Vol. XII 



Published Monthly by The W. T. Falconer Mfg. Co. 



MARCH 1902 



No. 3 



WINTER DREAMS. 



Deep lies the snott- on wood and _fieli/s. 



Gray stretches oz<er/u'ad tke,sky; 

 The streams, their lips 0/ laugliter 

 sealed^ 



In silence wander slowly by. 



Earth slumhers, and her drrains — ^uho 

 /i-nows 

 But they may sometimes be lih^' 

 ours? — 

 Lyrics of spring in winter s prose 



That sing 0/ buds and lea-'cs ana 

 Jlowers. 



Drea/ns of that day 7uhcn from the 

 south 



Comes April, as at first she came. 

 To hold the bare twig to her mouth 



.4nd blow it inte fragrant fame. 



— Frank Dempster Sherman in the 



Fehruarv Atlantii . 



FOUNDATION. 



now MUCH t^HAl.T- WE USE IX OVK SEC' 

 TIOXS? 



-H 



(By G. M. Doolittle.) 



0\V MUCH thin comb founda- 

 tion shall I use in the section 

 boxes this yearV" is a ques- 

 tion which often comes up to the bee- 

 keeper when he is preparing for the 

 coming honey season. And as the time 

 for preparing for next season is now 

 upon us, I thought that a few words 

 on this subpect might not be amiss. 

 How we answer this question will de- 



pend quite largely upon two things. 

 The first, and it seems to me the most 

 important is, have we the necessary 

 means to indulge in all the foundation 

 which will be needed to fill our sections, 

 without depriving ourselves or some of 

 the family of the necessities or com- 

 forts of life? If we have not. then my 

 way would be to use triangular start- 

 ers, the same having each of the three 

 sides about two inches long, in three- 

 fourths of the sections I was to use; 

 and when the season opens, put in start- 

 ers of white new comb, which it is al- 

 ways easy to find or procure during 

 fruit-bloom in almost any apiary, in the 

 remaining sections. 



To get the triangular starters, cut the 

 thin foundation into strips a little less 

 than two inches wide, then turn the 

 cutting knife at an angle across this 

 strip each cut, thus giving the desired 

 shaped piece. And to get the white 

 comb, remove a frame of honey from 

 each popidtnts colony, and put in a 

 frame having a foundation starter in it. 

 about half an inch wide, and every two 

 days remove what comb the bees may 

 have built in it. Cut this comb up in 

 the desired pieces and attach one to 

 the top of each section by drawing a 

 hot iron between it and the top of the 

 section, the section being bottom side 

 up, when by setting the piece of comb 

 down on the section wood at the same 

 time the iron is removed it will become 

 a fixture. I know of nothing which will 

 entice bees into sections so quickly as 

 will new comb of the same season's 

 building. In this way we are apt to 

 secure even a better yield of honey than 

 by any other plan, esnecially if the sec- 

 tions containing the starters of comb 



