214 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



greatest inventions and one of the most useful arti- 

 cles in the apiary. He believes in producing- both 

 comb and extracted honey, in quantities and styles 

 to suit the market. He experimented with comb 

 foundation four or five years after the date of 

 Wagner's patent, obtaining his samples from a Mr. 

 Steel, of New Jersey. The invention came from 

 Germany, as perhaps did also the samples. It was 

 only a midrib, without any attempt at cell-walls, 

 and was a failure, but lacked only the Yankee in- 

 genuity to finish it by giving it side walls, and thus 

 make it a success. The captain has very hopefully 

 followed up this invention from its beginning. He 

 was quite enthusiastic at the time, of receiving the 

 first handsome samples from the Weiss machine; 

 but, alas! he did not then know that it was made of 

 paraffine, nor did he at first observe that the cells 

 were intermediate in size between worker and 

 drone. The queen was slow to use this size of cell 

 except when the sheet was convex, or stretched so 

 that the cells were enlarged, when she very freely de- 

 posited drone eggs in them, or where the sheet was 

 concave, so that the cells were diminished in size 

 when workers were reared. Noticing this fact he 

 saw the necessity of making and keeping the cells 

 of the proper size. To prevent sagging he tried 

 cloth, paper, and wood centers, all of which were 

 objectionable. Finally in 1876 he incorporated wires 

 into the wax sheet, and met with complete success. 

 Several years before this, Mr. Quinby and himself 

 had made complete comb of thin tin coated with 

 wax. This was tested in midwinter, the captain 

 bringing bees into a warm room for the purpose; 

 and although the cell bottoms were flat, it was free- 

 ly occupied with brood and honey. In the manu- 

 facture of comb foundation, it was observed that im 

 pressing the rhomboidal bases upon the wax sheet 

 would lay bare the wire unless a wasteful quantity 

 of wax was used. To avoid this he left the cell bot- 

 tom flat, thus also economizing in wax and simplify- 

 ing its manuf acture. Previous to his invention of flat- 

 bottomed foundation he had persistently refused 

 to U6e natural-base foundation in his honey-boxes, 

 he being unable to make or buy any but that would 

 leave an objectionable fishbone in the honey, and 

 he did not propose to sell to others what he would 

 not use on his own table, or what would injure the 

 high reputation his honey had gained. With flat- 

 bottomed foundation, twelve feet and upward to 

 the pound, he now produces comb honey that, on 

 the average, has a more delicate center than that 

 built wholly by the bees. Last year Mr. Cowan, 

 president of the British Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 looked in vain for foundation or fishbone in Capt. 

 Hetherington's honey. Next day, however, he vis- 

 ited a second-class bee-keeper and found the objec- 

 tionable hard center in his honey, although he had 

 used no thicker natural-bottom foundation than 

 10V4 feet to the pound. The captain says this foun- 

 dation is usually worked over, and its base chang- 

 ed; and I have observed that the wax then appears 

 to lose some of its solidity, and becomes more like 

 comb. Certain it is, this foundation makes more 

 tender comb honey than any other we have been 

 able to obtain. Capt. H.'s patent legally covers all 

 kinds of wire supports for foundation, including 

 wired frames, and he should be recognized by the 

 bee-keeping fraternity as the inventor of wire sup- 

 ports for comb foundation. This should be most 

 cheerfully given him, as he has so generously per- 

 mitted.'all who wished to do so, to use wired frames. 



He receives a royalty upon wired foundation from 

 its manufacturers, the Messrs J. Van Deusen & 

 Sons, of Sprout Brook, N. Y. The importance of 

 this invention is becoming more apparent as time 

 passes, and it must soon take rank as one of the 

 greatest inventions of modern apiculture. 

 Starkville, N. Y. P. H. Elwood. 



To be continued. 



UNFINISHED SECTIONS. 



DECIDEDLY IN FAVOR OF THEM. 



fKIEND BOOT:— Noticing your request in re 

 gard to unfinished sections, p. 92, 1 will give 

 you my experiments and conclusions in re- 

 gard to the matter. At the close of the sea- 

 son of 1887 I had about 500 unfinished sec- 

 tions on hand. The combs were nicely drawn out, 

 and the sections white and clean. I placed them in 

 crates, without scraping off the propolis. I piled the 

 crates up as compactly as possible, and covered 

 them so as to exclude all dust. They wintered in 

 good shape— in fact, they looked as well when I put 

 them on the hives the next spring as they did when 

 taken off in the fall. Thus I was led to believe that 

 they would look as well when completed as those 

 built from new foundation in new sections. Now 

 for the facts: On part of the hives I placed these 

 sections, and on colonies of equal strength I placed 

 crates of new sections. The season opened badly, 

 and the bees were in no hurry to go upstairs. 

 They showed a decided preference to staying in the 

 brood-nest ; but those colonies that were supplied 

 with unfinished sections commenced work above 

 first. The sections— that is, the wood— looked rath- 

 er bad, but the capping was as white as the others. 

 In our market such honey sells as well as any. 



The colonies having new sections were about a 

 week behind in starting and capping. There was 

 one exception. One colony completed new sec- 

 tions before the rest had capped honey in the 

 crates. They also cast the first swarm of the sea- 

 son. They are also tlie worst robbers I ever saw. 

 They did not need feeding in the spring, because 

 they fed themselves at the expense of their neigh- 

 bors. So full of mischief have they been, that we 

 call them the " den of thieves." 



From the light of what experience I have had, I 

 believe that it pays to keep unfinished sections. I 

 place one or two in every crate of new sections as a 

 decoy, and am fully convinced that it pays. I shall 

 experiment on the same line next summer, be- 

 cause this season honey came in slowly up to buck- 

 wheat bloom, and that may have had something to 

 do with the result. 



Hereafter I shall cut my foundation for sections 

 3% in. square, as by doing so I get combs built 

 clear out to the wood. I use the 4^4 by V/i section. 



I did not scrape off the propolis in the fall, as I 

 thought that I could keep them cleaner by hand- 

 ling them as little as possible. You may place me 

 on record as being of the opinion that a colony will 

 complete a crate of unfinished sections sooner than 

 a crate of new sections, even if the latter has a de- 

 coy section. 



THE WOra.D TYPE-WRITER. 



T do not wish to close without saying a word in 

 favor of the World type-writer. I am well pleased 

 with mine. After two weeks of practice I can 

 write faster with it than I can with a pen. The 



