118 



Tiee-lii I' jiinfi in I'ictoria. 



a iirw l\-hi\i'(l swanii with a jinilific qvifen. If the queen is defecti\'e in 

 laving- owing ti> age nr ]acl< of \igour, and cannot ]<eep pace with the comb- 

 huihlets. <h-inie conili will lie built. The same result will occur when the 

 iiees from the first-laiil eggs hatch out before the combs completely fill the 

 frames. As soon as bees hatch out, the queen again deposits eggs in the 

 lells. neglecing the new comb which is in course of construction, and thus 

 causing the building of drone cells. After ha^'ing hived a swarm on a set 

 of frames with starters, and allowed them to work for four or five days, 

 some of the frames in wdrich little or no work has been done should be 

 removed, and the number thus reduced to wdiat they are likely to fill wifh 

 comb in the first three weeks after hi"\'ing. This rule also applies to colonies 

 which ha\e been shaken down, that is, deprived of their combs, on account 

 nf foulbrood. Once bees begin to hatch from the new combs, it is extremely 

 difiicult to get further worker combs built from starters, except by removing 

 all the combs but one or two, a procedure better left alone, as it would tend 

 to run the colonv down to a very small one. Additional worker combs are 

 fiest secured bv frames with full sheets of foundation given either above or 

 alongside the existing combs. 



Fig. i. — Two Shallow Frames of Sealed Comb, 



In a good district with a fair honey flow on, large swarms with vigor.Dus 

 t]ueens may fill a section super with honey while building their brood combs 

 from starters, but a queen-excluder should be used between sections and 

 frames. Such favorable conditions do not often obtain, however, and 

 most bee-keepers prefer to hive their swarms on drawn combs of the pre- 

 vious season, and when these combs are occupied, put a set of frames with 

 full sheets on top to get combs for the next season and for extracting pur- 

 poses. Once two or three sets of combs for each colony are in existence, 

 there is no necessity for further comb-building, as colonies can be kept fully 

 occupied by extracting the combs whenever thev are ready for it and return- 

 ing them to be refilled, wdaile all the wax secreted is required for the 

 capping of the full combs. 



It should be understood that the less drone comb there is in a hive, the 

 more likely will drone comb be built when starters are given to an estab- 

 lished hive between finished combs. Such a comb is shown in Fig. i oi 

 the illustrations. Fig. 2 is an unsealed comb built on a full sheet of 

 foundation. Fig. 3 a comb completely sealed over, and Fig. 4 capped 

 ■combs in ha If -depth or shallow frames. 



