1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



685 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



WAX SECRETION. 



" I want to ask you a question or two, Mr. 

 Doolittle, regarding wax secretion. It is calcu- 

 lated that a ten-frame Langstroth hive requires 

 about 2 lbs. of wax to fill it with comb, is it 

 not.?" 



" I thinic that is about the estimate, and it is 

 not far out of the way. " 



" Then are you prepared to say that, when 

 swarms are building their own comb, and filling 

 the brood-chamber with brood and honey, oth- 

 er and similar swarms, which were supplied 

 with full sets of ready-made comb, would store a 

 surplus of 50 lbs. of honey ? " 



" I do not know that I fully understand what 

 you are after; but I judge that you think the es- 

 timate of the consumption of 25 lbs. of honey to 

 produce one pound of secreted wax is too high a 

 figure. " 



" Cut it down to 25 lbs. surplus from the 

 ready-made combs, as against nothing from those 

 that built their own comb: what do you say 

 now f " 



" The claim put forth by some that it takes 20 

 lbs. of honey to cause the bees to secrete a pound 

 of wax, and that the bees would gather 5 lbs. of 

 honey while they were manipulating the pound of 

 wax into comb, thus making an expenditure of 

 25 lbs. of honey for every pound of comb built 

 in the hive, I have always considered a fallacy." 



" Do you know upon what such calculation 

 was based ? " 



" Upon Ruber's experiments, I think." 



" Then Huber must have been a careless ex- 

 perimenter. " 



" I should hardly want to say that. I think 

 there is no question but that the experiments of 

 Huber, proving that it took 20 lbs. of honey to 

 produce one pound of clean (wax) comb were 

 correct, under the conditions by which they 

 were tried; but it must be remembered that bees 

 are thrown out of their normal conditions when 

 they are confined to their hives so that they may 

 receive no benefit from the fields ; and when not 

 in a normal condition there is no accounting for 

 what they will do. Most of our practical apia- 

 rists of the present time have been led to believe 

 that the real cost in honey to produce one pound 

 of clean comb, when the bees are in a normal 

 condition, is from 5 to 10 lbs. This being the 

 case, the true answer to your question would be 

 that you should secure from 10 to 20 lbs. of 

 honey extra from a swarm hived on a full set of 

 combs, in a Langstroth ten-frame hive." 



" Then that is as you believe .'• " 



" From my experience covering about forty 

 years, taking an average, this diflference is about 

 right." 



" Well, you and I can not agree. " 



" How is that ? " 



"There is an important part which has not as 

 yet been touched upon at all. " 



" To what do you allude ? " 



" To the fact that bees secrete wax during any 

 and every heavy flow of honey, whether the hives 

 have comb in them or not. Let me tell you 



some of my experience. I have been extracting 

 honey from a part of my colonies during the 

 past four years; and when honey was coming in 

 abundantly I have seen workers in extracting 

 colonies that were laden with great pellets of wax 

 scales sticking out on the under side of their ab- 

 domens. I have caught such bees, and with the 

 point of my knife have pulled off these pellets of 

 wax, piling the eight pellets together, when I had 

 enough coming from one single bee to build a 

 good part of one cell if not the whole of it." 



" But that wax was probably to use in length- 

 ening out the cells and capping the honey a sec- 

 ond time, after you had shaved off the cappings 

 and a part of the comb the time before, when ex- 

 tracting." 



" Possibly some of it might have been used in 

 that way. But I had not finished. At such 

 times I have seen wax used to plaster on the 

 front of the hive, to chink cracks, putting great 

 knots or knobs of it here and there, where there 

 seemed to be no purpose other than to get rid of 

 it in some way. Aren't the bees silly to eat 

 honey from which to make wax just to waste? If 

 the cost of wax is 5, 10, or 20 lbs. of honey, it 

 would seem to me the bees should know enough 

 to store that away for future use when they have 

 the combs all provided, rather than use honey to 

 secrete wax when there is no comb to build." 



" Then your idea is that the bees secrete wax 

 during a heavy flow of honey, and do this with- 

 out regard to whether there is any comb to be 

 built or not." 



" That is right. And I consider the filling of 

 a hive with foundation, of combs already built, 

 only a waste of the cost of the foundation, and 

 the time and trouble of using it." 



" And I think you are a little hasty in your 

 conclusions. Listen a minute. There is an ele- 

 ment which comes in right here that is well 

 worth considering. Swarms hived in full ten- 

 frame Langstroth hives, with empty frames, or 

 those having only starters in them, are almost 

 sure to put much of the wax you are talking 

 about into drone comb, especially if the queens 

 are not very vigorous; and this drone comb is 

 against the best usefulness of such colonies for 

 all time to come, so long as those combs are oc- 

 cupied by bees; and to do away with this drone- 

 comb nuisance, a few combs to insert when the 

 bees persist in building drone comb are a bo- 

 nanza, even if they cost 50 lbs. of honey to build 

 five of them. " 



" Why do you specify ^-x'f.^" 



" Listen to this: Hive your swarms on five 

 empty frames, having only starters in them, put- 

 ting, on a super of sections when hiving, and the 

 bees will build out the five combs nearly if not 

 quite all the worker size of cell, if their queen is 

 good for any thing. Now take out your divi- 

 sion-boards, or dummies, which have been used 

 thus far, and fill out the hive with five nicely 

 built worker combs, and you have things as they 

 should be, and something which will be a plea- 

 sure to you as long as you and those combs live 

 together." 



" But you don't think all the wax will be saved 

 in that way ? " 



" There will be no loss of wax when working 

 in this way provided you have the surplus ar- 

 rangement partly filled with comb foundation, as 



