ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 67 



If securing straight, all-worker combs is not the greatest ad- 

 vantage arising from the use of foundation, it is certainly next to 

 the greatest. The advantages of having each comb a counterpart 

 of all the others, to be able to place any comb in any hive, in short, 

 to have each interchangeable with all the others, and to be able to 

 control the production of drones, to have them reared from such 

 stock as we desire, and in such quantities, no more and no less, all 

 these are advantages that cannot be ignored, even at the cost of filling 

 our frames with foundation, and securing a little less surplus. We 

 imist have straight, worker combs. If they can be secured without 

 foundation, well and good; if not, it must be used. By using weak 

 colonies, or queen rearing nuclei, or by feeding bees in the fall, 

 straight, all-worker combs may be secured at a profit. 



Perhaps the greatest immediate profit arising from the use of 

 foundation, is not so much in the saving of honey that would other- 

 wise have been used in the elaboration of wax, as in the quickness 

 with which it enables the bees to furnish storage for honey. When 

 bees are storing honey slowly, the wax that they secrete without 

 consuming honey expressly for that purpose, probably furnishes 

 sufficient material, and there is probably abundant time, for the 

 building of comb in which to store the honey. As the flow of honey 

 increases, the handling of larger quantities of nectar increases the 

 natural or involuntary wax secretion; but, as the yield of honey in- 

 creases, a point is reached when honey must be consumed expressly 

 that wax may be secreted. It is quite likely that, at this point, 

 foundation may be used at a profit to aid the bees in furnishing 

 storage. When the yield is so great that the bees cannot secrete wax 

 and build comb with sufficient rapidity to store all of the honey that 

 they might gather, then foundation is certainly used at a profit. 

 Furthermore, I have seen the yield of honey so bountiful that even 

 foundation did not answer the purpose; the bees did not draw it out 

 fast enough to furnish storage for all of the honey that could have 

 been brought in. At such times drawn combs are needed in the 

 supers. 



It will be seen that this question of foundation is one to which 

 there may be profitably given much thought and experimentation. 

 If the bee-keeper lives where the honey flow is light, but, perhaps, 

 prolonged, he will find it more profitable to allow his bees to build 

 their own combs. If he can't get perfect brood combs, he certainly 

 can allow the bees to build their own combs for the surplus comb 

 honey. And, by the way, no comb built from foundation can ever 

 equal the delicate flakiness of that built naturally by the bees. If 

 honey comes in "floods," as it sometimes does in some localities, the 



