1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



201 



MANNER OF FASTENING THE 

 FOUNDATION. 



plate a lamp with a wide flat chimney is so arrang- 

 ed as to heat the plate to a proper temperature. 



At the top, and 

 near the front of 

 the frame, a form 

 is made to hold the 

 section in place. 

 The foundation to 

 be fastened is plac- 

 ed in position as 

 shown inFigr. 3; and 

 by pressing the foot 

 upon the treadle, 

 the heated plate is 

 carried under the 

 base of the founda- 

 tion, and w i t fa- 

 drawn almost in- 

 stantly, when the 

 operation is com- 

 plete. 



Now notice the 

 perfection of this 

 method. The hot 

 plate warms the 

 box, and melts the 

 wax which adheres to the box, more perfectly than 

 by any other method I have ever known. Skilled 

 fingers will press the foundation slightly at the in- 

 stant the hot plate melts it. 



I am sure any one of experience will at once see 

 how perfectly it will be fastened at both sides, with 

 the same clean wax of which the foundation is 

 made. The hot plate so evens the edge of the foun- 

 dation that it is equally well fastened at every 

 point. I tested several of the foundations a few 

 moments after being fastened, and I found I could 

 pull it in pieces, but in no instance did it cleave 

 from the box or tear off close to the base. It is ap- 

 parent, that there is a great advantage in having 

 the foundation fastened in the position in which it 

 is to remain. With the various fasteners in com- 

 mon use, it is necessary to bend the foundation to a 

 right angle to bring it to its proper position. 



When Mr. Miller was out of practice he could 

 easil.v fasten a foundation in a single box in five 

 seconds from the time he took up the section until 

 he put it down completed, and he did twenty in 

 three minutes. I feel confident, that, with intelli- 

 gent, accurate, and appreciative bee - keepers at 

 least, this is to prove a most valuable invention. I 

 may add, that Mr. Miller has in process of construc- 

 tion a machine of similar design for fastening 

 foundation in brood frames. L. C. Root. 



Stamford. Ct., Feb. 8. 



Friend R., we are exceedinpcly obliged to 

 you for tlie pains you take in showing us the 

 picture of friend Miller, and we are also in- 

 debted to him; but I think it is no more than 

 fair to mention that the idea of interposing 

 a plate of metal, heated by a lamp, between 

 the wood and the strip of foundation, was 

 given us by a young Canadian, hrst at the 

 National Bee Convention at Detroit, Dec, 

 18S7, and later at the New York State 

 Convention held in Uiica. in January, ]8«8. 

 At the latter place I paid him $o.0U for a 

 sample machine, and brought it liome. 

 Greatly to my surprise, our people could not 

 make it work as rapidly as our ordinary 

 ^foot-power machines. Alter spending a 



good deal of time on it, it was put away on a 

 shelf, where it stands yet. When friend 

 Cutting was here a few days ago, he said 

 the plan was all right, but the machine was 

 not made as it should have been. He has 

 one, he said, of his own make, and it an- 

 swers the purpose perfectly, and is ahead of 

 any device. The machine made by our 

 Canadian friend was worked by one hand, 

 while the other held the foundation. 



MRS. 



AXTELL REPORTS ANOTHER 

 LARGE CROP OF HONEY. 



15,000 LBS. OF COMB honey; TAKING OFF SECTIONS, 

 ETC. 



In an article in Gleanings of Jan. 1, I mentioned 

 taking off the supers wittiout either the bee-hat or 

 smoker, because the cool night before had driven 

 nearly all the bees down out of the supers. The 

 editor remarks, that, in leaving it on so long, it be- 

 comes travel-stained by the bees. In this locality 

 bees gather honey right up to cold nights; and 

 often we get as much from our fall harvests of 

 heart's-ease as we do from the June white clover, 

 and sometimes we have it almost cold enough for 

 frost, and then it will warm up, and the bees go to 

 work again. Heart's-ease is not so easily killed by 

 cold as some other flowers; and if it gets quite 

 warm during the day, even after quite a cool night, 

 they get some honey. They do not soil the combs 

 much within a week or two, or even three, at that 

 time of year, because, when cool, they go down 

 into the brood-nest. 



1 also remarked, that the little mosquito-bar tents 

 that I tried last season, to get the bees out of the 

 supers, did not work well. The editor thought it 

 was because it was in cold weather, but it was in 

 June that I tried them. I think it was because of 

 the young bees being loth to leave the combs. It 

 was about two hours after setting the tent over 

 that I found they had not all left yet, and they 

 had so spotted the sections that I had to use a 

 sharp knife to scrape the spots out of the wood. 

 One super of sections was badly soiled. I tried the 

 tent once before in the fall, and the bees did not 

 readily go out. The hole at the top was about ?£ of 

 an inch across the top to work out of, and the tent 

 was made as per Gleanings. 



REPORT. 



In the report of our season's work in Gleanings, 

 Jan. ], I made mention that our crop of honey 

 would be 1:5.000 or 14,000 lbs. We had to guess at 

 some of it. Mr. Axtell is very careful not to guess 

 too high. Since then we have disposed of the rest 

 of it, or so nearly so that we know what we got. 

 It weighs 15,(X10 lbs. and a little over, all comb honey 

 except about 500 lbs. of extracted and a barrel, not 

 counted, left to feed back in the spring. As we had 

 a very short fall crop, bees did not flU up their 

 brood-combs as they usually do. 



feeding OITTDOORS PREFERRED TO FEEDING IN 

 THE HIVES. 



We equalized the honey last fall so that all would 

 have enough to carry them through until late spring, 

 we think, then we shall feed all out of doors, in one 

 large trough, sorghum molasses, using only enough 

 of the honey to get the bees to take up the molas- 

 ses. First we have to use about two parts of honey 

 to one of molasses; later on, ■^., molasses and }6 

 honey, and finally they will take the molasses with 



