening decidedly the amount 

 of marketable honey. If there are empty 

 combs enough, they may have just as much 

 honey put into them as would be put into the 

 supers — perhaps more — but this honey will 

 not be worth nearly as much as if it had been 

 stored in sections. 



As previously stated, the value of combs 

 depends upon circumstances. There are 

 times when combs may be very profitably 

 used in hiving swarms, while under other 

 circumstances we may find that we have used 

 them at a loss. To use them advantageous- 

 ly, certain rules must be followed. 



In the first place, if honey is coming in 

 freely, and this honey-flow is not likely to 

 last more than a month, which is the case 

 nine times out of ten, too many combs 

 should not be given. Nothing could be naore 

 fatal to the chance of securing a large yield 

 of comb honey, than to hive the swarm in a 

 large hive filled with finished combs. 



Ordinarily the swarm issues during the 

 early part of the honey-flow, which does not 

 last more than two or three weeks longer — 

 often a shorter time. At such a time the 

 brood-chamber should be contracted to a 

 space equal to five Langstroth frames, and 

 I think the fewer finished combs are used the 

 better. 



On the other hand, if swarms issue very 

 early, before the main honey-flow begins, it 

 will be found profitable to give them as 

 many combs as the queen will occupy with 

 brood before they are filled with honey. 



As the honey-flow draws toward its close, 

 it again becomes profitable to hive swarms 

 upon finished combs, as otherwise the col- 

 ony may not be able to build sufiicient 

 combs for its needs, in which case brood- 

 rearing is restricted, and the colony rapidly 

 dwindles. At this time, too, all colonies that 

 have been hived in a contracted brood-cham- 

 ber should be looked over; and empty combs 

 added as fast as they can utilize them. In 

 this way colonies weak in numbers may of- 

 ten be brought up to good working strength 

 in time for the fall crop. 



The time when empty combs are most val- 

 uable, is when it is desired to increase the 

 number of colonies as rapidly as possible. 

 W^ith vigorous, prolific queens, plenty of 

 empty combs, and judicious feeding when 

 pasture is short, an apiary may be increased 

 in numbers at a very rapid rate, and it is this 

 very elasticity — the ability to recover quick- 

 ly from heavy losses — that relieves bee-keep- 

 ing of much of the uncertainty and risk that 

 would otherwise make it a much more pre- 

 carious occupation than it is." 



