June, 1916. 



Am0rican liee Journal 



eriorate if they have to be held over. 

 Do not wait until the rush is on before 

 you order a supply. But a short time 

 ago I oflfered a near-by beekeeper his 

 supply of sections at the price I paid, 

 taking 25,(HI(), but he refused, saying he 

 would wait until he saw the need. If I 

 have to hold his sections until then, of 

 course, he will have to pay 20 percent 

 more for the goods. It will be to my 

 advantage and I ought not to find fault. 

 As to the real work now of getting 

 hives and supers ready a few sugges- 

 tions might not come amiss. 



Brood-frames, shall we wire them ? 

 If so, how? I find that the deeper the 

 frame the more necessary it is to 

 strengthen the comb foundation to 

 keep it from sagging. The painting of 

 the upper portion of the foundation 

 will probably solve the problem in the 

 cheapest way. One or two horizonal 

 wires for the Langstroth frame would 

 help to keep the comb where it be- 

 longs. It would not in itself prevent 

 sagging. Even four horizontal wires 

 do not accomplish this end, even if 

 put in ever so tightly stretched. In 

 fact, a better comb will result when 

 the wire is rather slack; when taut, 

 buckling between the wires very often 

 results. I am using a comb of -ih 

 inches of depth ; here no sagging oc- 

 curs with medium weight brood foun- 

 dation, but I consider a horizontal wire 

 of advantage, even then, in order to 

 hold the foundation in the center of 

 the frame. When frames are spaced l;s 

 inches or less from center to center it 

 is much more necessary to have the 

 foundation in the center of the frame 

 than when the spacing is more, one or 

 two wires will be sufficient to hold the 

 foundation in the Langstroth frame 

 where it belongs. 



With lj4 inch spacing there is lit- 

 tle more beeway, and we may be a 

 little more careless, we may dispense 

 with the wires and even use the loose 

 hanging frame. To prevent sagging in 

 deep frames, perpendicular wiring will 

 do, as Dr. Miller's splints also. That 

 kind of wiring will demand a stiff 

 bottom-bar. 



I prefer a flat top-bar with no groove. 

 When a frame has to be used the sec- 

 ond time the groove is a drawback. 



We are now cleaning up our supers, 

 scraping the section-holders and sep- 

 arators, the supers themselves, the in- 

 side and the edges. A great deal of 

 propolis intermingled with particles of 

 wax, which should be secured, is the 

 result of this scraping. Different bee- 

 keepers use different tools for this 

 work. I observed a friend the other 

 day using an uncapping knife, the tip 

 end i'i) of the blade being broken off. 

 He said it worked nicely. A piece of 

 steel 2^x6 inches, from a broken cross- 

 cut saw serves my purpose well. I 

 keep the edges filed square. 



When all our supers and frames are 

 cleaned we proceed and make up the 

 sections and fill with full sheets of 

 comb foundation. I have been look- 

 ing around for some time to see if 

 there was not a better method to do 

 this work than my way of doing it, but 

 nothing has impressed me very much 

 so far. I do not use a machine for 

 folding. I have never seen the need of 

 one, as it does not facilitate the work. 

 In fact, but little time can be gained at 

 best by the use of a machine for that 

 purpose. I easily fold 1000 per hour by 

 just using my hands folding the sec- 

 tions into a square corner improvised 

 by a piece of scantling clamped against 

 the work-bench projecting above the 

 bench the height of section when 

 folded. The dovetailed ends are pushed 

 together with the hands. I demon- 

 strated the operation before a small 

 gathering of beekeepers a few days 

 ago to their entire satisfaction. 



What shall be the shape and size of 

 the comb foundation starters ? I have 

 to admit that I have no experience 

 with the split section, which may be 

 managed in such a manner as to avoid 

 all the cutting of the foundation into 

 little sheets. In other words, we may 

 insert a long strip of the material into 

 the four sections of the holder at one 

 operation, and we need not use any 

 artificiil means to stick it (the founda- 

 tion) fast to the wood. The pressure of 



F. GREINER USES FULL SHEETS WITH SUFFICIENT ROOM SO THE 

 FOUNDATION WILL NOT "BUCKLE " 



the sections when clamped together in 

 the super holds it and makes a most per- 

 fect job, I suppose. 



However, this style of sections has 

 not met with favor generally, and is 

 therefore not much used. I have been 

 obliged to cut the foundation into 

 sheets to fit the sections, and then 

 fasten these little sheets in with some 

 sort of a machine like the Daisy, or an 

 improvement on this. 1 have not found 

 it practical to use sheets of foundation 

 to exactly fill or fit the section. There 

 must be a little space left at the sides 

 as well as at the bottom. At the bot- 

 tom in particular there will have to be 

 a space of '.i or ^^s inch. The same 

 space must be left, when bottom start- 

 ers are used, between that and the 

 sheet of foundation above it. Extra 

 light section foundation is apt to sag 

 more or less, and therefore allowance 

 has to be made. 



I am not sure that it would do very 

 much harm if the sheet of foundation 

 exactly fitted the section laterally, but 

 it seems a little room is necessary to 

 make the fastening by the Daisy or 

 similarly working machines practical. 

 It IS practical to fasten sheets of foun- 

 dation into sections by the hot wax 

 method, using a pencil brush. In fact, 

 this method most securely fastens the 

 sheets, and none ever drop off while 

 handling or transporting ready supers 

 to the outyards; in this case sheets 

 may be cut to exactly fit the sections 

 laterally; but the method is slower and 

 not popular with the majority of honey 

 producers. I have concluded that it is 

 most profitable to use as much comb 

 foundation in sections as possible, 

 although I took the opposite stand at 

 one time. 



As said above, I want the sheets of 

 foundation for my 4x5 sections in 

 height ,'4 to ^8 inch less than the inside 

 dimensions of the section, which would 

 be between 4;V and 4% inches. In 

 width I would have the sheet just 3}^ 

 inches wide at top and 3^^ or 3^8 wide 

 at bottom. I have used them thus for 

 years with good results. The bottom 

 starter is not needed, and is of advan- 

 tage only with the first supers when the 

 bees occasionally begin their work 

 here. 



The sheets of foundation may very 

 easily be cut the desired shape with 

 almost no waste in a properly arranged 

 cutting bo.x, cutting 12 to 15 sheets at a 

 time. The foundation should not be 

 too warm when this work is done. I 

 have worked in the cellar at times when 

 the temperature was high outside. I 

 also often do the work of handling the 

 foundation and fastening the sheets 

 into sections during the early morning 

 hours in the summer time. 



There are some who do not deem it 

 best to put foundation into sections 

 until wanted for use. I have not dis- 

 covered that it makes any dirterence 

 whether this is done just so or not. 

 The principal thing is to have the su- 

 pers ready when needed. The same 

 rule is true when running for extracted 

 honey; have all e.xtracting supers ready 

 and have plenty of them. 



I find worker-comb in the extracting 

 supers is more profitable and satisfac- 

 tory than drone-comb. 

 Naples, N. Y. 



