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The Cause

Categories: MELTING DOWN OF COMBS.
Bee Keeping: Mysteries Of Bee-keeping Explained

When extreme hot weather occurs immediately after the bees have been

gathering from a plentiful harvest for two or three weeks, or even

during the yield, the wax composing new combs is very liable to be

softened, till they break loose from their fastenings and settle to the

bottom.





EFFECTS.



Sometimes the injury is trifling, only a piece or two slipping down; at

oth
r times the whole contents fall in a confused and broken mass, the

weight pressing out the honey, and besmearing the bees, which in that

situation creep out, and away, from the hive in every direction.



I once had some new stocks ruined, and several others injured by hot

weather, in this way, about the first of September, immediately after

the flowers of buckwheat. The bees, or most of them, being covered with

honey, together with what ran out of the hive, at once attracted bees

from the others to the spot, which carried off the entire contents in a

few hours. This was an uncommon occurrence; I have known but one season

in twenty-five years when it occurred after the failure of honey in the

flowers. It usually happens during a plenteous yield, and then other

stocks are not apt to be troublesome.



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