816 



GLEANING8 IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1. 



the bees will fasten them with borrowed wax, 

 and at the same time they begin to pick and 

 pull to get the strings loose to drag them out of 

 the hive. This causes the strings to lengthen 

 and diminish until they are gnawed away. In- 

 stead of the comb being cut out, the bees talce 

 the strings to be the aggressors, and save the 

 combs. A prevalent fault with transferring is 

 the expectancy that the bees are to build new 

 comb to fill up spaces and make the attachment 

 to the top-bars. Bees can not build combs 

 from the word go, but must first consume hon- 

 ey, and wait for the secretion of wax. 



There should be nearly as much of the comb 

 in contact with the top-bar as the greatest 

 width of the comb. If the comb is in narrow 

 strips they should be stood up endwise so as to 

 reach both the top and bottom bars; and where 

 one edge contains honey it should be made flat, 

 and the honey placed in a leaning position 

 against an end-bar. Nor should a part of a 

 comb be cut away because it contains honey. 



A rather heavy article of grocers' cotton 

 twine is just right. When the strings are too 

 light it will be removed by the bees too soon; 

 and if too heavy it will cause the mutilation of 

 the combs, and the combs are never full of 

 ridges and hollows as when sticks and wires 

 are used. 



It is a pleasure to transfer by the "driving" 

 plan; but it is not a good practice during a 

 dearth of honey, when the colonies are not 

 strong in bees, or when the combs contain 

 brood, and it is desirable to save labor for the 

 bees. Then there are also just as perfect combs 

 in the old hives as could be produced from 

 foundation. Last fall I took a colony out from 

 between the studding of a schoolhouse where 

 there were only three combs, but each was 15 

 x40 inches in size, clear and straight. There is 

 no reason why transit rred combs should not be 

 clear and straight if the imphnnents. frames, 

 and combs are prepared to the best advantage 

 — good enough, at least, for the first season's 

 use. after which they may be elevated to the 

 upper stories, and foundation-drawn combs sub- 

 stituted in the brood -nest. 



Up to May loth the bees were kept in the 

 valley, where they gathered honey from wil- 

 lows, eucalyptus, oranges, and pepper, at which 

 time all but 60 of the weaker colonies and the 

 latest hived swarms remained, while the rest 

 of the apiary was taken into the mountains. 

 On returning, in the latter part of July, the 

 hives in the valley were found to contain 50 to 

 80 lbs. each of dark, unsalable honey, and it 

 was thought, "What a fine winter supply !" 

 But it was about the 8th of August when 

 streams of honey were noticed creeping out of 

 the entrances, and running off down the hill, 

 and the new occupation was begun of wheeling 

 hives up alongside and dumping the contents, 

 combs, frames, brood, honey, bees, and all, into 

 the solar wax-extractor. This was kept up 

 until about three-fourths of all the swarms 

 whose combs had not been reversed, and \\hich 

 had not been built down to the bottom-bars, 

 were destroyed. Shading the hives seemed to 

 be of little use. 



Heretofore it has been my practice, as soon as 

 the combs were built out, usually at the time of 

 the first extracting of honey, to put the frame 

 in a vise and saw the projecting arms off the 

 top-bar, to make it into a bottom-bar; then 

 remove the old bottom -bar and nail a new top- 

 bar on in its stead, thus having the combs se- 

 curely attached to the bottom -bar before inver- 

 sion. But this season, having more work than 

 usual, the valley apiary was neglected, with 

 the foregoing result. 



When I came to this State, and visited api- 

 aries a year ago, I was shocked at the way the 



bees were literally robbed of their winter stores 

 by their merciless owners; but after this ex- 

 perience I have changed my mind, as it is bet- 

 ter to lose bees by starvation than by the melt- 

 ing down of the combs. 



A few weeks ago, in Ventura Co. I was at an 

 apiary of 140 colonies which yielded 18 tons of 

 honey, and the apiarist said that 40 colonies on 

 wired combs were destroyed by the combs melt- 

 ing down last year, and 60 more starved last 

 spiing. These 100 colonies should have pro- 

 duced 25,000 lbs. could they have been saved, 

 which, figuring from his actual yield from the 

 remainder of the apiary, would have given him 

 $1.00 per comb to pay "for the trouble of invert- 

 ing and securing the fastenings to the bottom- 

 bars. 



How to leave in the combs sufficient winter 

 stores and not have the combs melt down, 

 seems to be almost as vexatious a problem in 

 California as the wintering problem is in Iowa. 

 When the combs contain but little honey, and 

 they fall, it results only in crooked combs; but 

 with considerable honey it smothers the bees, 

 queen, and brood, and all is a total loss. To 

 guard against this, many apiaries use combs 

 9x10. 12x12, with dividing-bar through the cen- 

 ter, and 8x12 with and without wire; and this 

 adoption of small and irregular-sized frames is 

 largely the cause of the non-production of 

 comb "honey. Small frames are also advan- 

 tageous in moving bees into the rocky canyons. 

 In Iowa, when bees are to be moved it is usually 

 cool enough to make the combs strong, and also 

 prevent the bees from raising the air to a melt- 

 ing temperature; but here it continues warm 

 all the time, so that a small disturbance makes 

 the warmth excessive. In one instance last 

 June, in moving 100 colonies from the valley to 

 the mountains, where the whole size of the 

 brood-nest was covered with wire cloth, less 

 than ten colonies arrived at their destination 

 alive. 



As a result of keeping the bees in the valley, 

 many which were only nucleus colonies of three 

 and four combs on Feb. 1st built combs from 

 half-inch starters so rapidly as to fill two upper 

 stories besides the brood -nest by the 15th of 

 May. Such hives of new combs, partly filled 

 with honey, were almost immovable, except 

 over the smoothest roads; where, if they had 

 been able to stand a rough twenty-mile haul, 

 from 80 to 100 lbs. more honey per colony might 

 easily have been secured. Had the colonies 

 been taken to the sage-fields in March, they 

 would not have built the new combs until the 

 opening of the honey harvest in May. 



When an apiary has been established long 

 enough to have surplus combs already built, it 

 may be advised to keep the bees in the sage 

 region permanently; but even in that case, 

 when sage yields honey only now and then a 

 year, and as the valleys yield honey every year, 

 it seems to be highly advantageous to have an 

 apiary readily movable; and instead of using 

 a smaller frame it would seem to be a better 

 plan to put in upright bars in the center and a 

 cross-bar midway between the top and bottom 

 bars, dividing a 9xl3-inch frame into four, and 

 a 9xl7-inch frame into six divisions. This 

 method is quicker than wiring, and absolutely 

 safe from sagging of combs and warping of 

 foundation, and at the same time adapted to a 

 lightning method of putting foundation in 

 brood-frame divisions with the Daisy fastener. 



Probably the best plan of fastening frames 

 for moving is with the notched sticks, or with 

 strips of tin an inch wide having small leaves 

 cut out and bent downward in the spaces. A 

 spacer is needed on each end of the frames on 

 the top, and one under the center of the bottom- 



