ADVANCED BEE-CULTURE. 



49 



we d-^sire, and in such quantities, no 

 more and no less, all these are advan- 

 tages that cannot be ignored, even at the 

 cost of filling our frames with foundation, 

 and securing a little less surplus. We 

 must 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 secur- 

 ed 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 otherwise 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 stor- 

 ing honey slowly, the wax that they se- 

 crete without consuming honey express- 

 ly 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 hand- 

 ling of larger quantities of nectar increas- 

 es the natural or involuntary wax secre- 

 tion; but, as the yield of honey increases, 

 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 prof- 

 it 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 the honey 

 that they might gather, then foundation 

 is certainly used at a profit. Further- 

 more, I have seen the yield of honey so 

 bountiful that even foundation did not 

 answer the purpose; the bees could 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. 



It will be seen that this question of 

 foundation is one to which there may be 

 profitably given much thought and ex- 

 perimentation. If the bee-keeper lives 

 where the honey flow is light, but, per- 

 haps prolonged, he will find it more prof- 

 itable 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 combs for the surplus comb 

 honey. If honey comes in "floods," as 

 it sometimes does in some localities, the 

 man who allows his bees to build their 

 store combs unaided at such a time, loses 

 dollars and dollars. If foundation is 

 needed only for the sake of securing 

 straight worker combs, it need not nec- 

 essarially be heavy. All foundation in 

 brood frames, upon which swarms are 

 hived, should be wired to prevent sag- 

 ging and breaking down. 



Queen Rearing. 



T~T Y7 EARLY all who keep bees do so 

 \\ IJ for the honey the bees gather, 

 / vl ^"'' there are quite a number of 

 ^-^ v^ apiarists, who keep bees to rear 

 queens for sale. For several years I made 

 a specialty of queen rearing, securing no 

 comb honey; what little honey could be 

 extracted from the nuclei iu the basswood 

 flow, being all the honey secured. Queen 



rearing, if rightly managed, is more 

 profitable, according to the number of 

 colonies employed, than is the raising of 

 honey, provided there is a ready sale for 

 queens. Taking one year with another, 

 however, a man can make more money, 

 in this locality, by having enough bees to 

 keep him fully employed when engaged 

 in the production of honey. One great 



