13 



Methods of obtaining Extracted and Comb Honey. — If 



the swarm has been obtained early in the season this build- 

 ing up will proceed fairly rapidly until all the combs are 

 completed, and brood rearing will be cairied out on such a 

 scale that the hive will become overcrowded with bees before 

 the honey flow is over. If this condition is allowed to con- 

 tinue the bees will swaxm. 



Swarming is the result of overcrowding, and can be prevented, 

 to a great extent, by giving the bees room in advance of their 

 requirements. This can be effected as follows : —Eemove the 

 quilts and place the zinc queen excluder (Pig. 4) in position 

 over the brood frame tops. This excluder, j7]n^_ ooyera the 

 whole .ten frames, is perforated with slots made so accurately 

 To size that the workers can pass through, but not the queen. 

 The latter is thus prevented from ascending to the supers, with 

 the result that honey without the intermingling of brood or 

 pollen IS obtained. A super should now be put on. If it is a 

 shallow frame super as seen in Fig. 1 and 2 the frames should 

 be fitted with full sheets of wire d dro ne base foundation. These 

 hang in the supers in the same manner as' those in the brood 

 chamber, but as they are for the storage of honey only, and 

 not for brood rearing, it is not necessary to adhere to the 

 narrow | in. combs used for this purpose in the brood chamber. 

 The bees can, and will, store honey in a deep cell, therefore 

 a wider frame is used spaced by 2 in. metal ends so that only 

 eight combs instead of ten will fit in the super, thus economis- 

 ing space, foundation, and wax cappings. The larger drone 

 cells also permit the honey to be more expeditiously extracted 

 than is the case with the smaller worker cells. 



If it is desired to work for comb honey a section rack, as 

 seen in Fig. 1 and 2 is used. This is a framework which holds 

 twenty-one sections 4^ in. square and 2 in. deep, in - seven 

 rows, three in each row, standing on slats to allow ingress and 

 egress of the bees vertically. Each section is fitted with a full 

 sheet of extra thin comb foundation. To prevent the bees 

 extending the comb beyond the woodwork of the section thin 

 metal dividers are placed between each row and following 

 boajxis, wedged tight by means of spring blocks at one side and 

 end, complete the fitted rack. These sections when filled with 

 honey and sealed over weigh one pound each. 



Individual stocks can be worked entirely for either extracted 

 or comb honey, or a combination of the two kinds of supers 

 may be used. 



When the combs in the first super put on are drawn out, 

 and about two-thirds of the whole are filled with honey {i.e., 

 when the bees commence to seal over the honey in the middle 

 of the central combs), the super should be lifted and a second 

 one placed underneath it. In this way work in advance of 

 the requirements of the bees is provided for and swarming is 

 prevented, as the bees will continue completing the work in 



