234 
COMB HONEY, TO PRODUCE 
brood-nest will be correspondingly small, 
and then it may be necessary to resort to 
stimulative feeding. (See Feeding to 
Stimulate.) But experience lias shown 
over and over again that the feeding 
should be done in the fall if possible. If 
it is done in the early spring it has a 
tendency to over-stimulate. It forces the 
bees out of the hive on cool days when they 
ought to be inside; and, therefore, it is 
highly important that all colonies be lib¬ 
erally supplied with stores, either natural 
or artificial, in late fall. 
At this point the reader should read 
carefully the article Building up Colonies. 
Failure to have the colonies of the right 
strength at the beginning of the honey 
flow may mean a failure of the crop. 
Having gotten the colonies up to comb- 
honey pitch, it will be found that some of 
them, as soon as the harvest opens, will be 
inclined to swarm. This may be shown by 
the building of initial queen-cells or clus¬ 
tering out in front of the entrance. Cells 
should be cut out. every 8 days; and while 
this practice does not entirely stop swarm¬ 
ing it goes a long way toward checking 
and preventing it entirely in most of the 
colonies. There will be some other stocks 
that will make no effort to swarm at all. 
These should be carefully noted, and queens 
from them be used for breeding. The 
swarming nuisance can be very materially 
reduced by breeding from the queen Avhose 
colonies keep on storing honey without 
swarming. This was the practice of the 
late Dr. C. C. Miller, one of the best comb- 
honey producers in the United States. 
Just as the harvest opens or a little be¬ 
fore, as may be shown by the combs being 
whitened and bulging near the top, the hive 
should be lifted up on four blocks as illus¬ 
trated and described under the head of 
Swarming, Prevention of. It has been 
proven that the giving of a large amount 
of bottom ventilation in this way will check 
swarming to a very great extent. - This 
ventilation should be supplied a little be¬ 
fore the harvest opens, to prevent queen- 
cells in colonies that are not inclined to 
swarm, and discourage the building of such 
cells in colonies that show a disposition to 
swarm. 
Swarming may also be discouraged by 
the use of a super of shallow extracting- 
combs, and, after the bees are started in 
this, substituting a super of sections. Ex- 
tracting-combs may also be put in the side 
of a comb-honey super, as explained fur¬ 
ther on, or partially built sections from 
the previous season, called bait sections, 
may be used. A couple of these placed in 
the center of each super on the hives will 
do much to discourage swarming and get 
the bees up into the super. 
Where one is at home, or can be near his 
comb-honey-producing bees, the preventive 
measures already described are advised; 
but, if for any reason the producer must 
be away from his bees thru the middle 
hours of the day or if he operates out- 
yards, it is advisable to. shake the swarm 
so that the work can' be performed at the 
convenience of the apiarist. The shake- 
swarm plan has been used to a limited 
extent, altho it should be said that the 
majority of comb-honey producers, where 
they can do so, allow the first swarm to 
come off naturally, hive it on the old 
stand, carrying the parent colony to an*- 
other stand, or allowing it to stand be¬ 
side the new hive, but with the entrance 
at right angles. The comb-honey super, 
if there was one on the old hive, is 
given to the swarm. As soon as most of 
the brood emerges, the parent colony is re¬ 
moved, when the flying bees join the swarm. 
This keeps down increase, and at the same 
time boosts the swarm so that it produces 
a large crop if the season hangs on long 
enough. For particulars regarding any or 
all of these methods, see Swarming, Pre¬ 
vention of; also Artificial Swarming. 
In all the foregoing, it is assumed that 
the main harvest of nectar comes on at the 
time expected. Sometimes clover or other 
sources furnishing the main crop will be 
out in abundance, and yet not yield a drop 
of nectar. At otlier times there will not 
be much clover in sight, and the bees will 
gather a large amount of honey. 
When the season is poor, it is better for 
the beginner at least to run for extracted, 
and that is why the author advocates the 
production of both comb and extracted 
honey at the same time. Either the Barber 
or the Townsend plan will commend itself 
at such times. If the season starts in well, 
and the colonies are strong, practically all 
comb honey can be produced if desired. 
