A piece of comb foundation one-half the size of the section, cut in the shape of a triangle and attached point downward, will be a wonderful help to the bees and prove a paying investment to the apiarist.
If some colonies seem strong but do not utilize the sections readily, just exchange their empty sections with partially filled sets (bees and all) from other colonies. This is a plan practised more than twenty-five years ago by Mr. Alley and Mr. John J. Gould, formerly of Wenham. Mr. G. was at one time one of the largest beekeepers in this State.
Mr. Pond, however, credits a beekeeper in Maine with being the originator of this most excellent plan for inducing the bees to enter the sections.
There is one disadvantage in connection with this practice that Mr. Pond and others fail to give.
It often happens that when a colony at work in the sections is disturbed, the queens will run up into the latter and in the removal may be lost. To prevent this make as little disturbance in the transferring as possible and smoke down, into the hive, all the bees that cluster on the tops of the frames.
The bees removed with the sections will not quarrel with their new neighbors.
There are many items that would prove interesting to our readers but we have already devoted more space than we intended to this department and must await another opportunity.