54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Jan. 22, 1903. 



sible, and store in a dry, warm place. Do not leave it ex- 

 posed to the air. 



FREEING COMBS OK POLLEN. 



" What is your method of freeing combs from an over- 

 abundance of pollen ?" 



Mr. Gemmill — Spray them with a fine spray, then 

 throw out the pollen with the extractor. 



DEAD BROOD — WIRING FOUNDATION. 



" Dead brood in the hive a few days after casting a 

 swarm. What is the cause ? The result ?" 



Mr. Dickenson — This may be caused by turning the 

 parent hive around too often, and so depleting it of bees 

 for the sake of the swarm. 



" Is it advisable to wire foundation ?" 



Mr. Miller — Yes, it enables me to use section foundation 

 in shallow frames. 



Mr. McEvoy uses seven vertical wires in the frame, 

 laced back and forth from staples in the top-bar and bot- 

 tom-bar. 



There was a division of opinion on the advantage or 

 disadvantage of wiring, some of Canada's most successful 

 bee-men being on either side of the question. 



HIVE-ENTRANCE FOR OUTDOOR WINTERING. 



" What size entrance do you prefer for outdoor winter- 

 ing ?" 



Mr. Miller — 'ixl'i inches. 



Mr. Holtermann — Whatever style of entrance we have, 

 the top packing must be porous enough to allow of upward 

 ventilation. If the change of air has to be accomplished by 

 the entrance alone, the bees must exert themselves to create 

 a draft, and this is not good. 



Mr. Sparling — The nature of the packing above has 

 much to do with good wintering. 



Mr. Armstrong could not see that it made any differ- 

 ence whether the top packing was tight or not. The en- 

 trance should be JsxS inches. 



Mr. John Fixter then read the following description of 

 experiments on the question, 



DO BEES INJURE SOUND FRUIT? 



During the summer of 1901 an experiment was started 

 when there was no surplus honey to be gathered from plants 

 outside, with ripe fruit of four different kinds— peaches, 

 pears, plums and grapes. These were exposed in different 

 places near the Experimental Farm Apiary, where it was 

 easily accessible to the bees. This experiment was con- 

 tinued during the season of 1902, with the addition of straw- 

 berries and raspberries. All fruit was placed in the same 

 position as in the experiment of 1901. 



On July 2, 1902, ripe fruit of four sorts of strawberries 

 was tried in each place— the Williams, Clyde, Buback and 

 Warfield — exposed in different places where it was easily 

 accessible to the bees : a. Inside the bee-hive ; b. On 

 branches of trees in the apiary enclosure ; c. On shelves in 

 a workshop, to which bees had access through an open win- 

 dow. Every care was taken that all the fruit used in this 

 experiment should be perfectly sound. 



Fruit exposed inside the bee-hives. The fruit was ex- 

 posed in three different conditions : 1, Whole fruit without 

 any treatment ; 2, Whole fruit that had been dipped in 

 honey ; 3, Fruit that had been punctured in different places 

 with the blade of a pen-knife. 



Four colonies were selected for the experiment, all of 

 about equal strength. Each of these colonies was in a hive 

 upon which was placed a super divided in the middle by a 

 partition. In each one of the four hives the whole speci- 

 mens, of fruit not dipped in honey, were placed within three 

 empty frames, tied together as a rack ; in the brood-cham- 

 ber, the whole specimens of fruit dipped in honey were 

 placed in one compartment of the super, and the punctured 

 specimens were placed in the other. The bees began to 

 work at once, both upon the dipped and the punctured fruit, 

 and kept continually on it as long as any liquid could be 

 obtained. They also clustered thickly on the whole sound 

 fruit, but did not appear to be getting, or even trying to 

 secure, any substance from the berries. 



Fruit exposed on the shelves in a workshop the bees did 

 not visit at all, nor on branches of the trees in the apiary ; 

 in the two latter places the fruit appeared to dry up and 

 mold. In the hives all fruit decayed more quickly from the 

 extra heat from the bees ; this experiment was tried but one 

 week. 



July 29, experiment with four varieties of raspberries— 

 the red, purple, very light-colored, and the black-caps. 



Each box contained some of each sort. They were placed 

 in hives in exactly the same position as the strawberries. 

 At this date there was considerable honey coming in. The 

 bees did not touch any of the fruit in the hive, super, trees, 

 nor in the house-apiary. On July 31, half of each sort of 

 berries that were sound were cut in halves to see if they 

 would attack the fruit, but they did not touch any of them. 

 All the sorts in the hives decayed much sooner than the 

 fruit exposed. That exposed to the air dried up consider- 

 ably and molded. 



A second test has been made with peaches, pears, 

 plums, and grapes, with practically the same results. The 

 bees actually starved where separated from fruit-juice only 

 by the skin of the fruit. John FixTER. 



COMB FOUNDATION EXPERIMENTS. 



Mr. Fixter also reported some experiments with foun- 

 dation from the results of which he recommended hiving 

 swarms on combs or full sheets of foundation. He also 

 recommended alternating combs with foundation to get the 

 latter drawn out. 



Mr. Evans thought it not desirable to put foundation 

 between combs in the super. The combs will be bulged, 

 and the foundation will only be slightly drawn out. When 

 you come to extracting you will have thin, tender combs 

 which you can scarcely extract. 



Morley Pettit — This will not happen if the foundation 

 is alternated with frames of brood ; but the best place to 

 have combs built is in the super. The bees will there build 

 the combs fast to the bottom-bar much better than in the 

 brood-chamber. In order to avoid the bulging mentioned 

 we have what we call a " foundation separator " to place 

 between the comb and the foundation. This helps sustain 

 the weight of the bees and relieves the foundation of that 

 sagging influence, and causes them to build full, even 

 combs. 



Mr. Sibbald — I consider hiving swarms on combs a 

 waste of combs — a bad thing ; hiving on foundation is half 

 bad ; on starters is just right. We want all the combs we 

 can get for the extracting-supers. Give a swarm a hive 

 full of combs, and the queen will soon fill them with brood. 

 Now, if you have a short honey-flow you have a lot of use- 

 less bees hatching out just at the close of the honey-flow. 

 We don't mind drones — the workers will kill them off. 



Other members were skeptical about the economy of 

 the last statement. 



Mr. Chrysler — If we hived swarms on combs for comb 

 honey they would store honey below instead of in the sec- 

 tions, and then swarm. 



Mr. Sibbald— The parent colony has good combs and a 

 young queen. If you do not wish increase, the swarm can 

 be returned at the close of the honey season, and the poor 

 combs melted up. 



Mr. Pettit — If the swarm is hived on about six starters, 

 and the rest of the hive filled up with dummies, ?. large per- 

 centage of these starters will be built into good worker- 

 combs. The rest make good extracting-combs, and are all 

 the better for having been bred in once — they are stronger, 

 and less liable to break in the extractor or in cold weather. 



Mr. Sibbald — If I hived my swarms on six starters they 

 would not stay. 



Mr. Pettit — Very well, then ; hive on a full set of 

 starters, and in a couple of days remove what starters they 

 have not begun work upon, and put dummies in their place. 



Mr. Newton and others indorsed Mr. Pettit's view, but 

 Mr. Sibbald did not consider this a "short cut." 



Mr, Sparling — In a few weeks you can replace the dum- 

 mies with combs. 



Mr. Sibbald is not particularly anxious for worker- 

 combs. These combs are tougher for having been bred in 

 once. 



Mr. Miller — They should be washed before using. 



Mr. Dickenson — After the first extracting I can see no 

 difference in them. 



(Continued next week.) 



Why Not Help a Little— both your neighbor bee-keep- 

 ers and the old American Bee Journal — by sending to us the 

 names and addresses of such as you may know do not now 

 get this journal ? We will be glad to send them sample 

 copies, so that they may become acquainted with the paper, 

 and subscribe for it, thus putting themselves in the line of 

 success with bees. Perhaps you can get them to subscribe, 

 send in their dollars, and secure for your trouble some of 

 the premiums we are constantly offering as rewards, for 

 such effort. 



