40 



ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 



In the production of extracted honey, queen excluders are a 

 great convenience, if not a necessity. If they are not used, the 

 brood is almost certain to be scattered through the supers, or upper 

 stories; and ripe honey, ripe as it ought to be when it is extracted, 

 cannot be thrown from the combs very rapidly or completely, with- 

 out at the same time throwing out the brood. If brood is found in 

 the upper story, it is, of course, sometimes possible to exchange 

 such combs for the outside combs in the brood nest, if such can be 

 found without brood, but all this takes time. To successfully con- 

 duct an apiarj', the fixtures and methods should be such that the 

 work will move along smoothly, and in a systematic manner, with- 

 out any "hitches." 



There is also another point to be considered in connection with 

 the use of queen excluders when producing extracted honejs and 

 that is the freeing of the supers of bees by the use of bee escapes. 

 If the super contains brood and, perhaps, the queen, the bees could 

 not be induced to desert by the use of an escape. If they did leave 

 the brood, then something would have to be done with the brood, as 

 already mentioned. In short, advanced bee culture has divided the 

 hive into two distinct apartments — brood and surplus — and unless 

 this division can be maintained, many profitable plans must be re- 

 linquished. The (|ueen excluding honey board enables the bee- 

 keeper to thus set a boundary, beyond which the brood can not go. 



