1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



987 



year he was secretary of eight different or- 

 g-anizations, four of them religious. Dr. 

 Mason has always been an earnest temper- 

 ance worker, neither he nor any of his 

 children using tea, coffee, tobacco, or liquor 

 in any form. 



In 1869 a brother left in his care two col- 

 onies of bees till convenient to move them. 

 Watching these aroused an interest in bees, 

 and, as usual, the way to bee-keeping in 

 full was not long. In 1873, frequent and 

 severe attacks of rheumatism obliged him 

 to give up the office practice of dentistry, 

 and he has since made a specialty of bee- 

 keeping, making it a source of revenue. 



In 1874 he moved to Ohio, where he has 

 always been prominent in apicultural mat- 

 ters. Through his efforts the Tri- State 

 Fair Association at Toledo was induced to 

 offer premiums for the display of products 

 of the apiary, and this display has in- 

 creased in attractiveness each year since. 

 He was appointed superintendent of the de- 

 partment the first year, and still holds the 

 position. He was chosen superintendent of 

 the Apiarian Department of the Ohio Cen- 

 tennial Exposition, held at Columbus in 

 1888. In 1882 and "83 his apiary of 75 col- 

 onies suffered from foul brood, nearly every 

 colony being infested in the latter year; but 

 he cured it and had no return of the dis- 



SUBSTITTJTE FOR BEESWAX IN FOUNDATION. 



Can you not produce some material to 

 take the place of brood foundation — some- 

 thing perhaps like the material from which 

 Thomas A. Edison makes his phonograph- 

 records, that would be acceptable to bees? 

 We want something that will not buckle, 

 that will always insure straight combs — 

 something that, when subjected to foul 

 brood, could be boiled, and used again; 

 that, when brood has hatched therefrom, 

 the bee-built walls could be struck from, to 

 be again replaced and built by the bees. 

 A B. Anthony. 



Sterling, 111., Oct. 28, 1902. 



[I am not sure that I quite understand 

 your question. I do not know of any sub- 

 stitute to take the place of brood foundation 

 other thaij combs; but possibly you refer to 

 the material out of which the foundation is 

 made. Mr. Weed, the inventor of the Weed 

 new process, and ourselves, made exhaus- 

 tive experiments in testing various kinds of 

 waxes, including- ceresin and paraftine 

 wax; but there is not one of them that, in 

 our opinion, would answer as even a poor 



substitute. Material from which phono- 

 graph-cylinders are made would not ans- 

 swer — it is too brittle. The least j.ir would 

 crack it to pieces, and for extracting pur- 

 poses it would be utterly useless. I do not 

 know of another material that could possi- 

 bly be used for foundation-making that 

 would be suitable for bees, and at the same 

 time stand a boiling temperature without 

 injury. Of course, beeswax will stand a 

 boiling temperature, but the combs would, 

 of course, be melted, and the clarified prod- 

 uct could be used again in making foun- 

 dation. This is as far as we can go in us- 

 ing material over again. — Ed.] 



COLONY in a chimney; how to get out. 



I have found a swarm of black bees that 

 went into a chimney last July, and that are 

 now about four feet from the top. Can you 

 suggest a way to get them out? I thought 

 of trying to reach them with a spoon, such 

 as is used for digging post-holes, but that 

 would make a sticky mess, besides getting 

 stung, etc. I also thought of waiting till 

 spring, and, if they lived, to put a hive on 

 the chimney, containing a few frames of 

 brood and a queen-cell, with a bee-escape 

 in the bottom. As the bees come up they 

 could not get back. 



Perhaps it would be better to leave them 

 alone entirely; but if you can suggest a 

 way, I should be pleased to hear it. 



Gko. W. Keezer. 



Plaistow, N. H., Nov. 2. 



[There is no feasible way of getting the 

 bees out except by means of the post- hole 

 shovel, and possibly destroying the whole 

 colony in the attempt. I would blow a 

 stream of smoke down the chimne}-, or bet- 

 ter, perhaps, make a little smudge from be- 

 neath to get the bees in a quiet condition so 

 they could be scooped out with the aforesaid 

 shovel. It would not be practicable to put 

 a hive on the chimney, containing two 

 frames of brood and a queen-cell, for the 

 purpose of inducing- the bees to leave their 

 old quarters four feet below. — Ed.] 



getting bees to fill out pop - HOLE 



CELLS in comb honey; proportion 



OF COMB TO EXTRACTED HONEY. 



I have been running my apiary for comb 

 honey, but I can not get the be^.s to fill out 

 the sections nicel}', as they leave pop ho es 

 all along the sides. Some of my colonies 

 filled 75 ideal sections. Now, if acolony will 

 fill 50 1-lb. sections in a season, how much 

 honej' would that colony produce if it were 

 extracted and the combs returned? 



Beresford, Fla. C. S. Gaelbreath. 



[It is a difficult matter to get bees to fill 

 out every cell with honey and cap it over. 

 Sometimes conditions are such that it is 

 practically impossible to get a perfectly 

 filled section. There are several essential 

 conditions. One is an abundance of nec- 

 tar in the fields, and a warm super — at 



