THE BEE-KEEPERS REVIEW 



201 



THE FOUNDATION OV A HONRY CROP 



BUILT ON TWO BARRELS 



OK SUGAR. 



Just as soon as the How from fruit 

 bloom beg'an to slacken, I beg'an to 

 feed sug^ar syrup. I had 50 of the 

 Alexander feeders in use, and 20 of the 

 Coverdale, made by lining- supers with 

 oil cloth. I prefer the Alexander feed- 

 er. It is handier and the bees in a 

 very weak colony will g^o down and 

 take the feed, when they will not g^o 

 up into the Cjverdale feeder. To feed 

 I filled a ten-gallon can two thirds full 

 of water, then stirred in g^ranulated 

 sugar until it would no long^er dis- 

 solve. About a ])int of this syrup was 

 g^iven each day to each colony. It had 

 the same effect as a honey flow. In 

 this locality there is a dearth of 

 honey (about three weeks) between 

 fruit bloom and clover. The bees 

 slack up brood rearing-, and sometimes 

 kill off" their drones. When the clover 

 comes on the combs are, to a larg-e ex- 

 tent, empty of brood and honey. When 

 white clover opened this year, the 

 combs in my hives were jammed full of 

 brood and food, and the hives over- 

 flowing- with bees — they were ready, ai 

 once, to g-o into the snpers. It would 

 not be far from the truth to say that 

 the foundation for all of these three-story 

 ten frame hives, now nearlj' filled with 

 honey, as shown in the frontispiece, 

 was built on two barrels of sugar cost- 

 ing- about $35 00. Of course there are 

 other factors. For instance, the bees 

 wintered perfectly and came through 

 with their vitality unimpaired. To be 

 sure they became somewhat mixed up, 

 but I straightened out that. But I am 

 satisfied that, without the feeding, 

 there would now have been one less 10- 

 frame super on each hive, and that 

 means about 50 pounds more honey for 

 each colony. 



GETTING FOUNDATION DRAWN INTO 

 STORK COMBS. 



Like the apiaries in the north, this 

 home-apiary is to be devoted to the 



production of extracted honey. I had 

 no surplus of drawn combs for use in 

 the supers and the first step wars to se- 

 cure such combs by the use of sheets 

 of comb foundation. During the win- 

 ter, Mrs. Hartshorn, one of my daugh- 

 ters who lives near, nailed up and 

 wired 1,500 frames and filled them 

 with foundation. As soon as honey 

 began to come in freely from clover, an 

 upper story was placed on each col- 

 ony, one-half of the combs in the lower 

 story being- raised to the upper story, 

 their places being filled with the 

 sheets of foundation already' prepared. 

 Frames of foundation and combs of 

 brood and honey were alternated in 

 both stories. As the combs were all 

 filled with brood or sealed honey the 

 sheets of foundation were drawn out 

 nicely with the cells the proper length. 

 No queen excluders were used, and 

 some of the new combs were filled with 

 brood and some with honey. About 

 June 20th, a queen excluder was 

 placed between the two stories. A 

 week later an examination was made 

 and the queens put below the queen ex- 

 cluders. It was not necessary to hunt 

 up the queens; simply look for eggs. 

 If none were found in the upper storj', 

 why the queen was below, and vice 

 versa. By the way, only two queens 

 were found in the lower story. At 

 this time a third story was added, as 

 most of the new combs were nearly 

 completed. That is, were filled with 

 honey or brood, but only partly sealed 

 over. It would not answer to alternate 

 such combs with foundation, as the 

 bees would keep on lengthening the 

 cells of such unfinished combs instead 

 of drawing out the foundation, or, at 

 least, they would be very slow in be- 

 ginning work on the foundations, and 

 the result would be some verj' thick, 

 and some very thin combs. I wrote to 

 Mr. E. D. Townsend and asked him 

 to suggest some plan for arranging 

 matters when adding another story of 

 10 frames of foundation. He suggested 



