

I^J^YOTepTOieesfiONeY-MOMeiNTeRelTS 



Yol. XTII. 



JAN. 1, 1885. 



No. 1 



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NOTES FROM THE BANNER APIARY. 



FOUNDATION IN THE BUOOD-NEST. 



fRIEND ROOT:— You will remember that we 

 discussed this question at the Lansing- con- 

 vention ; but as many of your readers were 

 not there, I will, with your permission, reply 

 to your criticisms uooii my article on pajre 

 »n, Dec. Gleanings. You sa.y, colonies with sheets 

 of fdn., and with empt.y frames, have been tried 

 side by side for years, and in thousands of apiaries, 

 and the result was in favor of the fdn. Y'ou also 

 si)eal£ of the e.vcellent results obtained by hiving 

 swarms upon empty combs, and extracting the hon- 

 ey. All this I admit; but, to my mind, those illus- 

 trations are not to the point. If a swarm is com- 

 ))elled to build all of its combs, both store and brood, 

 there is no iiucstion in my mind but that it would 

 be outstripped by a swarm furnished with fdn. or 

 combs, but how will it be when the surplus depart- 

 ment Is furnished with fdn. or combs, and the bees 

 allowed to build natural combs in the brood-nestV 

 Have you, friend R., tried such an experiment, or 

 «U) you know of any one who has? and if so, with 

 what result? Prof. Cook offered an explanation of 

 why I apparently secured more honey when no fdn. 

 was used in the brood-nest, and the explanation is 

 reasonable. He said the honey was stored in the 

 sections to a greater extent, instead of in the brood- 

 nest, when no fdn. was used in the brood-nest; and, 

 as I did not compare the weight of the brood-nests 

 in the fall, it is possible that the professor's expla- 

 nation is the true one. This is the, one weak point in 

 my experiment, .\nother season I will try to make 



my experiments more conclusive. I'rof. Cook says 

 bees do not secrete wa.x unless they have use for it ; 

 but, is it not i)0ssible that a newly hived swarm, 

 during a good flow of honey, can secrete enough 

 wax to fill their brood-nest, if given fdn. in the sur- 

 plus department, more cheaply than wo can buy 

 fdn. for them? The best way that I know of to de- 



; cide this question is bj- such experiments as I made 



I last season: and if it is decided that more surplus is 

 secured simply because less aoney is deposited in 

 the brood-nest, it should not be forgotten that this 

 space in the brood-nest that n-ould have hctn occu- 

 pied with honey, had fdn. been used, has been oc- 

 cupied with /xoof/, and that fall will find the hive 

 full of bees instead of honey; the honey can be 

 sold for a good price, and the combs filled with su- 



, gar syrup. 



I'ou say, " It seems to me, that instead of decid- 

 ing we do not need fdn. or empty combs, we ought 

 to decide that the method of management was not 

 quite the thing." I do not think this a fair decision, 

 and I think you will agree with me when 1 tell you 

 that no other bee-keeper in this county, so far as 1 

 have learned, has received so large a yield pro rata 

 as myself, while the commission men pronounced it 

 the finest honey they have handled this season. 

 One bee-keeper, living SU miles from here, began 



, the season with about 30 colonies, and increased to 

 about 76, but received only about 10 lbs. per colony 

 of surplus. At the convention at Chicago, only our, 

 reported a better yield of eomb honey than myself. 

 In the face of this, do you think it would be fair to 

 say, "The method of management was not quite 

 the thing"? Prrcont ra, in the fall 1 fed my bees 10 



[ lbs. of sugar per colony, on aii average, to prepare 

 them for winter; but !i« the honey "squeezed" 



