520 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Aug. 16, 1900 



PUBLISHT WEEKLY BY 



GEORGE w. York & Company, 



115 Michigan Street, Chicago, III. 



[Entered at the Post-Office at Chicago as Second-Class Mall-Matter.] 



Dr. C. C. miller, 



" Questions and Answers.' 



DEPARTMENT EDITORS: 



E. E. HASTY, 

 * "The Afterthought." 



LEADING CONTRIBUTORS: 



G. M. DooLiTTLE, C. P. Dadant, Prof. A. J. Cook, 



F. A. Snell, R. C. Aikin, "Old Grimes." 



IMPORTANT NOTICES: 



The Subscription Price of this journal is $1.00 a vear, in the United States, 

 Canada, and Mexico; all other countries in the Postal Union, SO cents 

 a year extra for postage. Sample copy free. 



The Wrapper-Label Date of this paper indicates the end of the month to 

 which your subscription is paid. For instance, " DecOO" on your 

 label shows that it is paid to the end of December, 1900. 



Subscription Receipts.— We do not send a receipt for money sent us to pay 

 subscription, but change the date on your wrapper-label, which shows 

 you that the money has been received and duly credited. 



Advertising Rates will be given upon application. 



VOL. 40. 



AUGUST 16, 1900. 



NO. 33 



Note— The American Bee Journal adopts the Orthography of the follow- 

 ing Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philolog- 

 ical Association and the Philological Society of England: —Change 

 d" or "ed" final to "t" when so pronounced, except when the "e" af- 

 fects a preceding sound. Also some other changes are used. 



The National Convention This Month— don't forget 

 it. The dates are Aug. 28, 29 and 30. The place— Chicago. 



Apiary Experiments; by Prof. Clarence P. Gillette, 



being Bulletin 54 of the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 of the Agricultural College of Colorado, is a very interest- 

 ing pamphlet, for which this office is indebted to the cour- 

 tesy of the author. The problems discust in this pamphlet 

 relate mostly to comb foundation. Space is also given to 

 the advantages of separators, proportion of wax in comb 

 honey, and substitutes for pollen. The first question for 

 settlement was : 



DO BEBS USE WAX FROM ARTIFICIAL FOUNDATIONS TO EX- 

 TEND THE CELL-WALLS AND THE COMB MIDRIB ? 



Black foundation was made by mixing lamp-black with 

 the melted wax from which the foundation was made. 

 Starters an inch wide were given in .sections, and the bees 

 built down an inch or more below the starter before the 

 black entirely disappeared. Full sheets were given in sec- 

 tions, and the cell-walls were deep black at the bottom, 

 gradually becoming lighter until the color hardly showed 

 at the outer edge of the cell-wall. This proves clearly that 

 bees freely use the wax in the foundation in extending the 

 midrib, and also in drawing out the cell-walls, freshly 

 secreted wax being mixt with that furnisht in the founda- 

 tion. 



Then Prof. Gillette tackled this very practical and im- 

 portant question : 



IS THE WAX OF THE MIDRIB OF THE FOUNDATION USED IN 



COMB BUILDING, AND, IF SO, WILL IT BE CUT DOWN 



TO THE THINNESS OF THE MIDRIB IN 



NATURAL COMB ? 



Samples of foundation, of midribs of the same after 

 being workt by the bees, and also midribs of natural comb 

 were weighed, the weight of a square inch being taken in 

 grains. A square inch of midrib of natural worker-comb 

 weighed from 1.65 to 3.2 grains, showing that the bees are 

 by no means constant in their measurements. The average 

 of a number of specimens was 2.1 grains. "Very heavy 

 foundation gave a comb midrib weighing 5.90 grains more 

 to the square inch than the midrib of natural comb. Medium 

 brood foundation gave a midrib 3.08 grains heavier to the 

 square inch, or almost 2' 4 times the weight of natural mid- 

 rib. The lightest midribs were obtained by the use of ex- 

 tra-thin and thin super foundations, averaging but .85 to 

 .90 grains to the square inch more than natural midrib." 



While all midribs thicker than natural were thinned by 

 the bees, none of them were thinned to the natural weight. 

 Deep-cell foundation with very thin base, and with high 

 cell-walls, was actually made thicker by the bees, possibly 

 because some parts were so thin as to have perforations. 



Besides weighing the different samples, a large number 

 of measurements were taken by means of plaster casts. 

 The common range in thickness of the midrib in naturally- 

 built worker-comb was found to be between .0032 and .0064 

 of an inch, and in drone-comb between .0048 and .008 of an 

 inch. 



In natural comb, the upper part, near its attachment, 

 had a heavier midrib than the lower part. The midrib of 

 thin and extra-thin foundation was scarcely thinned at all 

 by the bees, and both were about alike, the difference in 

 weight between thin and extra-thin being mainly in the 

 incipient cell-walls. Measurements showed the same thing 

 that had been shown by weighing, that the midrib of heavy 

 foundation was thinned much, and that of light foundation 

 little. Unless the midrib was thicker than about .0068 of 

 an inch, the bees seemed to think it needed no thinning. 



Prof. Gillette next turned his attention to 



THE THICKNESS OF CELL-WALLS BUILT ON FOUNDATION. 



The natural cell-wall is much thinner than the midrib, 

 varying from .0018 to .0028 of an inch, the average being 

 not more than .0024. On heavy foundation the cell-walls 

 were thick for some distance from the midrib, none having 

 cell-walls so thin as the natural except thin and extra-thin 

 foundation, and the deep-cell foundation sent out by The 

 A. I. Root Co. in 1899. Of these, Prof. Gillette says : " I 

 was not able in many cases to detect by measurements that 

 the cell-walls on these foundations exceeded the average 

 thickness in natural comb." 



Taking three samples of comb each .9 of an inch thick, 

 it was found that natural drone-comb was distinctly heavier 

 than worker, and scarcely lighter than comb built on thin 

 super foundation. The natural worker took 5.40 square feet 

 to the pound, drone 4.32, and the comb on thin foundation 

 4.23. Of course, this involves the weight of both cell-wall 

 and midrib, but the cell-wall plays the more important part, 

 as it is estimated that in comb an inch thick the area of 

 cell-wall is about ten times that of the midrib. 



Bees seem to make heavier cell-walls when heavy foun- 

 dation is used, but extra-thin foundation produces much the 

 same result as thin, the principal difference being the less 

 amount of cell-wall in the extra-thin. To get anything 

 approximating natural comb, there must not be a large 

 amount of wax either in the base or cell-walls of foundation. 



Prof. Gillette's experiments do not agree with the be- 



