1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



23 



Thus far the short splints — that is, those 

 that do not reach to the bottom of the foun- 

 dation — have given a good account of them- 

 selves. While W. Z. Hutchinson says there 

 will be no sag if medium brood foundation is 

 secured by four horizontal wires drawn taut, 

 the facts remain that a light brood is consid- 

 erably cheaper than the medium-brood 

 sheet. Under some conditions the light- 

 weight will buckle when the wires are drawn 

 taut. If short splints and light brood foun- 

 dation can be made to work satisfactorily 

 they would effect an economy all around. 

 We hope to get further reports on the use of 

 splints, long or short. — Ed.] 



A STUDY OF NATURAL HONEY-COMB. 



BY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



Comb foundation is in such general use 

 nowadays that it would be nothing strange 

 to find bee-keepers who have never seen a 

 frame of entirely natural comb. I have been 

 making a study of some specimens — a dozen 

 in number — that were built entu'elv at the 

 sweet will of the bees, not even tne least 

 starter being in the case. They range in 

 size from a piece of a few square inches to 

 nearly a frameful. 



POSITION OF CELLS. 



Looking at brood foundation that I have, I 

 find the cells placed with the angle at top 

 and bottom. 



In super foundation the angle is at each 

 side, one of the cell-walls lying horizontally 

 at the top andanotherat the bottom. I don't 

 know why the two kinds differ. 



The bees seem to copy after the first plan. 

 "Not very strictly, however. In only one case 

 can the row of cells be said to be reallv in a 

 horizontal row. In another specimen the 

 row descends half an inch in about 

 a foot. In the other cases the varia- 

 tion from the strict horizontal is still 

 greater. 



The cells run in a fairly straight 

 row excent in one frame where the 

 line is somewhat wavy, apparently be- 

 cause there were four initial points 

 of beginning, and the four parts were 

 afterward joined together. 



SIZE OF CELLS. 



It is a common thing to say, ' ' Work- 

 er-cells measure 5 to the inch, and 

 there are, consequently, 25 cells on 

 one side to the square inch," Nei- 

 ther of these statements is always true if we 

 speak with any degree of accuracy. There 

 are not always exactly 5 cells to the inch; and 

 if there were, there would be, not 25, but 

 2&\'i cells to the square inch. See Cheshire, 

 Vol. I., page 176— that is, if the cells were 

 exact hexagons. The trouble is that they 

 vary from this quite a little. On one piece 

 of comb, measured horizontally, the aver- 

 age diameter of a cell was .201087 of an inch; 

 in one of the diagonal directions it was 

 .19853, and in the other .20357, the total av- 

 erage diameter being .201062 of an inch. 



Upon reading those figures some one may 

 thiuK that I must have had some very nice 

 instruments with which to take measure- 

 ments. I had nothing but a common pocket- 

 rule, and after I tell you how I did it you will 

 see that a schoolboy could easily do the same. 



Suppose I want to measure the diameter 

 of a cell. Laying the rule upon it, and mea- 

 suring merely that one cell, I could only say 

 it was somewhere between fV and % of an 

 inch — not very exact. But if I measure 10 

 cells, and then divide by 10, 1 can come about 

 ten times as near the exact measurement. 

 The larger the number of cells I take in my 

 measurement, the nearer I can come to ex- 

 actness. Well, here's the way I do. I lay 

 the rule upon the comb, with one end of the 

 rule exactly corresponding with one of the 

 cell-walls Then I look along the rule till I 

 see some notch which corresponds with 

 some cell-wall. Then I count the number of 

 cells in the given distance, divide the num- 

 ber of inches by the number of cells, and 

 that gives the diameter of a cell. For in- 

 stance, I find a notch of the rule at a cell- 

 wall 9X inches from the end of the rule. I 

 count the cells, and find there are 46. I di- 

 vide 9'4: by 46, and I have .201087 of an inch 

 as the diameter of one cell. Easy, isn't it? 



But after I have the diameter of a cell it's 

 just a little bit of bother to figure the area of 

 the hexagon, especially as its three diame- 

 ters are not all alike. A beautifully simple 

 way of measuring the surface of a comb is 

 given by A. Berchon, L' Apiculteur, p. 228. 



Take the parallelogram ABCD. The line 

 AC passes through the middle of 5 cells. 

 Next to this vertical row of cells is another 

 row of 4 cells, with a half-cell at top and a 

 half-cell at bottom, making 5 cells in the 

 row. So there are 5 cells in each vertical 

 row in the parallelogram. The line AB passes 

 alternately through the middle of a cell, co- 



incides with a cell-wall, then through the 

 middle of another cell, and so on. Each end 

 of the line stops in the middle of a cell- wall; 

 and if you put together the two half-cells at 

 each end, tne line measures 14 cells. There 

 being thus 5 cells in each vertical row, and 

 14 in each horizontal row, there must be 

 5x14=70 cells in the parallelogram. 



Instead of measuring from the center of 

 one cell-wall to the center of another cell- 

 wall I find it more exact to let the hne AB 

 begin at an angle of a cell and end at the 

 corresponding angle in another cell. 



