Shallow supers for comb-honey production should be given to the colony, above a queen excluder, a week or so before the main nectar flow begins. If the colony is crowded for room at that time, the queen can be placed in the lower hive body, the excluder added, then one or two shallow supers of foundation supplied, and the second hive body of brood placed above. Ten days later, any queen cells present in either brood chamber should be destroyed and the two brood chambers united, with only the supers above the queen excluder. A maximum amount of honey is produced only when the colonies are never crowded for storage space.

Hiving Swarms

A swarm can be hived on frames of foundation or on drawn combs. A frame of brood added from another colony will be assurance that the swarm will not desert its new home. If no hive is available, any wooden box will suffice for a couple of days until a hive can be obtained, and into which the swarm should be transferred. A swarm or colony of bees can be united to another colony by placing a thickness of newspaper, perforated with a few small holes, between the hive bodies to be united. Union is best made in late afternoon.

Making Increase

Colonies should be increased in number without swarming. Increase is most efficiently made 6 to 8 weeks before the main honey flow, or just prior to swarming time in the spring. The simplest way is to use a colony that has filled a two- or three-story hive with brood, bees, and honey, and needs additional room. Move the colony a few feet from its location, with the entrance in the opposite direction. In its former location, place a bottom board and set thereon one of the hive bodies containing mostly frames of unsealed brood and adhering bees, and give it a super of combs or a shallow super of foundation over a queen excluder. This new division will contain the greater number of bees the following day, as all of the field bees will return to it from the parent colony. The queen should be left in the parent colony with most of the frames of sealed brood. While the division, or new colony, will rear a queen, it is best to introduce a queen the day after the division is made. If a colony persists in swarming, it can be divided in a similar manner and the "divide" left with a queen cell on one of its frames of brood.

Purchase or Lease of Additional Colonies

The Government has listed the care of 25 colonies of bees as the equivalent of one war-work unit; and because of the need of increased production of honey and beeswax, every person with experience in beekeeping should undertake to keep as many colonies as his time spent in other essential war work will allow. Many side-line beekeepers are now engaged in defense activities and if they cannot give their bees proper care, those who have some extra time should acquire these bees either by purchase or by lease. Other apiarists have gone into military service and their bees should be cared for during their absence. There should be no idle beekeeping equipment.

Before one takes possession of bees, either by purchase or by lease, the colonies should be inspected for brood diseases by the county apiary inspector who is connected with the office of the county agricultural commissioner.

Removing Surplus Honey

When honey is to be extracted, the combs of honey can be removed any time after the bees have sealed half of the surfaces of the combs. If comb honey is produced in shallow frames for home use, or for cut-comb honey, the frames should be left until all the cells are sealed, although ripened honey in unsealed cells is just as good for home use. In removing honey, the hive should be smoked more than usual from the top and then the bees shaken and brushed off the combs to be removed. Frames fitted with comb foundation can be substituted for full frames of honey if additional supers are not available, and if the honey flow is continuing. If a super of honey is removed from a hive during the honey flow, a super of empty combs or foundation should be given to replace it.

Production of Cut-Comb Honey

Mention has been made of producing honey in shallow frames as a very satisfactory form when only a few colonies of bees are kept for home use and no honey extractor is available. This involves the use of thin super-comb foundation in each frame at the start of each season; and the honey is produced above a queen excluder so that the queen cannot lay in the shallow frames. The shallow frames are not wired, and the foundation is fixed in place by melted beeswax, or by the thin strip of the regular top-bar. It also requires strong colonies of bees and closer attention to swarm-prevention measures.

When the combs are filled with sealed honey, they can be removed and stored in the supers, or the honey can be cut into five sections per frame and placed on 1/4-inch-mesh wire screens over a tray. The honey from the cut cells will drain out within a day or two, after which the sections can be wrapped in paraffined paper and put away for future use. A piece of the same wire, 4 inches wide by 10 inches long, bent in the form of a "U, " is useful in handling the cut pieces of comb. A thin-bladed knife, heated in boiling water, serves nicely in cutting the comb into chunks of suitable size.