The Townsend Bee Book 67 
‘pefore the season opens, as I have explained heretofore. I used to 
think I was doing the bees a favor by giving them these wet combs 
‘to clean outdoors; but now I’m very sure it is an actual damage 
‘to them rather than a help; for with their mad scramble for the 
honey they use up valuable vitality, and this, too, at a vital time 
late in the season, when all their strength is needed to carry them 
through the winter. Then I would rather have the honey left in 
the combs than have that dirty purging smeared over the stories 
and frames. The bees are so eager for the honey that they over- 
load, thus causing them to purge before taking wing. 
Upper stories set back on the hives are cleaned all right; but 
the honey is stored right back in the same combs, so this method 
as a failure. 
Toward the end of summer, or in this location early in Septem- 
ber, bees begin to curtail brood-rearing. When this is going on, 
and as the brood-nest begins to grow smaller and smaller each day, 
‘instinct teaches the bees that a period of rest is in store for them. 
At this time they manage the interior of their hive as if they had 
full knowledge of the rigorous winter that is in store for them, 
for, as the brood hatches out for the last time in the fall, they busy 
‘themselves carrying honey from the outside combs and filling in 
those cells made vacant by the hatching of the bees. This carry- 
ing-in process of honey from the outside combs is continued until 
there is as much as ten pounds of honey placed in these empty cells 
in the middle of the brood-nest. If the honey in these outside 
combs is of good quality, all is well; but if it is of an inferior 
quality, and the colony does not winter perfectly, there is likely 
to be trouble. 
Knowing of these conditions, and of the instinct of the bees, 
we take advantage of this period to feed all colonies that are short 
of winter stores. If the honey in these outside combs is of an 
inferior quality we have fine results by feeding every colony ten 
pounds of sugar syrup. After the last extracting, the yard is gone 
over, the colonies ‘‘ hefted ’’ to see if they have stores enough to 
last them until the main honey-flow next June. Any colonies fall- 
ing short of 25 lbs. are marked ‘‘ short,’’ and the amount of stores 
necessary to bring the weight up to 30 lbs. is marked on the hives. 
In estimating the amount of stores needed, but few colonies are 
looked into—just enough colonies are looked into to get the run of 
how they are as to amount of stores. Colonies with very old combs 
are much heavier than new swarms; and taking this into consider- 
ation it does not take long to get on to the knack of estimating 
very correctly, since all the new colonies are marked. 
