Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/141

Rh of the brood-chambers, a harvest which is lost to the producer of comb-honey.

For the production of comb-honey it is necessary that the colony winter in excellent condition and develop much well-fed brood early in the season, so that there shall be a great number of active young workers in the hive just before the chief honey-harvest of the summer begins. In New York State we have two large honey harvests, that of the basswood in July and the buckwheat in August, so our colonies are made strong and ready by the last of June. In order to have the bees ready to work, the swarming fever must be subdued or controlled before this period of honey-flow. The colonies are carefully watched early in the season, and if after the first pollen-gathering occurs there is no honey coming in, the bees are fed so that the brood may be developed. We rarely have to feed at this season of the year as the fruit bloom gives our bees plenty of honey for rearing their brood, and we never expect any surplus before the basswood season.

The supers are put on when there is plenty of brood and plenty of honey to feed to it in the hive; and under such conditions our bees, though Italians, usually push up into the sections at once. We prepare the sections with mere strips of wax foundation for starters. (Plate XIV.)

Supers thus equipped put on at this time and under such conditions seem to take away all desire to swarm on the part of the bees, if the queen cells have been previously removed.