48 



ADVANCED BEE-CULTURE. 



the hives in time for the honey to be 

 carried down and stored in the brood- 

 nest for winter. Or a case of brood 

 combs may be put on over the sections as 

 the harvest draws to a close, instead of 

 putting on another case of sections. 

 This will do away with nearly all unfinish- 

 ed sections, and the case of filled brood 

 combs can be given the colony at the 

 end of the season in place of its em- 

 pty combs. By either plan, the number 

 oi finished sections is increased. 



The objection to this plan is that it 

 cannot be depended upon to produce per- 

 fect brood combs. I think I am safe in 

 saying that I have had thousands of 

 combs built under this management, and 

 I think at least eighty per cent, of them 

 were as perfect as it would be possible 

 to secure by the use of foundation. A 

 much larger percentage were perfect when 

 I was using mostly the Langstroth frame, 

 and contracted the brood nest to only 

 five frames. This made the top of the 

 brood nest, where the bees commenced 

 their combs, so small that the bees com- 

 pletely covered it. All of the combs 

 were commenced at the same time. As a 

 rule, they were as nearly perfect as pos- 

 sible, at least so far as straightness was 

 concerned. When I came to using the 

 new Heddon hive more extensively, I 

 discovered that the greater surface at 

 the top allowed room for the starting of 

 more combs, that the outside combs 

 would not always be started so soon as 

 the center ones, and this sometimes re- 

 sulted in a slight bulging of some of the 

 combs. Perhaps the outer comb would 

 be a trifle thinner and used largely for 

 storage. The comb next to it would 

 bend out slightly to match the lack of 

 thickness in the outside comb. As the 

 frames in the new Heddon hive are placed 

 nearer together than one and one-half 

 inches (the natural distance at which 

 bees place their combs apart) I have 

 sometimes thought the bees, in their efforts 

 to get the combs wider apart (one and 

 one-half inches from center to center) 

 bulged or built the comb of one frame 

 slightly into the space that rightfully 



belonged to the adjoining comb, and then 

 this adjoining comb must needs be built 

 into the space belonging to the next comb, 

 and so on. When full sheets of founda- 

 tion are used, the bees are, of course, 

 compelled to build their combs where 

 the foundation is placed. 



Sometimes drone comb would be built, 

 even in spite of contracted brood nests. 

 Usually this was the result of old queens. 

 But then, we can't always have young 

 queens, hence I can only repeat that this 

 method gives most excellent results in 

 the way of surplus, but cannot be de- 

 pended upon to furnish perfect brood 

 combs. So well pleased was I with this 

 system that, four years ago, I wrote and 

 published a little book in which this 

 method was described in detail. Three 

 thousand copies were sold, the methods 

 advised were largely tried, and were 

 freely discussed in the journals, all suc- 

 ceeded ii; getting good crops of honey, 

 but some failed in getting perfect brood 

 combs. Some keep watch of the brood 

 combs while they are being built, cutting 

 out crooked or drone comb, and using it 

 in the sections. I cannot think favorably 

 of such work. When I hive a swarm, I 

 wish that to be the end of the matter. 

 No opening of brood nests, and puttering 

 with imperfect combs during the hurly 

 burly of swarming time would be desir- 

 able for me. But I do think favorably of 

 a plan advi.sed by Mr. H. R. Boardman, 

 that of contracting the brood nest when 

 hiving a swarm, and then uniting the 

 swarm with the parent colony at the end 

 of the season. This allows the newly 

 built combs to be sorted over and the 

 imperfect ones culled out and rendered 

 into wax. 



If securing straight all-worker comb is 

 not the greatest benefit arising from the 

 use of foundation, it is certainly next 

 to the greatest. The advantages of hav- 

 ing each comb a counterpart of all the 

 others, to be able to place any comb in 

 any hive, in short, to have each inter- 

 changable with all the others, and to be 

 able to control the production of drones, 

 to have them reared from such stock as 



