262 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



April 23, 1903. 



son ? In Wisconsin it costs the bee-keeper about 2S cents 

 per colony ; also my board for one or two meals, if I help 

 him. We save the wax, honey, hives, and bees, losing only 

 the brood at the time of treating. I take as my baggage a 

 latest improved wax-press, and it is freely used. Every 

 bee-keeper should have one. In an apiary I inspected the first 

 of July every colony was more or less diseased. I gave in- 

 structions what to do : the owner did as directed ; I returned 

 23 days later — hives full of combs and brood, and 48 finished 

 sections per hive. Basswood bloom. 



32. If there is no disease in our part of the country why 

 do we need any one to inspect our bees ? You do not know 

 the condition of your neighbors' bees — no, not so well as 

 your bees do. There is too much exchanging among bee- 

 keepers, and buying queens and other supplies from 

 strangers. 



33. Should every State have legislation on foul brood ? 

 Yes. If so, and the laws are enforced, the disease would 

 soon be gone. 



34. How can legislation be secured ? Very easily. All 

 join your State Association, and through that you can get 

 what you ask for. Of course, all such will belong to the 

 National Bee-Keepers' Association. 



A Member — Will bees that are diseased by foul brood 

 show more viciousness, and more easily attack a person that 

 raps on the hive ? 



Mr. France — No, sir, I think not ; if anything there will 

 be a tendency, I think, the other way. 

 (Coatiaued next week.) 



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Contributed Articles. ^ 



Emptying Unfinished Sections and Using 

 for Baits. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLB. 



I QUITE like that department of " Our Bee-Keeping Sis- 

 ters " in the American Bee Journal. It is all of it good 

 reading, very interesting, and a help to the men as well 

 as to the women. But there is a sentence on page 199 that 

 I cannot understand, and when I do not understadd a thing 

 I am almost sure to ask, "Why? " The sentence is this : 



" We want our sections all emptied in the fall, as we 

 use them for bait-sections, and would consider them spoiled 

 for that purpose if the honey was allowed to candy in them, 

 as it will be sure to do if left till spring." 



Now what I want to know is, U'/iy would Miss Wilson 

 consider bait-sections spoiled because honey had candied in 

 them ? Will she please tell us in her department, and then 

 we can all know of this matter ? 



With the exception of one year, I have always left my 

 partly filled sections till spring to be cleaned out, and if 

 they are spoiled for baits for this reason, I did not know it. 

 And the honey always candies in them to a greater or less 

 extent, the same as she hints at its doing in Illinois. 



One year I tried the "robbing" plan in the fall, and 

 supposed I followed the directions given for this job to a 'T, 

 but when I came to overhaul the supers I found fully one- 

 fourth of the combs in them so torn that they were practi- 

 cally spoiled as far as their being of any use for baits. I 

 then decided that I would follow my old plan of having them 

 cleaned in the spring ; and now Miss Wilson tells me they 

 will be spoiled if I do this. 



One of the reasons for my leaving them till spring is 

 that the bees are always sure to clean them, and that with- 

 out tearing the combs in them, by placing them over al- 

 most any colony of bees ; but if so placed in the fall they 

 will often fail to clean them, and so I have to remove them 

 partially cleaned when I come to prepare the bees for win- 

 ter. 



The second reason why I leave them for spring is, that 

 I can at this time feed any colony which may be short of 

 stores, and to do it in a way that will stimulate brood-rear- 

 ing to such an extent that I often gain more from the brood 

 thus reared (when turned into bees for the honey harvest) 

 than the honey would be worth for any other purpose. With 

 the fall " robbing " plan we cannot feed the colonies we 

 want to ; in fact the larger part of the honey thus fed is 

 gotten by just the colonies which do not need it at all. 



The way I do this spring feeding to have sections 

 cleaned out is to put a sheet of enameled cloth, the size of 

 the top of the hive, over the frames, and on this placed a 

 "bee-quilt," so that the enameled cloth will be kept warm, 

 and thus drops of water will not form on the outside, as it 

 will if only the enameled cloth is used, on cool nights. 



This enameled cloth has one of the front corners turned 

 up sp that a few bees can pass through at a time, and on 

 this is set a super of wide frames — to the number used when 

 full, lacking one — and these are spread about a bee-space 

 apart. On this super is set the super of part-filled sections, 

 the sealed part of which has the sealing broken with a wire 

 hair-brush, or by passing a table-knife flatwise over the 

 capping. This allows the honey which drips from the 

 broken cells to fall down on the wide frames, and then drip- 

 ping down through them and over them on to the enameled 

 cloth below, to an extent sufficient to rouse the bees to great 

 activity ; and the carrying of the honey causes them to feed 

 the queen, and she in turn lays lots of eggs, while the ex- 

 citement of the whole keeps the brood-chamber up to that 

 point of heat at which brood-rearing is carried on to the 

 best advantage. 



Opening hives a week after they have been so treated, 

 I have found them with more than doubled brood, and 

 thought I was doing a nice thing in this way. But Miss 

 Wilson says not. 



The combs are left on till I want them for use, when 

 this super of cleaned sections is raised up (as we do in tak- 

 ing off filled supers), a bee-escape board slipped under, and 

 the next day or two the whole is taken off free from bees ; 

 and, so far as I can see, in perfect condition in every way. 

 And why should this not be so ? Why are they not cleaned 

 as perfectly as by the fall robbing plan ? Allow me to ask 

 Miss Wilson if she has tried bait-sections cleaned in the fall 

 and those cleaned in the spring, side by side in the supers 

 during the next honey harvest? If so, could you detect any 

 difference between those cleaned in the fall and those 

 cleaned in the spring, after both were filled with new honey ? 

 I have tried this, and I could not detect the least particle of 

 difference in any way, shape or manner. 



Can't the bees clean sections or the cells of the honey- 

 comb as clean in the spring as in the fall ? They always 

 do, so far as I know. Can't they clean them clean and free 

 from honey, whether candied or otherwise, in the spring, 

 summer, or fall ? I know it has been claimed that all the 

 candied honey is not cleaned out, and hence the new honey 

 in spring-cleaned sections is tainted by the old candied 

 honey, and thus the new is made to candy in the combs. 

 But all of my experience goes to prove that such claim is a 

 fallacy ? 



Did Miss Wilson say what she did, from a belief in this 

 old assertion, taking it for granted that it was true 7 or has 

 she other reasons for the sentence quoted ? If other reasons 

 the whole bee-fraternity stands " agape " for those reasons. 



I consider this thought, that no section should be used 

 after honey has candied in the cells of the comb therein, as 

 a relic of the past, when it was asserted by some that the 

 whole section once having been worked in by the bees so as 

 to store it partly full, was fit for nothing hence forward but 

 to melt up the comb and make fire-wood of the wood part. 

 I fought such advocacy of waste, at the time, as did others, 

 and supposed the whole idea had been dropped, till I noted 

 that sentence from the pen of Miss Wilson. 



Now if spring-cleaned sections are just as good as those 

 cleaned in the fall, bee-keepers want to know it. From my 

 own experience, by testing the two side by side several dif- 

 ferent times, / say they are. What substantial proof can 

 be given saying they are not ? It is not sufficient to say we 

 have known honey to candy in them. So have I known it 

 to candy in newly-built combs, and those fall-cleaned, and 

 in some seasons quicker than in others. But I have never 

 known of it candying any quicker in the sections which 

 were cleaned in the spring than in those cleaned in the fall. 

 If the spring-cleaned are just as good, there is much advan- 

 tage in leaving the part-filled sections to be cleaned at that 

 time, as all bee-keepers will readily see without my taking 

 time to enumerate the advantages here more than I have 

 done in the above. 



There was a time when it was said that comb founda- 

 tion in sections was of little advantage unless it could be 

 put in the same righf fresh from the mill, and immediately 

 on the hives. This I fought also, and proved by testing the 

 fresh and that four years old, side by side, that the bees ac- 

 cepted one as quickly and as readily as the other ; and every- 

 body now purchases foundation at any time of the year 

 when most convenient, which is a help to them and the 

 manufacturers, much above what it would have been to 



