1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



103 



(where the bees usually finish first) was left 

 untouched. 



Now I will try to answer pointedly Mr. Peete's 

 questions. You see, doctor, the sections which 

 I use for extracting and using again were got 

 from the supers I must necessarily use in sav- 

 ing the honey crop, and not only without extra 

 work or loss, but with an actual saving in both, 

 for we avoided the swarming trouble, and did 

 not curtail, but increased, the general surplus 

 crop, and even the crop of Jiuished comb honey, 

 so there was no waste of work here. After the 

 honey is extracted from the sections they are 

 returned to the T supers, and on a warm after- 

 noon are all set out at once in the open air; and 

 by dark every section will be cleaned of every 

 particle of honey by the bees, ready for the 

 comb-leveler. Two hours' work will accom- 

 plish all the work of having thousands of 

 combs cleaned; but the leveler must be used 

 on every comb. Surely that will be a big task. 

 No: it is but little more work than tu properly 

 fill sections with full sheets of foundation, es- 

 pecially where two pieces of foundation are 

 used in each section; and the comb-honey pro- 

 ducer who does not use two pieces has not yet 

 learned his trade; so there is but little if any 

 extra work or loss in leveling or using the 

 drawn combs again. 



But '■ what does the wood in the sections look 

 like after all this?" When we first began 

 using the drawn combs we scraped them before 

 returning them to the super; but now we never 

 scrape such sections until they are tilled with 

 honey again, and are ready to go into shipping- 

 cases. We scrape the top and bottoms of all 

 our finished supers of comb honey. Before the 

 sections are removed therefrom they are all 

 wedged up tight in the supers; and, the work 

 being accurately done, the tops and bottoms 

 are nearly as smooth and level as a board. We 

 set them on end on a table; sit down in front 

 of them, and with a scraper made of a piece of 

 old saw cut to a proper shape, and sharpened 

 so it will cut like a smoothing-plane, we quick- 

 ly make the sections so new-looking and clean 

 that we have never heard a word of complaint 

 from the most fastidious customer; so there is 

 no bugbear of soiled sections with us. By the 

 way, I clean all the supers of sections, however 

 made, in the way stated. 



As to the doctor's inquiry as to whether we 

 have propolis here, I would say that, so far as 

 we know, it is as plentiful here as elsewhere; 

 but we have far less of it than most others. I 

 remember that, at the hotel in Madison, Wis., 

 we explained our way of preventing propolis 

 and burr-combs to two distinguished bee-men 

 (A. I. Root and C. C. Miller), and they said 

 they wished it was true elsewhere than at 

 Forestville, Minn. Our way is to have all bee- 

 spaces kept very close to and not above li inch, 

 to prevent burr-combs and to have every thing 



about the hives where the bees have to travel 

 made very smooth. For this purpose we now 

 paint the inside of our hives, and have them, 

 as well as the frames, supers, sections, and 

 every part the bees must walk over, very 

 smooth. And now, friends, this does lessen the 

 evil of burr-combs and propolis, not only at 

 Forestville, but everywhere that bees work. A 

 rough fuzzy board is about the same to a bee as 

 a piece of rough boggy brush land would be to 

 a laboring man to travel through; and the first 

 thing the sensible bees do is to make the ways 

 they must constantly travel as smooth as pos- 

 sible. This they do by gnawing, and varnish- 

 ing with propolis; and I am now certain that 

 all frames should be very smooth, and may be 

 dipped into proper paint with profit; and if 

 only one side of the hives is painted, the inside 

 should be preferred, as it keeps the wood from 

 being soaked with water in winter, and injur- 

 ing the colony's health and causing the wood 

 to warp and check. Warped covers have never 

 troubled me; but they are carefully made, and 

 both sides well painted. 



I have never used wide frames in connection 

 with drawn combs; but I have invented a new 

 super composed of peculiar wide frames in con- 

 nection with my slotted and cleated separators, 

 without any section case, that is not only cheap 

 and handy, but keeps all sides of the sections 

 entirely clean; and the readers of Gleanings 

 shall know all about it soon. 



In closing I will admonish those keeping sec- 

 tions over for future use to pile up the supers 

 and cover from the light. 



I hope I have made the method of profitably 

 using drawn combs plain. 



Forestville, Minn. 



[Tliis is indeed an important question, and I 

 believe our friend Taylor has hit upon the 

 proper solution of that problem of unfinished 

 sections. At the convention in Chicago one or 

 two reported very favorably regarding the 

 Taylur method of leveling down the combs; 

 and I was satisfied that the comb-levelir was a 

 good thihg. and a very important adjunct to 

 the apiary. I should like to hear from our 

 readers who have te>!ted the Taylor comb-lev- 

 eler; and even if it does give our old friend a 

 little free advertising.it is all right. A good 

 thing should occasionally be pushed along, and 

 perhaps this is one of them.— Ed.] 



LONGEVITY OF BEES. 



JVHY DO THEY LIVE LONGER SOME SEASONS 

 THAN OTHERS? DKAD BROOD; BEES DYING 

 BY THE thousand; IS IT A NEW DISEASE? 

 AND IF SO, WHAT IS THE CAUSE? 



By C. Davenport. 



The season of 1895 has in this locality been a 

 peculiar one in many respects. The loss of 

 bees around here during the winter and spring 

 of 1894-'9.5 was fully a half. I lost more than 

 half of mine, so last summer I ran only one 

 yard, and this is all I intend to run in the future. 



