Producing Good Comb Honey 95 



SECURING WORKERS KOR THE IIAR\EST. 



When taken from the cellar, the stores of the colonies are equalized 

 and the hives protected by being wrapped in tarred felt. No more 

 attention is required until it is warm enough to remove the tarred felt. 

 More equalization of stores may be needed, or, if there is a general 

 shortage, some feeding; and it is almost certain that there must be 

 more or less equalization of brood before the opening of the harvest. 

 In a home apiary this equalizing of the brood might not be necessary, 

 but in an out-apiary it goes a long way toward preventing swarming 

 too early, by some of the colonies, and helps to make all of the colonies 

 ready for the same treatment at the same time — a most important factor 

 in out-apiary management. 



When all of the hives are comfortably full of bees, brood, and 

 stores, upper stories of combs are added, one on each colony strong 

 enough to need it. No queen-excluder is used at this time. The queen 

 is allowed full swing in both stories, and this abundance of room at 

 this time has a great tendency to forestall the swarming fever. Once 

 the main harvest is on, and the bees at work in two or three stories, 

 the great danger of swarming is past. In an apiary of 150 colonies, 

 managed last year on this plan, only seven cast swarms. 



When the upper story is nicely filled, or nearly filled, with bees, 

 brood, and stores, and the main harvest has fairly begun, a queen- 

 excluder is placed between the two stories. No time is spent in hunting 

 up the queens. We simply wait four or five days, when freshly laid 

 eggs disclose the presence of the queen. As a rule she will be found 

 in the upper story ; if so, we simply transpose the two stories, putting 

 the upper one below and the queen-excluder on top, and then set on 

 top what was formerly the lower story. Usually, at this visit most of 

 the colonies will be ready for the third story. 



This plan gives the greatest opportunity for the production of a 

 lot of bees previous to the harvest, then curtails the rearing of brood 

 after the harvest has opened, when the production of brood is at the 

 expense of the surplus. As the bees hatch from the combs above the 

 queen-excluder, the cells are at once filled with honey. Many of the 

 colonies will build queen-cells in the supers above the queen-excluder. 

 I have taken pains to go through the supers and tear out these cells, 

 and I have paid no attention to them and allowed the queens to go on 

 and hatch, and I could not see that any harm resulted from either 

 course — that is, there did not seem to be any difference. 



As the season advances I keep on tiering up, adding the empty 

 supers at the bottom, next to the brood-nest. I have often tiered them 

 up three supers high, and, in a few instances, four supers high, with 

 ten-frame Langstroth hives. 



