{"product_id":"comb-management-9781912271351","title":"Comb Management","description":"\u003cp\u003eHoney bees can successfully live in all sorts of different nest sites - a hole\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein a tree, a chimney pot or a bee-hive - but in all cases this is just a cavity in\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewhich to make a set of combs. It is in and on these combs that all the within\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe colony functions occur. Because it is dark in the hive, communication is\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethrough pheromones or vibration and combs provide the ideal carrier for this\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einformation. For example, bees can always locate the queen by following\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe trail of her footprint pheromone on the combs. The main outside the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehive activities are foraging, swarming and queen mating. As beekeepers, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einterested in the production of honey, we tend to concentrate on the foraging\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eactivities of our bees and it is easy to overlook the fact that over 95% of a\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003etypical worker bee's life is spent within the confines of the colony engaged in\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esome activity in or on the combs. In a sense, the combs are an extension of\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe bees that made them and it is bees and combs together that constitute\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe colony.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUp until about 1850, bee colonies, whether wild of under human stewardship\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e(it hardly qualified as management), built themselves a set of combs entirely\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eaccording to their own design in whatever cavity they could find or was\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eprovided by the beekeeper. No restriction was placed on the way the colony\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eused these combs to engage in their main activities of brood rearing and food\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003estorage. With the introduction of the moveable frame hive, followed quickly by\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe invention of wax foundation and the queen excluder, everything changed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeekeepers were now able to induce the bees to make their combs where\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethey (the beekeepers) wanted them, ie in wooden frames. The beekeeper\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ecould now even influence the size of cells they built by the dimensions of the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ehexagon embossed on the sheet of wax. It also became possible to separate\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe use of combs for brood rearing and honey storage using a queen excluder.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome of the changes that modern beekeeping has imposed on colonies have\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003epotential effects on the health and welfare of the bees and others do not.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Northern Bee Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50364042379538,"sku":"9781912271351","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_f14b2663-990a-4f05-ad1c-1e56825766f1.jpg?v=1728423708","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/comb-management-9781912271351","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}