1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



341 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



EMPTY COMBS AS FEEDERS. 



"It is only an occasional season that it 

 seems to pay me to feed. I live where bass- 

 wood is about the only surplus I can count 

 on; and after apple-bloom there is little the 

 bees can get between; and when they fail to 

 secure enough to keep brood-rearing prosper- 

 ous through .June I believe it pays to feed. 

 I did not want to go to the expense of buy- 

 ing feeders, so I thought I would fill a lot of 

 empty combs I have with syrup; but on try- 

 ing to do so I failed to get much into the 

 cells. Can you tell me how it is done?" 



"If you lay an empty comb flat and pour 

 liquid on it, instead of the liquid running 

 into the cells, as you would think it would 

 do, it simply stays on the surface or runs off 

 at the sides, very little entering any of the 

 cells. But should you hold the liquid three 

 or four feet above the comb you will succeed 

 better than by pouring it on in the most 

 natural way, with the vessel containing it 

 near the comb. But even at the height of 

 four feet, if a portion of the syrup falls in a 

 compact mass it will not enter the cells, as 

 it can do this only by forcing the air out. 

 Where the syrup presses with equal force 

 over all parts of the mouth of any one cell 

 there is no chance for the air to get out, and 

 the cell remains empty. The drop or stream 

 of syrup must be smaller than the inside of 

 the cell in order to enter it readily, there- 

 fore the smaller the drops we can have, the 

 better our success. To this end, if we take, 

 instead of a dipper, the watering-pot we use 

 in the garden during a drouth, fill it with 

 syrup, and hold it up from the combs three 

 or four feet we shall be able to fill most of 

 the cells as we desire. Syrup as thick as we 

 often want to use for feeding will not readi- 

 ly pass through the rose of a watering-pot 

 unless hot; and if hot enough so it becomes 

 thin it will melt the combs so as to destroy 

 our feeders. But we can use "one-to-two" 

 syrup as warm as 110 degrees without dan- 

 ger to the combs, and this will be just the 

 right heat to be comfortable to work with. 



If you do not have more than ten or fifteen 

 combs to fill, lay one of these flat down in 

 the bottom of a large dish-pan or wash-boil- 

 er. Hold the watering-pot, filled with 110- 

 degree syrup, a few feet above the comb, 

 trembling the rose a little as you jwur, so 

 that not all strikes in the same place. As 

 soon as one side is filled, turn the comb over 

 and fill the other side in the same way. In 

 this way keep on till your combs are all fill- 

 ed. If syrup accumulates in the bottom of 

 the boiler, pour it back into the watering- 

 pot, being careful that you do not spill any 

 outside the dishes you are using, and thus 

 make a muss sufficient to make you wish 

 you had procured feeders different from 

 frames of comb." 



"But these combs, when filled, make feed- 

 ing easy by setting them in colonies lack- 

 ing stores, do they not?" 



"Yes. I have thousands of such, and 

 consider this the very best way to feed un- 

 less I can have frames of sealed honey to set 

 in, instead of these frames filled with syrup." 

 "But how about the dri})?" 

 " By setting empty hives over a wash-tub, 

 and hanging the frames in these as fast as 

 filled, the tub will catch all drip so it can 

 be saved." 



"But I wish to use several hundred of 

 these combs of syrup. I judge the water- 

 ing-pot is too slow for so many." 



"Years ago I used a tin pan the size of one 

 of my frames, and four inches deep. In the 

 bottom of this I i)unched holes (from the 

 inside) about the size of those in a rose used 

 for garden-watering. These were in rows U 

 inch apart, and the holes ^ inch apart in 

 the rows. This dish was set on two strips 

 which were fastened to the top of a bench 

 four feet high, the strips jutting out from 

 the bench so that the dish rested on them 

 at each side, and came out over the floor be- 

 low, sufficiently so that a large wash-tub 

 could be set underneath. On the bench, a 

 honey-extractor can was installed, so that 

 the gate was over this pan, punched full of 

 holes as I have described. This can, minus 

 the extractor-reel, was filled with syrup of 

 proper temperature, a wire-cloth herb-strain- 

 er being fastened to the faucet, so that the 

 holes in the pan would not be clogged by 

 any foreign substance which might get into 

 the syrup. Some sheets of tin were fasten- 

 ed on a trough made of boards set on a little 

 incline, the lower end of which came so that 

 all drip would run into the washtub, and 

 over this trough were set hives to take the 

 frames of comb as fast as filled. With the 

 needed assistant, all was ready. I sat on a 

 stool by the wash-tub, with rolled-up sleeves 

 so I could hold the frames of comb near the 

 bottom of the tub. The assistant opened 

 the faucet just enough so that the syrup 

 would run from each hole in the dish, when, 

 by moving the frame about a little from 

 side to side, the cells were all filled instanter, 

 the frame turned over, and the other side 

 filled as quickly. The assistant then hand- 

 ed me another "empty comb, taking the fill- 

 ed one and hanging it in one of the hives 

 standing on the trough, carrying it along 

 over the trough and hives so no drip would 

 get on the floor. In this way I would have 

 the frames filled as fast as he could hand 

 them to me, and put the filled ones in the 

 hives, often filling over 100 an hour. The 

 drip, and whatever fell into the tub, was 

 emptied into the extractor-can as often as 

 necessary, tl*e strainer catching all particles 

 of comb oi;. dirt that accumulated, so that 

 with this and the necessary feed the can was 

 kept full as long as we had empty combs; 

 the cost of all feeders saved, and the feed 

 put right in the hive among the bees just 

 where I wished it, with no danger of robbing 

 in times of the greatest nectar famine by 

 setting in these filled combs in the twilight." 



