38 The Townsend Bee Book 
demand for comb-honey supers equipped with some extracting- 
combs, and I have never known of a case where this plan was 
tried and abandoned. It prevents much of the swarming so prev- 
alent in comb-honey production, and this means, of course, much 
more surplus honey. I have managed a yard of about one hun- 
dred colonies for the last two years, and by following this plan I 
have had less than twenty per cent of swarms. 
The second reason for placing extracting-combs, which are to 
act as the bait-combs, at the sides of the super is that the queen 
rarely goes to the outside combs to lay eggs; and this means that 
these extracting-combs can be kept white and clean so they will 
not darken the cappings of the sections next to them. I use sep- 
arators between all of the sections, and also between the extract- 
ing-combs and the sections nearest them. 
HANDLING SWARMS 
The beginner is likely to have so many swarms, due to the 
usual method of working for comb honey and to his inexperience, 
that but little surplus honey will be secured. Generally speaking, 
the more swarms there are, the smaller the surplus-honey crop 
will be. 
The first step in preventing swarms is to put the supers on a 
week or so before the honey-flow opens, as mentioned before—not 
because the bees actually need the extra room, but to keep them 
from becoming crowded so that they get the swarming fever. 
The next step is to give more super room before the first 
supers are full. An empty super ought to be given when the first 
one is not more than half full. This second super can be set on 
top, or the first one may be lifted up and the empty one placed 
next the hive. We set the empty supers on top of the ones given 
at first; and when the bees get nicely at work in them we change 
places and put the second super under the first one. This means 
a little more work, but, in return, rather better-filled sections are 
secured. 
The beginner is usually anxious to have all the natural swarms 
possible in order to increase the size of his apiary. A neighbor of 
mine, who was too busy a farmer to take care of bees, once had a 
dozen colonies at the beginning of the season, and before he knew 
what was happening a swarm issued from first one colony and then 
another. The result was that his bees swarmed so much that prac- 
tically no surplus honey was secured. He hived every swarm, good 
or bad; and, since the season was only an ordinary one, some of the 
later swarms starved before the next spring. Finally, when the 
