110 BEGINNER'S BEE BOOK 



ony after they reach maturity, since they are 

 consumers and not producers. It will be read- 

 ily seen that a colony which is producing twenty 

 per cent, or more of drones will seldom yield a 

 satisfactory profit to the owner. At the Iowa 

 Beekeepers' Convention, C. E. Dustman had 

 an interesting paper on drones. He estimated 

 that a square foot of drone comb in the hive 

 would produce more than two thousand drones, 

 while the same space and food might have been 

 made to produce more than three thousand 

 workers to add to the hive's productive force. 

 The writer has often found it hard to con- 

 vince the novice of the value of full sheets of 

 foundation. The first cost looks large and too 

 often the bees are permitted to build their own 

 combs with but a narrow strip of starter to pre- 

 vent building crosswise. The two illustrations 

 (Figs. 10 and 11) which we show in this con- 

 nection tell more than pages of description. 

 The impressions on the foundation being the 



