252 
COMBS 
upward and attach to the bottom-bar, which 
is now at the top. (See Reversing.) No. 
4, while fairly well fastened, is very bad 
on account of the presence of so much 
drone comb. It may be used for the pro¬ 
duction of extracted honey; but the objec¬ 
tion to it is that the queen, unless exclud¬ 
ing' zinc is used, may go on it and fill it 
with drone eggs. Extracted honey can be 
produced in it as well as in all-worker 
comb, but the average beekeeper will do 
well to cut out any comb like No. 4 and 
melt it. 
The ideally perfect comb is one that is 
attached to all four sides of the frame, and 
which has no holes like No. 2. In a good 
honey flow these holes will be filled up, but 
probably with drone-cells; and the pres¬ 
ence of these is as bad as the holes them¬ 
selves. 
There are about 132 square inches in the 
surface of a standard Langstroth comb, 
and this will make the average comb con¬ 
tain approximately 6500 worker-cells on 
the two surfaces provided the comb is per¬ 
fect. If the combs are like No. 4, it Mull 
be seen there is a big loss in the breeding 
capacity for worker brood. One may, 
therefore, have a ten-frame hive and still 
have only fifty or sixty per cent capacity 
for Avorker brood. As it takes approxi¬ 
mately a cell of honey to raise a cell of 
brood, it will be seen that a given area of 
drone brood will mean an equal area of 
honey that is actually lost. 
HOW TO MAKE BEES BUILD ALL-WORKER 
COMB WHEN ONLY STARTERS ARE USED. 
If one thinks he cannot afford the ex¬ 
pense of full sheets of foundation, it is 
well to know how to make the bees elimin¬ 
ate all drone combs. E. D. ToMmsend of 
Northstar, Mich., tells in Gleanings in Bee 
Culture how this may be accomplished. 
The secret seems to be in having just the 
right number of workers and just the right 
amount of honey coming in, so that the bees 
will draw out the combs no faster than the 
queen can occupy them with brood. As long 
as this condition lasts we sliorild expect the 
bees to build worker combs. Prom this m'o 
see that, in order to get good results in 
comb-building from a natural swarm, this 
colony should be of just the right size, and 
there should be a honey tlou T of three or four 
pounds a day. 
We will suppose a large swarm is hived 
during a period when honey is coming in 
freely. At this time there is too much honey 
coming in for the best results in comb-build¬ 
ing in the brood-nest, if the wdiole force of 
workers is compelled to do all their M r ork 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 princi¬ 
ple is to make the surplus receptacles more 
inviting to the workers than the brood-nest, 
and the bees will immediately go up into the 
supers on being hived. Our comb-honey super 
with extracting-combs at the sides makes an 
ideal arrangement for this very thing. 
It is plain to see that, if most of the hon¬ 
ey being carried in is placed in the sections, 
vdiere it should be, the queen will not be 
hurried to keep pace with the workers, con¬ 
sequently nearly all-worker comb will be 
built. The brood-nest, should be tilled with 
comb duting 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 sup¬ 
position that the queen has reached her lim¬ 
it, 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 23 
days after the swarm is hived; for by this 
time the brood is beginning to hatch out in 
that part of the hive wfiiere the laying be¬ 
gan. From this time on the queen has near¬ 
ly all she can do to keep the cells filled with 
eggs vdiere 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. 
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 
Avorker 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, there are many things to be learned 
before a beginner should take up artificial 
ways of making increase. 
CONTRACTION. — Along in the 80’s 
contraction of the brood-nest during the 
summer seemed to be all the rage. It was 
argued that most colonies, Italians especial¬ 
ly, after they had put a little honey in the 
brood-nest, would be disinclined to go 
