72 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
tion or previously drawn out comb obtained perhaps from the sea- 
son before. Having a young queen of the current year’s raising, 
the building of worker comb in below when only starters have been 
used, is assured. If an old queen be retained full sheets in wired 
frames should be used. If the nights are at all chilly it is well to 
have a quilt above the supers held tightly down, with papers be- 
tween it and the cover, for the double purpose of retaining the heat 
of the bees for building operations and to prevent the bees from 
soiling the tops of the sections by daubing propolis over them. Nice 
clean sections add much to the salable quality of comb honey. 
In supering the old colonies it is well to do so before there is 
much honey stored in below. As soon as the bees begin to whiten 
the combs of the brood chamber the supers may be put on. If one 
has a honey extractor available the brood frames may be carefully 
extracted, care being taken to turn them slowly in the extractor 
and longer than when no brood is in the combs. The queen will 
then get the frames below filled with brood if they are extracted at 
the right time when the outer cells are emerging and eggs are be- 
ing deposited in the inner cells. -The bees will then be forced into 
the super to store their honey. If the brood-chamber gets clogged 
with honey it not only discourages the bees from crawling over the 
sealed honey to store above but crowds the queen and is likely to 
cause the colony to cease work and encourages swarming. When 
the bees begin to seal the honey in the super a second super may °e 
put in place on the hive, elevating the first and putting the second 
below it. When the first is ready to be removed, the bee escape 
board previously described should be inserted taking care not to 
smoke or excite the bees lest they bite into the capped honey. 
Comb honey should never be stored in a cold or damp place. 
Honey is deliquescent and if subjected to a damp atmosphere will 
gather moisture and bursting the cappings the honey will begin to 
rim and then sour and ferment. Under the proper conditions comb 
honey, however, may be kept indefinitely. 
Probably more honey in proportion to the number of colonies 
may be obtained when the apiary is run for extracted honey. This 
is due to two reasons, namely, first, there are many colonies which 
would not store honey in a super because of their insufficient 
strength, and, second, the combs for extracting are already built 
or at any rate are built but once in the season after which they are 
