328 A Modern Bee-Farm 



of combs with honey. Keep all closed up warm and 

 feed gently, but always. Put in a frame with narrow 

 guide only, and in three or four days such colonies will 

 produce a beautiful worker comb nearly filling the frame 

 and being generally crowded with eggs. These may be 

 utilised as required, and the same process continued. 

 For three months at a stretch such small (carefully-tended) 

 colonies will continue the process, giving something like 

 two dozen good combs, while the brood removed will 

 represent two powerful stocks. Such a profit, and saving 

 of outlay in foundation, should satisfy the most economic 

 bee-keeper. 



The Production of All-Worker Combs 



is assured where all young bees are retained, hence the 

 reason for shifting the nucleus occasionally. In that case a 

 young queen is not a necessity. Where swarms have 

 been hived upon starters, I have avoided the building of 

 drone combs by placing the frames rather less than i|-inch 

 from centre to centre. This point appears to have been 

 overlooked by many who have been troubled in that direc- 

 tion. 



Pollen Stored in the Sections. 



This trouble I learned to avoid when hiving swarms upon 

 full sheets of foundation in my endeavour to get the best 

 work started in the sections. Just as I hived swarms 

 upon foundation (when made by division), I now put them 

 upon starters, with the addition of two combs of brood ; 

 one with uncapped larvae, and the other having brood 

 hatching. Thus the bees have room to store the pollen 

 carried the first day or two, without spoiling the partly 

 finished sections when they happen to be removed from 

 the old stock to the swarm ; and what is of equal impro- 



