Apiculturet 



324 



[October, 1909, 



honey flow of, say, three or four pounds 

 a day. 



We will suppose a large swarm is hived 

 •luring a period when honey is coming in 

 freely. At this time there is too much 

 honey coming in for the best results in 

 comb-building in the brood-nest if the 

 whole force of workers is compelled 

 to do all their work in the brood-nest. 

 The remedy is to put most of the workers 

 at work in the supers. Most beginners 

 fail in doing this ; but the principle is 

 to make surplus receptacles more invit- " 

 ing to the workers than the brood-nest, 

 aud the bees will immediately go up 

 into the supers on being hived. Our 

 comb-honey super with extracting 

 combs at the sides makes ideal arrange- 

 ment for this very thing. 



It is plain to see that, if most of the 

 honey being carried in is placed in the 

 sections, where it should be, the queen 

 will not be hurried to keep pace with 

 the workers, consequently nearly all- 

 workers comb will be built. The brood- 

 nest should be tilled with comb during 

 the first 23 days after the swarm is hived, 

 for the queen must keep up with the 

 workers and lay in nearly every cell as 

 fast as it is drawn out, or the bees will 

 begin to store honey in the cells. When 

 this condition arrives, the bees, on the 

 supposition that the queen has reached 

 her limit, and that the rest of the combs 

 will be used for storing honey, begin to 

 build the storage size or the drone-cells 

 in the brood-nest. This is likely to occur 

 in about 25 days after the swarm is 

 hived ; for by this time the brood is 

 beginning to hatch out in that part of 

 the hive where the laying began. From 

 this time on the queen has nearly all she 

 can do to keep the cells filled with egj,s 

 where the young bees are hatching. 

 This means that the comb-building part 

 of the hive is neglected, and that the 

 bees build store or drone comb to a great 

 extent until the hive is filled. 



It sometimes happens that a very late 

 swarm will issue ; and since the season is 

 nearing its close, it is notpossible for such 

 a swarn to build more than five combs 

 before the honey ceases coming in. We 

 hive swarms as usual, and in about two 

 days five of the frames having the 

 least combs built are removed and a 

 division-board placed up against the re- 

 maining five frames, these five having 

 been shoved over to one side of the hive. 

 If a super is given such a swarm at the 

 time of hiving, it must be a nearly 

 finished one, as the bees will need most 

 of their time to finish up the five combs 

 in the brood-nest. If one has two of 

 such five-comb colonies they can be unit- 

 ed, at the close of the season, so that 



there will be none but full-sized colonies 

 to winter. A better plan than this fol- 

 iate swarms, or for any small after- 

 swarms that one may have, is to hive 

 them on full sets of combs taken, possi- 

 bly, from hives in which colonies died 

 the previous winter. This is a very 

 good way to get such combs filled with 

 bees, but some swarms hived in this way 

 may need feeding for winter. 



There are artificial ways of handling 

 bees so that they will build good worker 

 combs. I refer to the plan of shaking 

 the bees into an empty hive, in the same 

 way that a swarm is hived. If a colony 

 is divided into nuclei of, say, two or 

 three combs each, and each nucleus 

 given a young queen reared the same 

 year, such little colonies will build very 

 nice worker combs ; but the beginner 

 will not be interested in this artificial 

 way of making increase, for he should 

 stick to the natural-swarming plan for 

 his increase until such time as he has 

 had experience and made a success of 

 getting a crop of honey. In fact, theie 

 are many things to be learned before a 

 begginer should take up artificial ways 

 of making increase. 



It is just a question in my mind 

 whether there is a better or more profit- 

 able way of making increase in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey than the natural- 

 swarming method. In extracted-honey 

 production, wheu the bees will not 

 swarm enough to make up the winter 

 loss, then artificial swarming must be 

 resorted to. 



Some Conditions aviiere Bees build 

 mostly Drone Comb. 



Any colony found rearing drone brood- 

 nest will, if comb is removed aud an 

 empty frame put in its place, build drone 

 comb. It can be depended upon, more- 

 over, that a colony of bees wintered 

 over, containing a queen reared the sea- 

 son before, or one older, will build drone 

 comb until the time that it swarms. By 

 this it cau be seen that it is necessary 

 to replace auy combs removed from a 

 colony before it swarms in the spring or 

 early summer, with an empty comb or 

 with a frame containing a full sheet of 

 foundation, or else drone comb will be 

 the result. To be sure that a colony 

 will build a large percentage of worker 

 comb it is necessary to remove all the 

 brood and to cause the bees of that 

 colony to begin all over again, as in the 

 case of natural swarming ; or, as men- 

 tioned before, the colony can be broken 

 up into nuclei, each nucleus containing 

 a young queen. 



Remus. Mich. 



