Page:Bee-Culture Hopkins 2nd ed revised Dec 1907.pdf/12

 another portion due to careless fixing of what was originally a perfect sheet of worker-comb foundation. These are very interesting reproductions from photographs taken specially for the purpose of this bulletin. To the right of Plate II can be seen where the bees took advantage of the accident to build drone-comb, and also where on the upper left centre the original worker-cells have stretched and been utilised for breeding drones. At the lower right-hand corner of Plate I a small portion of the original sheet of comb-foundation upon which the comb is built can be distinctly seen.

Securing control over breeding is not the only advantage gained by a free use of comb-foundation. For instance, a fair swarm of, say, 5 lb. weight hived upon ten sheets of comb-foundation in a Langstroth hive will have in twenty-four hours, in an average season, several of the sheets partially worked out and a goodly number of eggs deposited in the cells, and in thirty-six hours the queen can henceforward lay to her full extent. In from a week to nine days (depending upon the weather) the whole ten sheets will be worked out into worker-combs, and a great deal occupied with brood and honey, and the hive will then be ready for the top or surplus honey super. In twenty-two or twenty-three days young worker-bees will begin to emerge, and from this on the colony will grow rapidly in strength from day to day.

Contrast this favourable condition of things with what takes place when only narrow strips of comb-foundation are furnished. It will take under the same conditions a similar swarm from four to five weeks to fill the hive with comb, and then there will be a large proportion drone-comb, which is the very thing to guard against. Consider what the difference in time alone will make in the profitable working of a hive, especially in a short season. Then, again, with regard to the difference in the initial expense between using full sheets and strips, which seems to influence many beekeepers in favour of the latter system : Even in that there is a gain in favour of the method I am advocating. For instance, the cost of filling the ten frames with sheets of best comb-foundation would be (including the expenses of getting them) about 4s., and with strips—say, two sheets—10d.: an apparent saving in the first instance of 3s. 2d. We must then consider the matter from another point of view.

The consensus of opinion among the most experienced beekeepers is that there is an expenditure of about 12 lb. of honey in making 1 lb. of wax—that is, the bees consume that quantity of honey before secreting 1 lb. of wax. The ten sheets of comb-foundation weigh 1½ lb. and cost 4s. For this there would have to be an expenditure of 18 lb. of honey, which, at the average wholesale price of 4d. per lb., is 6s., so that there is a saving of 2s. in favour of the full sheets, to say nothing about all the other advantages gained.

This shows clearly enough the advantage of making the fullest use possible of comb-foundation.