Vol. XVIII. 



SEPT. 15, 1?590. 



No. 18. 



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TOO CLOSE SPACING, ETC. 



GKTTING WAX OUT OF EXTH.VC TOItS. 



On page 589, friend Fioot. you say you doirt 

 bother to re-melt the wax to get it out of tiie 

 extractor-i);in. Th<'n your pan must be differ- 

 ent fi-om mine. Mine has a screw-cap that 

 would not allow the cake of wax to come out. 

 I wish it wer<>n"t there. lint the wax I have 

 been getting would have to be re-melted any 

 way. because there is so much bee-glue mixed 

 ull through it. Wlien the mass tiiatispiitin to 

 be melted is half bee-glue, a good share of tiiis 

 latter runs thi'ough the strainei-, and I don't 

 know any way to prevent it; for when hot 

 i'uough it is just like molasses. Fortunately it 

 takes more iieat to melt bee-glue than to melt 

 wax. So when the pan is full as it can con- 

 veniently be. I set it in the oven of the cook- 

 stove till tlu^ wax is melted, tluui pour it off, 

 leaving the bee-glue to be sci'aped out of the pan. 



FKEI) C. smith's T0I'-B.VI{.S — .SEE PAGE (iO^. 



They are % wide, with {^ between them. 

 That makes 1,-^,; from center to center. Isn't 

 thei-e danger of running close spacing to ex- 

 tremes? The harm dom^ by it may not always 

 be seen. In cool weather the spacing may l)e 

 so close that a sufficient mass of bees can not 

 get between the comlis to get up the recpiisitc 

 heat. This might continue for years, and not 

 be notic(!d. But thi^nMS one thing that can be 

 noticed, if one takes the iiains to look. I have 

 had some closer spacing within the last two 

 years than I luive evi-r had before. Now and 

 then I have found a comb, on one side of which 

 there was no brood throughout a large part of 

 it. It was worker comb, black with age. the 

 cells empty, and every thing api)eared right 

 about it. only the (pieen laid no <'ggs in it. I 

 think the oiily trouble was that there was not 

 room enough between the combs. The spacing 

 of to])-bars was no closei- than for othei- combs 

 —why should there be any difference? Well, 



the spacing of the top-bars doesn't tell the 

 whole stoiy. vSuppose you examine one of your 

 hives with "common hanging frames. First see 

 that the spacing of the toi'-bars is i)erfect, each 

 space just exactly like the othei'.s. Now tip up 

 the hiv(> and look at the bottom-bars. Don't 

 you see how iiregular the spacing is? Some 

 spaces are two or thi'ee times as large as othei's. 

 But there is another reason for irregularity. 

 Even with wired frames, the septum (jf the 

 comb is not always exactly in the center. Sup- 

 pose one comb has the septum '« of an inch to 

 the right of the center, and the adjoining comb 

 has its septum '>, to the left of the center. That 

 may make the distance between the comb sur- 

 faces H of an inch less than the average. In 

 friend Smith's case, that would make the combs 

 less than one inch from ceiiler to center. The 

 only thing, then, for the bees to do is to leave 

 oiu' surface of coinb unused, cutting down the 

 cells as much as may be necessary. Of course. 

 I have taken an extreme case, but I think it 

 shows that we would better space too wide than 

 too close. 

 Qri;EX-KXfi-ii)ix(i zixf foil x()N-sw.\i:ming 



KXTIiACTINMi. 



On page <).'50. F. II. Cyrenins says: " Foi' non- 

 swarming extracting, wlien the hive is full of 

 brood, and honey begins to come, place a set of 

 empty combs or foundation below with the 

 (lueeii. the brood above, and the zinc luiard 

 between, and thev will roll in the honey if it is 

 to be had. and will till the u|)per story as tin' 

 brood hatches, and the outside combs below." 

 I tried sevi-ral precisely as directed al)ove. In 

 each case the (pieen stoi)pe(l laying. In all but 

 one case I |)Ut a fi-ame of brood below after 

 waiting two or three days, and then the (lueen 

 went to laying. In the remaining case the 

 (pKHMi was put below the excludei' -May :i4, and 

 left till .June:?, when I found only eggs below, 

 showing that the (pieen stopijed laying at least 

 a week. Now, I'm not sure that it is always 

 i)ad to havi' the queen stop laying: I only want 



