Comb Management : Northern Bee Books : 9781912271351 : 1912271354 : 05 Dec 2018 : Honey bees can successfully live in all sorts of different nest sites - a hole in a tree, a chimney pot or a bee-hive - but in all cases this is just a cavity in which to make a set of combs. It is in and on these combs that all the within the colony functions occur. Because it is dark in the hive, communication is through pheromones or vibration and combs provide the ideal carrier for this information. For example, bees can always locate the queen by following the trail of her footprint pheromone on the combs. The main outside the hive activities are foraging, swarming and queen mating. As beekeepers, interested in the production of honey, we tend to concentrate on the foraging activities of our bees and it is easy to overlook the fact that over 95% of a typical worker bee's life is spent within the confines of the colony engaged in some activity in or on the combs. In a sense, the combs are