70 THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
ally the early morning; in fact it was last Friday 
week, the first day after the first rains. Whether 
this close heat had anything to do with what 
occurred I don’t know, but I mention it as pos- 
sible. However, a swarming fever spread through 
the apiary, and Mr. Walker, as one hive after 
another poured out its living stream, thought the 
whole apiary was in the throes of revolution. 
Finally they settled in one gigantic mass. Aided 
only by Mrs. Walker, the owner of vEstival sub- 
divided this mass until he had picked out no less 
than twenty-four queens ; then, choosing the five 
best, he allotted the commoners amongst them. 
Mr. Walker is one of those bee-keepers who dis- 
dain gloves and a v.eil, but he did not go and have 
his portrait taken that night. “ Next morning,” 
he writes me, “ I found one other queen at the 
same place, with a cluster of about a dozen bees 
round her ; there therefore must have been no less 
than twenty-five swarms issued the day you visited 
me. Of course a great number of the bees that 
came out went back to their old hives when they 
missed their queens, which I had captured. I 
expected a frightful slaughter among the mixed 
hives next morning, but there was very little 
indeed — chiefly caused, I believe, by the great 
care I took that none of the lots had two queens 
with them to start the fighting. I had a similar 
experience last year with seven swarms (my stock 
then being between fifty and sixty), and in putting 
them up I happened to leave two queens in one 
lot. Next morning it was quite a case of the 
Kilkenny cats, as very little more than the two 
tails were left, in the shape of one queen with a 
very small company of bees — more than four times 
the number of bees in the hive being piled up dead 
in front ; they must have been very busy all night.” 
It would be interesting to hear from other bee- 
keepers if they have ever experienced a similar 
occurrence, or whether they consider this the 
“ boss” swarm on record in Queensland. I would 
add that Mr. Walker informed me his colonies 
were and are very short of honey. Perhaps that 
had something to do with it. — Queenslander, 
December 15th, 1888. 
VALUE OF COMBS. 
Practicability of Saving them for 
Several Years’ Operation. 
Written for the ( American Bee Journal by 
A. E. Maley. 
Mr. Newman : — I send you the following 
article which I found in our country paper, and 
think it worthy a place in the American Bee 
Journal. It is as fol low-s : 
It has long been a question with bee-keepers 
whether honey-combs could not be used for 
repeated filling, thus saving much time to the 
busy insect. A correspondent of the German- 
town Telegraph considers the question as com- 
pletely settled, for he has thoroughly tested the 
experiment in his own apiary. He says : A 
bee-hive should contain about 1,800 or 2,000 
cubic inches in the brood-chamber, which will 
require \]>J pounds cf comb to fill it (if properly 
arranged as the bees will do), this being a fact as 
every one who knows anything can testify. It re- 
quires at least 25 pounds of liquid , sweet or honey as 
the case may be, to make the \% pounds of comb, 
which it also requires at least 15 days’ time for 
a good colony of bees, to gather and secrete into 
wax in order to build the combs from, which is to 
supply the brood-chamber. It is also a fact, not 
successfully controverted, that a good colony of 
bees, say 20,000 strong, wdll gather at least 8 or 
10 pounds of honey in a day if the honey season 
is a good one. We have often had them gather 
double that amount in a day. 
At first thought, those who think but little 
about the true value of combs can hardly believe 
that it takes 25 pounds of honey for the bees to 
produce a pound and a quarter of comb, yet this 
statement is true, and any one who can figure 
will find that bees will store at least 100 pounds 
of nice honey in a season in combs given them to 
start with, and not compel them to use up the 
best and most valuable honey for making their 
combs. 
We have often contended, and are still of the 
opinion that the best honey is gathered about the 
time that fruit blossoms come out, and especially 
when the white clover and other earliest blossoms 
are in full vigor, which is usually the time our 
bees here in the North do their swarming. 
They are too often placed in an empty hive or 
gum to build new combs and shift for themselves 
or, as it is usually called “ luck,” while we are 
very sure the old sinner “luck,” has for many 
years been a failure. 
As before stated, the first honey is our best, and 
in order to procure the best we must save our 
combs from colonies that may have died, or in 
some other way left their hive, which is done too 
often by spring dwindling. These combs are 
truly valuable to the bee-keeper, and can be turned 
to good account by saving them for another year’s 
operation. Do not melt them up for wax, for 
surely there is but little pay in the wax to the pro- 
ducer at 20 or 23 cents per pound, while the 
combs in many instances can be turned to good 
account by giving them to the bees, which will 
soon fill them with the best of all sweets — that 
of honey — which you can with very little expense 
extract and return the combs to the bees for re- 
filling, and thus make a saving of at least 100 
pounds of nice extracted honey, worth, as a rule, 
15 cents per pound. 
We know whereof we speak when we state 
that in the year 1882 we took from one colony of 
Cyprian bees 718 pounds of nicely extracted 
honey, which netted us 20 cents per pound ; this 
we could not have done had we not saved our 
best combs and used them as before stated, saving 
both time and honey in the early part of the season, 
giving the bees the full benefit of a splendid honey 
harvest. Again let me say, look well to your 
bees, and they in return will richly repay you for 
all the trouble you may be at in their care. Time 
in bee-keeping may be as valuable as in any 
other calling on earth, and he who will heed its 
demands must expect to make slow progress.” 
Auburn, Nebr. 
