218 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



matter has been brought up and set forth in 

 such a manner that no one can misunder- 

 stand it. Mr. Newman says he has always 

 made his report regarding the finances in 

 exactly the same manner as he did last year, 

 and I believe no one has complained, but 

 that does not prove that that way is best. 

 Bro. York is right in that each member has 

 the right to know exactly how the money is 

 expended. For this reason there ought to be 

 receipted bills for all expenditures, and 

 these bills laid before an auditing committee 

 and their report printed together with all the 

 items of expense. If I were the General 

 Manager I should insist upon such a course. 



What We are to Expect from the Deep-Cell 

 Foundation. 

 There are few if any more reliable scien- 

 tific writers on bee culture in this country 

 than Mr. Stachelhausen, of Texas, and he 

 has contributed to the Southland Queen the 

 following article on the above subject. 



" When this number of the Queen will be 

 in the hands of its readers an article on the 

 management ot swarms would be out of 

 season, so I thought it would be just as well 

 to discuss some of the questions of the day 

 and continue the description of my manage- 

 ment of the apiary later on. 



"The most important question of this 

 kind is: What will we have to expect from 

 the new artificial comb called by the inven- 

 tor and manufacturer 'the Weed-Root drawn 

 foundation '? 



"Nearly half a century ago the late Baron 

 Berlepsch said, ' Give me all the empty comb 

 I need and I will make the devil dance bare- 

 footed,' meaning he would be able to secure 

 a honey crop never dreamed of before. At 

 that time it was the opinion of advanced 

 bee keepers that bees needed at least ten 

 pounds of honey to produce one pound of 

 wax, and what is of more importance, that 

 bees can fill eight times as many combs with 

 honey as they can build new ones during a 

 good honey flow. At present many bee 

 keepers do not agree with this opinion. 

 Since then, to produce artificial comb has 

 been the main problem, but for a long time 

 it could not be satisfactorily solved. 



"Quite unexpectedly this problem was 

 solved in an indirect way by Hrusclika, who 

 invented the honey extractor. By this in- 

 vention it was no longer necessary to melt 

 the combs or destroy them in any way to get 

 the honey out of the combs. The combs 

 were saved and returned to the hive, so 

 every bee keeper could accumulate a suf- 

 ficiency of empty combs for the honey crop 

 and could preserve them from one year to 

 another. The invention of comb foundation 

 is a progress in the same direction. The 

 idea was, if we can't produce real artificial 

 combs we can at least give the bees the ma- 



terial for building comb and induce them to 

 build worker combs when they would other- 

 wise have built drone combs. The impor- 

 tance of foundation in our present method 

 of bee keeping is too well known to say any- 

 thing more about it. 



"At last P. Warnstorf, in Germany, suc- 

 ceeded in manufacturing a real artificial 

 comb with the normal cell d'epth. The first 

 artificial comb of this kind was produced in 

 Germany about five years ago, but the cell 

 walls were a good deal heavier than those of 

 natural comb, like Schulz's combs mention- 

 ed in Gleanings by E. Root. It is plain that 

 such combs are useful for extracting pur- 

 poses or in the brood chamber, but could not 

 be used in producing comb honey. These 

 artificial combs are in use in Germany. The 

 reason why this invention, like many others, 

 is not utilized in the United States is be- 

 cause the leading journals and manufac- 

 turers prefer the production of comb honey 

 in sections and have very little sympathy 

 for the wants and wishes of the producer of 

 extracted honey. 



"A short time ago we received the news 

 that the A. I. Root Co. had found a way to 

 produce artificial combs of wax very nearly 

 as light as the natural combs built by the 

 bees. Everybody would think ths whole 

 bee keeping world would yell out ' Eureka!' 

 because the long searched for point is at- 

 tained at last. But no: the new comb re- 

 ceived quite a different welcome. Some call 

 it an adulteration and others a fraud. 

 Queer people, these bee keepersi Gf course, 

 it is nonsense to talk about fraud and adul- 

 teration aid it is not necessary to discuss 

 the matter any more. Some people are 

 against progress and we will never convince 

 them. But how can we explain the opposi- 

 tion asainst such an interesting, if not im- 

 portant, valuable, invention? It is the fear 

 some people instinctively feel if any new in- 

 vention comes up that it will ruin the small 

 producer, cut the price of products and 

 cause over-production. What have we to ex- 

 pect in this respect? Early in the spring I 

 received from the A. I. Root Co. a sample, 

 about two square inches, of the new drawn 

 foundation. Thfl same day I cut a hole in a 

 brood comb and fitted the sample in it. 

 The other day it was fasfened by the bees. 

 Tho side walls were gnawed down somewhat, 

 and the bees had strengthened the outer 

 edsje of the cells like they always do when 

 building new combs or accepting extracted 

 combs. The queen had laid no eggs in 

 these cells and refused to do so for some 

 days. Afterwards th« cells were used for 

 breeding all right. So I know that the new 

 foundation is accepted bv *^he bees the same 

 as the extracted comb. We can reason now 

 for what practical use this foundation will 

 be. 



"In producing extracted honey a carefnl 

 bee-keeper, if he does not increase the num- 

 ber of his colonies, can keep a sufficient 

 number of empty combs and a quantity of 

 drawn out foundation before or during the 

 honev flow, so that I think he will have use 

 for the new foundation only in exceptional 

 cases, but they will prove very valuable then. 



