50 



SIXTEENTH ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE 



When we feed the bees so that they 

 are fat — I would say that is not the 

 cost; that is to be considered as a 

 part of the cost. The trouble is peo- 

 ple feed their bees until they have 

 all the honey they can carry and then 

 they begin to feed them to make 

 comb. 



The question is — how much honey 

 will the bees store if they don't have 

 to build comb? 



Mr. Williams — I see the Chairman's 

 standpoint is this: 



He wants to know how much ab- 

 solute honey converted into wax will 

 it take to make a pound? 



Nobody can tell that because you 

 can't tell that all the honey has been 

 used for the purpose of making wax. 

 There is no time in thfe bee's life that 

 you can tell what he is eating honey 

 for. It may be for producing wax — 

 for producing flight, for one thing and 

 for another; there is no way you can 

 get at it. 



Brother Dadant wants to leave the 

 impression with us, which is right, 

 that it is cheaper for us to buy foun- 

 dation and put in our hives than it 

 is for the bees to make wax and put in 

 there. 



Dr. Baxter — I think he is right at 

 that. 



President Baxter — We know that 

 already. 



Mr. Root — That question came to 

 me and Mr. Dadant asked the ques- 

 tion. I have a question I was going 

 to slide in the Question Box. 



President Baxter — Present it. 



Mr. Root — Before I put the question 

 I want to state the circumstances. It 

 is a hard question. 



A customer of ours bought some of 

 our foundation and he said it was not 

 good. 



I asked him what was the matter. 

 He said the bees filled out the sections 

 and filled only one side and not the 

 other. He said to me — "Your founda- 

 tion is no good; some of the bees only 

 build the section on one side." 



I went around and investigated and 

 found some of his neighbors who had 

 bought other foundation had had the 

 same experience. Then I said: "I 

 am up against it; I cannot tell the 

 reason, but I feel b'^tter about it." To 

 think that Dadant's and the other 

 foundations were acting the same and 



that they were up against the same 

 proposition. But I didn't know the 

 answer. 



Dr. Baxter had a similar experience: 

 I would like to have Mr. Dadant 

 answer the question — why bees will 

 sometimes fill out sections on one side 

 and not touch the other; fill it out and 

 cap it over, and the section looked 

 perfect — turn it around and there is 

 nothing but the foundation. 



Mr. Dadant — I cannot answer that. 



Question — What is the cause of the 

 bees filling one side of a section with 

 honey and not touching the other? 



Mr. Dadant — I acknowledge I don't 

 know. I want to ask a question: 



Was that the last section to be filled 

 or was there one section beyond it, and 

 did they fil that space between that 

 section and the next. If that section 

 was the last section in the box, my ex- 

 planation is the bees went that far 

 and no farther, and if they had 

 wanted to build some more they would 

 have built on the other side of sections. 



If they built out to the middle of 

 that one, I cannot explain it. It would 

 be necessary to know the particulars. 



Mr. Root— Some on the outside, very 

 often in the center; half a dozen on 

 one side and not on the other. 



Mr. Dadant — In that one section 

 there would be some sort of material 

 on the face of the wax that would 

 disgust the bees. 



Dr. Baxter — I had a super that had 

 three sections; it happened in two 

 different colonies; they were drawn 

 out perfectly on one side, on the op- 

 posite side there was nothing but 

 foundation. 



Some time or other the foundation on 

 that side of it had been exposed to the 

 light, probably dust settled on it; the 

 other side had been next to the paper 

 in the package. 



Mr. Coppin — I have been in the same 

 fix; I have had probably hundreds of 

 sections filled on one side and nothing 

 on the other. Of course there would 

 be a space between the separator and 

 the foundation, nothing there. 



Maybe something had got on it the 

 bees didn't like — dust or something, I 

 am not prepared to say. 



My section being so narrow — it is 

 only 1% inch thick — I thought prob- 

 ably it was on account of there not 

 being space enough. But I find others 



