THOUSAND ANSWERS 27 



anything at repairing the capping, and if everything is full below 

 they are to a certain extent compelled to deposit the honey above. 



If a good fall flow comes, that may start an increase of brood- 

 rearing, and the bees may empty some of the honey from the 

 brood-chamber into the super. If no fall flow comes, there is 

 danger, as you suggest, that brood-rearing will be so limited that 

 the colony will not be so strong for winter. Yet there is this 

 crumb of comfort in the case, that if there is nothing for the bees 

 to do in the field they will not grow old so rapidly, and will not 

 die off so fast, so that, after all, they may not be so very weak for 

 winter. 



With extracting-combs there is less inclination to cram the 

 brood-chamber, yet if the bait-sections be as fully drawn out as 

 the extracting-combs the difference should be very little, unless it 

 be that extracting-combs that have been used as brood-combs 

 have greater attraction for the bees than comb that has never had 

 anything but honey in it. 



Are you sure that your colony has enough ventilation so that 

 the bees may be comfortable in the upper story? 



Brood-Chambers, Two-Story. — Q. Would you approve of the 

 plan of using two brood-chambers, one on top of the other, to 

 enlarge the brood-nest of 8-frame dovetailed hives? I do not 

 wish to keep more than 6 or 8 colonies, but I would like to keep 

 them strong. 



A. Decidedly. It often happens that before the clover harvest 

 is over, a good queen will be hampered in a single 8-frame hive, 

 and then it's a good thing to add the second story. But if you 

 are working for comb honey you should reduce to one story at 

 the time of putting on supers. That can hardly be said to be re- 

 ducing the room of the colony — merely giving the room in the 

 super in place of the brood-chamber. 



Q. At about what date do you contract from two-hive bodies 

 to one, and do you do it by shaking? I assume that most of the 

 workers must be left in the single chamber, so that the gathering 

 force there may be as strong as possible. 



A. You will find in "Fifty Years Among the Bees," that about 

 as soon as clover-bloom begins, or at least within ten days after 

 seeing the very first blossom, I give section-supers, and at that 

 time I reduce to one story, leaving in that one story all the brood 

 I can, and all the bees, shaking or brushing all the bees from the 

 combs I remove. 



Brood Dead. — Q. This fall we doubled up on a few colonies by 

 putting the weaker colony on top and a sheet of newspaper be- 



