ADVANCED BEE-CUIvTURE. 



47 



bees once get the start of the queen, by 

 clogging the broo(i-nest with honey, and 

 that colony becomes practically worth- 

 less for the production of comb honey. 



The advantages of full sheets of foun- 

 dation over starters, or vice versa, were 

 not so apparent, and until the close of 

 the season, an equal number of swarms 

 were hived upon foundation and upon 

 starters. Enough was proved the first 

 season to show that, so far as surplus was 

 concerned, nothing was gained by using 

 foundation in the brood nest, except for 

 starters, when hiving swarms. I have 

 since continued to experiment, year after 

 year, by hiving swarms alternately upon 

 foundation and upon empty combs, 

 weighing both surplus and brood-nests 

 at the end of the season, and the evi- 

 dence has been in favor of empty frames 

 every time. Oceasionally I have hived a 

 swarm on empty combs, but the loss has 

 always been so great, that it seems like 

 folly to repeat it. 



When full sheets of foundation are 

 used in the brood-nest, and the brood- 

 nest is so contracted that some of the 

 bees must enter the sections, and the 

 sections are filled with drawn comb, or 

 partly drawn comb, the honey must, from 

 necessity, be stored in the supers until 

 the foundation can be drawn out; and 

 even then, having commenced work in 

 the sections, the bees will not desert 

 them. But there is only one queen fur- 

 nishing eggs, while hundreds of busy, 

 eager workers are pulling away with 

 might and main drawing the foundation 

 out into comb, and the time eventually 

 comes when there are thousands of empty 

 cells in the brood-nest. Now nature has 

 no greater abhorrence of a vacuum than 

 has a bee of an empty cell during a flood 

 of honey; and, although the general or- 

 ders are "up stairs with the honey," no 

 cells in the brood-nest are left empty 

 very lonp. Especially is this true with a 

 deep brood-nest and yellow Italians. 



If a swarm is hived upon frames with 

 starters only, the first step is, necessarily, 

 the building of comb. Now, if a super 



filled with drawn, or partly drawn, comb 

 {not foundation) is placed over the hive, 

 the bees will begin storing honey in the 

 combs at the same time that comb build- 

 ing is begun below. A queen excluder 

 must be used to keep the queen out of 

 the supers, then she will be ready with 

 her eggs the moment a few cells are part- 

 ly finished in the brood nest, and, if the 

 latter has been properly contracted, she 

 will easily keep pace with the comb 

 building. The result is that nearly all 

 of the honey goes into the supers, where 

 it is stored in the most marketable shape, 

 and the combs in the brood-nest are fill- 

 ed almost entirely with brood. When 

 bees are hived upon empty frames, a 

 small brood nest is imperatively neces- 

 sary, otherwise large qualities of honey 

 will be stored therein, and when bees 

 build comb to store honey, particularly 

 if the yield is good, they usually build 

 drone comb. They probably do this be- 

 cause storage can thus be secured with 

 the least expenditure of time, labor and 

 material. So long as the queen keeps 

 pace with the comb builders, worker 

 comb is usually built, but if the brood- 

 nest is so large that bees begin hatching 

 from its center before the bees have fill- 

 ed it with comb, and the queen returns to 

 re-fill the cells being vacated by the 

 hatching bees, the comb builders are 

 quite like to change from worker to drone 

 comb. 



No fairer question could be asked than: 

 What are the advantages of this system ? 

 In reply I will say that, in the first place, 

 the foundation is saved; but although 

 this is a great saving, it comes about in- 

 cidentally, as the non-use of foundation 

 is only a means to an end, and that is the 

 profitable isecuring of the greatest possi- 

 ble amount of honey in the most market- 

 able shape; leaving the brood-nest so free 

 from honey that no extracting is needed 

 when the time comes for feeding sugar 

 for winter stores. Those who for any 

 reason do not wish to use sugar, may 

 still take advantage of this system by 

 putting the unfinished sections back on 



