ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



49 



Did any one else try it, to see 

 whether it would work? 



Question — ^What is the cost of a 

 pound of wax to the bees? 



President Baxter — Mr. Root, will you 

 tell us? 



Mr. Root— I 'don't know; I can give 

 you my opinion; it is not scientific. 



I should say between six and seven 

 pounds, as a mere guess, based on 

 what others have said. 



President Baxter — Can you cite us 

 any authority for that, by experi- 

 ments made ? 



Mr. Root — Experiments were made 

 by Velon, back in the early days, in 

 which, as I remember it, it was be- 

 tween 4 and 5 pounds of honey. He 

 found a difference between honey and 

 sugar syrup. The old dictum was 20 

 lbs. of honey or syrup to the pound 

 of wax (that is Huber's); that was 

 accepted up to the time of Velon, Then 

 there were later experiments made 

 by different ones; all of them seemed 

 to confirm Velon's work along between 

 6 and 7 lbs. 



Mr. Williams — Mr. Chairman, I 

 would like to ask Mr. Root another 

 question : 



Does not that depend altogether on 

 the flow of the honey as to how much 

 honey it will take to make a pound 

 of wax? 



President Baxter — ^Why should it? 



Mr. Williams — I think the secretion 

 is more at one time than at others; 

 when there is more honey it produces 

 more wax, more heat. 



President Baxter — More wax to the 

 pound, you don't mean? 



Mr. Williams — ^I think so; for in- 

 Tstance: The body of a person requires 

 more moisture at one time than at 

 another. Why? The secretion is not 

 any more. 



Mr. Stone — Is it not very natural 

 that bees are like people? WTien we 

 are laboring, we eat and consume 

 more food than when we are doing 

 nothing. Would not that be the case 

 with the bees, that they consume more 

 honey and, therefore, secrete more wax 

 when they are working? 



President Baxter — That is off the 

 question. 



The question is: Hom many pounds 



"•of phoney does it take to produce a 



'pound of wax? It cannot take more 



—4 



pounds of honey at one time than an- 

 other. It always takes twelve to make 

 a dozen. 



Mr. Dadant— Of course, I have an 

 opinion on that subject, and that is, 

 it differs according to the conditions 

 in which the bees find themselves. I 

 don't believe it ever is as low as seven 

 pounds nor as high as twenty, and I 

 think a great many experimenters 

 have fooled themselves. When you 

 harvest a swarm of bees you may fig- 

 ure how much honey they have in 

 their stomachs but you don't figrure 

 how much wax they have stored in 

 their pockets. 



I asked the question wherever I 

 went, in Europe, in Texas, in the East, 

 in California and in Canada, and had 

 the greatest number of answers, the 

 majority were around. 10 and 15 

 pounds. 



I do believe it cost at least ten 

 pounds of honey. 



I would like to have the opinion of 

 the members. 



Mr, Pyles^Mr, Ellison states a col- 

 ony of bees must be fed to do good 

 work; he fed his bees at all times. 



In my judgment it all depends upon 

 conditions; if a colony of bees are in 

 good condition it does not take nearly 

 as much to produce a pound of wax 

 as if that colony was in a poor state. 



They must be in first class work- 

 ing condition. Tou take a horse that 

 is in a poor condition — it takes a long 

 time to get that horse in good work- 

 ing condition, or a cow that is in poor 

 condition, to give milk; consequently 

 it is the same with bees, but after 

 the bees are in good condition it does 

 not take so much honey to produce a 

 pound of wax. 



President Baxter — In the first place, 

 when the colony is weak and poor, 

 some of that honey doesn't go to wax, 

 it goes to keeping up the vitality of 

 the bee. 



The- question- is not: How much 

 honey will it cost to produce a pound 

 of wax — The qusetion was — -How 

 much does it cost the bees? 



The person who asked this question 

 wants to know what it cost in stores 

 of honey to produce a pound of comb. 



Mr. Dadant^ — I thought I said I was 

 the one who asked the question, 



I think the more we duscuss it the 

 more light we will shed upon it. 



What does it cost in honey? 



