ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 



39 



and the bottom of the honey board. The outside rim or frame-work 

 of the honej' board is H of an inch thicker than the slats, thus the 

 surplus case is raised ^ of an inch above the slats of the honey 

 board. In short, the honej"- board is a scries of slats, ?-8 of an inch 

 apart, placed between the brood nest and the supers, with a "bee 

 space" both above and below the slats. In the space below, between 

 the slats and the brood nest, the bees build brace combs Jtis/ the 

 same as ever, but, for some reason, the space above is almost always 

 left free from the disagreeable brace combs. A case of sections can 

 be lifted off as clean and free from daub as when first placed upon 

 the hive. 



There have been more or less successful attempts to do away 

 with the necessity for a honey board by using wide, deep top bars, 

 accurately spaced; and while such an arrangement does away with a 

 large share of the burr comb nuisance, I have yet to see a case in 

 which there was not enough of it left to warrant the use of a honey 

 board. 



A slatted honey board 

 is easily made queen ex- 

 cluding by simply cutting 

 saw kerfs in the edges of 

 the slats, and slipping strips 

 of perforated metal into the 

 kerfs between the slats. 

 Whole sheets of zinc have 

 been used as honey boards, 

 but they are lacking in rig- 

 idity. They are likely to 

 sag, bend or kink, thus de- Q"^<=" Excluding Honey Board. 



stroying the perfection of the bee spaces. If a sheet sags, the space 

 above becomes so large that there is a likelihood of comb being built 

 ■therein; while the space below becomes so small, that propolis is 

 placed between the zinc and the tops of the brood fi-ames. The 

 wood-zinc honey board is free from this defect. 



In the production of comb honey there is little need for a queen 

 excluder over an old, established colony; but when a swarm is hived 

 in. a contracted brood chamber having starters only in the frames, 

 and given the supers of partly finished sections from the old hive, a 

 queen excluder is almost a necessity. The queen, finding no combs 

 in the brood nest, at once invades the sections, where the bees soon 

 clear out some of the cells for her to lay in, and, having begun her 

 brood nest there, she is quite likely to remain there until consider- 

 able comb has been built below. 



