HIVES. 55 



with them a plentiful supply of honoy with which to 

 start in their new home, food should be given sparingly 

 unless untoward weather prevents their leaving the 

 hive. In that case a liberal, but not too rapid, supply 

 is needed. Should food be deemed necessary a supply 

 of Porto Eico sugar will furnish the best means of 

 saving the lives of the bees, and assisting them in the 

 building of new combs. 



When to super. Too often stocks and swarms are 

 allowed to remain days and even weeks without supers, 

 a practice that should be abandoned, for, not only is 

 there a loss, and sometimes a great one, but, by the 

 storing of surplus in the brood-chamber, the queen is 

 " crowded out " — that is, the cells in which the queen 

 should be depositing eggs are used by the bees for 

 the storage of honey. The consequence is that, at the 

 end of the season, such a stock will contain a very 

 large amount of honey, but a very small number of 

 bees, mostly old ones. Thus the progress of the colony 

 the following spring will usually be unsatisfactory. As 

 soon as a swarm is hived into an empty skep the bees 

 cluster, and having obtained a sufficiently high tem- 

 perature commence secreting wax with which to 

 build their combs. The combs should, in the main, 

 be composed of worker cells, otherwise a superabun- 

 dance of drones each summer while the hive is in use 

 win be inevitable. 



Building combs of worker cells alone by the swarm 

 will continue if the income of food is only moderate, 

 but if the honey-flow is on, and there is a large inflow 

 of honey, the bees will build combs mostly of drone 

 cells for storing purposes. The necessity for a means 



