THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



189 



inch hole, and nail wire cloth over it on the 

 inside. Now, when the bees are in the boxes 

 I can fill them with iioucy by pouriiiy honey 

 through the inch hole, so that it will till the 

 trough, and in that way till all of the bees 

 with honey, by usin^r a ilt)Zen boxes, quicker 

 than the bees will till theniselves from the 

 comb; at least, inj- \\;\.v{ is done quicker, and 

 the bees can till thenisolves at their leisure. 

 This matter of having the bees tilled with 

 honey in some way is important, as I have 

 had more than half of the oontined bees die 

 in less than ten hours, in a cage into which 

 the bees had been shaken from the combs 

 without letting them till their honey sacs, or 

 feeding them. 



Every morning, about 7.30, I shake 

 bees into two boxes (taking them from 

 upper stories over queen exluders), pour in 

 a little honey, and hang them from tripods 

 by a string. These I place on either side of 

 my apiary, and the bees just howl to get 

 out, which attracts swarms to them ; and I 

 get 14 or 1.5 swarms to cluster on them with- 

 out touching them. For swarms that don't 

 go to the place where the confined bees hang, 

 I take one of the cages of bees, slip a string 

 over one tine of a potato hook, walk out 

 with it to the place where the bees are flying 

 thickest, and in a few minutes they will be- 

 gin to cluster on the cage. Then I walk 

 back and lead the bees to the place where 

 the tripod is, and let the whole swarm settle 

 on it. I now prepare the hive for them by 

 placing an empty story on the stand where I 

 am to hive them. When the swarm is all 

 settled on the cage, or box that has the con- 

 fined bees in, I take hold of the string and 

 carry the swarm to the place phere I am to 

 hive them. I now sprinkle the bees, and also 

 the inside of the em|)ty hive, with water that 

 is one-fourth honey, using a brush-broom for 

 the purpose. Then I shake the bees into the 

 empty hive, and i)lace the hive over them. 

 I think I have hived swarms in this way in 

 one minute, and not had over ;)0 bees fly. 

 This preventing bees tiying and making a 

 great commotion that is likely to call any 

 swarm just issuing I successfully accomplish 

 by this method; and I tell you there is some 

 poetry in seeing swarm after swarm come 

 out and begin to cluster on the cage before 

 they are all out of the parent hive, while I, 

 with a pail of sweetened water and brush- 

 broom, keep back all other swarms, if any 

 are likely to issue, until they are settled on 

 the cage, and then have nothing to do but 

 take hold of the string that suspends the 

 cage, carry them to an empty story, shake 

 them into it, and jilace their hive over them; 

 then I return the cage to its place, ready for 

 another swarm." 



Advantages of Allowing Bees to Eaild 

 Their own Combs. 



Dr. C. C. Miller has condensed a ten-page 

 report into one column, and it is published in 

 Gleanings. The report is an account of an 

 experiment in France to determine whether 

 it is profitable to use foundation. It is 



really an important subject, and I take 

 pleasure in copying the article. 



" De Layens, a prominent French bee- 

 keeper, gives in LWpicuUeur a detailed ac- 

 count, occupying ten pages, of experiments 

 with 18 colonies, allowing half of them to 

 build combs, and supplying the other half 

 with combs ready built. Each half of the IS 

 colonies were, as nearly as possible, of the 

 same strength, with the same amount of 

 brood and honey. M. de Layens says the 

 object was not to find how many pounds of 

 honey were consumed to make one pound of 

 wax. Previous experiments had satisfied 

 him that O.'A pounds of honey were necessary. 



Right here he gives a blow to the long- 

 established method of reasoning on this 

 matter. The orthodox thing has been to 

 say. ' If G pounds of honey make one of 

 wax, and that six pounds of honey will 

 bring 40 cents at wholesale, while the pound 

 of wax will bring only 30 cents, then it is a 

 clear case that it is better to sell the honey 

 and not allow the bees to build wax.' But 

 M. de Layens says the ([uestion of how many 

 pounds of honey make one of wax is not a 

 question of importance at all. But he says, 

 and says truly, the practical question is, 

 whether the harvest of wax and honey pro- 

 duced by a colony is of more value than the 

 harvest of honey from the same colony fur- 

 nished with ready-built combs, and thus 

 prevented from secreting wax. 



The 9 colonies, furnished only with start- 

 ers, produced almost exactly the same 

 amount of honey as the other lot, and 

 built 31 combs, thus making a clear gain of 

 31 combs over the colonies which had no 

 combs to build. 



One might readily conclude, that, if it is 

 economy to allow the bees to secrete wax, it 

 is useless, or worse than useless, to give 

 them foundation. Not so, says M. de Lay- 

 ens. The gain in preventing drone comb is 

 so much, in addition to having combs 

 promptly ready for the grand harvest, that 

 it is true economy to have all the frames 

 which the bees are to fill with wax, com- 

 pletely filled with foundation. I suppose 

 his plan would be to melt up constantly the 

 poorest combs, to be replaced by those 

 newly built. 



Looking just alone at his experiments, it 

 seems a pretty clear case that we are astray 

 in not giving our bees a chance to build 

 plenty of comVi ; but there remains some- 

 thing to be satisfactorily explained away. 

 How does it come, if comb building has 

 some effect upon the bees to make them har- 

 vest more (for it must be remembered that 

 they harvest the honey that is used in build- 

 ing the combs), how does it come that a 

 greater yield of extracted than comb can be 

 obtained ? 



On the whole, I should not feel sorry if 

 obliged to believe that M. de Layens is right 

 in his views, for it would be a very nice 

 thing to believe that we could readily change 

 from one style of frame to another without 

 any pecuniary loss ; and that when, for any 

 reason, a brood - pomb did not exactly suit 

 us. we could make money by melting it up. 



