60 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Progress in Bee-Culture. 



READ BEFORK THE MICH. B. K. ASSOCI- 

 ATION, DEC. 21, 1876. 



I have been watching friend Heddon's 

 course for the past year with a good deal of 

 interest, and as I have lieacd notiiing of him 

 lately, and everybody seems to be against 

 him, I hope he has not been "bull-dozed" 

 off the track; as I think he took a very 

 proper "departure"; though perhaps he 

 made a stronger case than many of us are 

 willing to accept, and perhaps stronger 

 than he means to accept himself. To make 

 a cause in that direction, it is necessary to 

 make it strong enough to arrest attention; 

 l)ut when he says that we are shifting 

 pretty much the whole load from the bees 

 on to our own shoulders, I feel like endors- 

 ing every word. Why, some even go so far 

 as to say that tiiey want to make the combs 

 for the poor innocent bees; yes, and the 

 honey, too. What will the poor bees do? 

 (xet lazy, of course, and die with gout and 

 rheumatism and forty other diseases that 

 their lazy owners are already subject to I 



But look at it from a standpoint of dollars 

 and cents, if you please. Mr. Doolittle says 

 that the natural comb can be made for 50 

 cts. per ft., and I think so too; that is for 

 an apiarist to make all the white comb he 

 needs to use in his own apiary for box 

 honey; I don't think he could make it by 

 the quantity at that price. There are many 

 times in the season, when we can get comb 

 built without costing a cent: only to put in 

 and take out the frame. For instance, last 

 spring, in May, when the hard nuiples were 

 in bloom, 1 put an empty frame in each of 

 ray strong stocks, and they built a Langs- 

 troth frame full of drone comb within a 

 week, and followed with eggs; there was 

 hardly a drop of honey in any of it, and as 

 stocks were all strong at that time, except 

 one or two. it gave me a quantity of comb 

 to start with. By a little management 

 through the season", all the necessary comb 

 can be made without lessening the crop of 

 box-honey a particle. 



As there are about twice as many square 

 feet in a lb. of natural comb, as in a lb. of 

 artificial, it reduces the value of artificial to 

 25 cts. per lb., as compared with the natural. 

 The natural comb has tiie cells already 

 drawn out, and as the bees can deposit 

 honey in the cells at once, they will com- 

 mence work on them at once, thereby sav- 

 ing valuable time in the height of the sea- 

 son; which reduces the value of the 

 artificial comb one-half, or again makes it 

 worth only about 10 or 12c. per lb., as com- 

 ]>ared with the natural at 50c. 



This calculation is based upon the sup- 

 position that the artificial comb foundation 

 is just as good for the consumer as the 

 natural, which no good judge of comb 

 honey is willing to admit; hence when the 

 facts are all in, there is no difficulty in 

 sliowing that the artificial comb foundation 

 Is an actual damage, in the surplus depart- 

 ment; or in other words, if tlie apiarian 

 should have the artificial comb fomidation 

 furnished him for nothing, he would make 

 money to melt it up and sell the wax, and 

 use natural comb in place of it. 



As to the actual damage that the arti- 

 ficial combs are to the apiarian, in the 

 brood chamber. Mr. Burch is more compe- 

 tent to judge. I would ask: " What did the 



Almighty create bees for. if not to make 

 comb?" If you are going to compete with 

 the bees in making comb, you will want to 

 import Chinese cheap labor, get machines 

 furnished for nothing, and the wax tlirown 

 in, and then the bees will leave you behind. 

 When my bees get so lazy that they can't 

 make their own comi), 1 will brimsto'ne the 

 whole lot. and turn my attention to another 

 business. 



Of all the humbugs that have been im- 

 posed on the bee-keepers of this continent 

 in times past, I consider artificial comb, 

 fraught with more danger, and damage to 

 the interests of bee-culture, than all the 

 others combined; as it strikes a vital point, 

 that of vitiating comb honey in our mar- 

 kets. In many cities, it is now impossible 

 to sell pure extracted honey, to any extent, 

 as consumers discovered that there was an 

 artificial product in the market, put up in 

 that form; and being incitnipetent to judge, 

 they reject all of that chiss cif goods. Now, 

 when they find that comb honey has been 

 tampered witli, they will refuse to buy at all. 

 As to going back to box hives and black 

 bees, it is a question for serious consider- 

 ation, whether some of our liest apiarists 

 will not be doing that before long. It seems 

 to me as though I was gravitating in that 

 direction every year. I do but very little 

 handling of brood comb now, to what I did 

 formerly; and when we learn to control the 

 swarming impulse, which I have no doubt 

 i we will eventually, either by breeding that 

 i instinct out of the race, or in sonic other 

 j way, then perhaps we can get along with 

 very little handling; perhaps the box hive 

 I should be improved by putting in bars to 

 facilitate the weeding out of drone comb, 

 I till we get the hive filled with worker comb, 

 then let them become a fixture. In case of 

 queenlessness (which is a rare occurrence, 

 when we quit handling our bees) and the 

 hive becomes too full of honey, drive out 

 the bees and drive in a good, strong active 

 stock, and let them carry up the honey into 

 the boxes. In case of too much honey in the 

 hives in the fall (which will never happen 

 with black bees in a projierly-constructed 

 hive and properly boxed) cut the ends of a 

 comb, in the centre, and draw it out with 

 the bar, leaving the space empty till spring. 

 Again, the idea of killing (ineens, three 

 years old, as advised my many leading bee 

 writers, is another liunil)ug of the first 

 water. Neighbor Baird and myself have 

 quit our killing of old uueens. If wc have 

 a queen whose worker progeny are not 

 good workers in boxes, she never lives to 

 get old, w(^ take off her head and try 

 another. When we have one whose pro- 

 geny are good workers, we never disturb 

 that queen. Such bees know enough to 

 supersede the old (lueeii in the course of the 

 season, without interfering with their busi- 

 ness in the least; and they will have a bet- 

 ter young queen there in the fall than any- 

 thing we can raise and put in. After 

 practising this plan for two years, we have 

 yet to record the first instance of disastrous 

 results to any stock from loss of old (pieen. 

 Here is the most important point of all: — 

 for the apiarist to invariably breed queens 

 that will produce good working bees. For 

 instance, if my 40 stocks last season all had 

 the same disl^iosition to work and store 

 honey, as 20 of the best, my average would 

 have "been .50 lbs. to the stock higher, mak- 

 ing a difference of 2,000 lbs. in the yield 



