17-i 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Feb., 



try his plan a little at least ; and should they 

 prove so, we will try and bear it. And we now 

 tender our sincere thanks to Mr. Price and all 

 others who are laboring for our Journal disin- 

 terestedly. 



Mr. Alley's and Mr. Hubbard's generous offers 

 make us feel as if we would like to give some- 

 thing too ; but on this same principle, that we 

 could not kill our queens, we could not bear to 

 give them away, nor sell them. So we shall have 

 to content ourselves with directing every one 

 who comes to us for information to the old stan- 

 dard Bee Journal, and so, Mr. Editor, we enclose 

 in this a few, a very few, two dollar bills and 

 names to correspond therewith. If we succeed 

 in making our bees do as well in 1^71 as we did 

 in 1870. people about here will begin to think it 

 is a certain thing, and that more of them can 

 risk two dollars each. 



Mr. Editor, will you please to say to any who 

 wonder why Novice does not answer their in- 

 quiries that he is obliged to write these articles 

 after ten o'clock at night, and many of these in- 

 quiries would require a longer article than this 

 to answer them fully. 



Now, we too have a brilliant conception which 

 we are going to throw out freely, without charge, 

 to a discriminating bee-keeping public. It is so 

 near twelve o'clock that we will simply give the 

 ideas in their crude state. Those beekeepers who 

 contemplate making maple sugar syrup should 

 simply distribute their beehives, instead of tap 

 pails, about among the sugar maples, with spiles 

 arranged so tha,t the sap drops into a "Novice 

 Bee-feeder" in the upper part of the hive ; and at 

 the end of the season go around with the mel- 

 extractor and gather in honey, which can be 

 labeled '-Maple Tree Honey." To any person 

 sending us one jar of such honey (post paid ) we 

 will return deed of individual right, etc. to the 

 above process. Be very careful to direct care- 

 fully and plainly to Novice. 



[For the American Bee Jouraal.] 



Artificial Combs. 



" If thou hast a truth to utter, speak, and 

 leave the rest to God." 



To j^et at facts we must admit free discussion. 

 Facts are more important than favors. To reach 

 the exact value, we must compare, add, subtract, 

 till the actual result appears. 



Whoever brings before the public a new article 

 of manufacture must expect and ought to solicit 

 criticism, till all the points are broui^ht out, in- 

 dependent of theory. To oppose this, would 

 seem to argue a want of confidence in the merits 

 of a thing. 



I am pleased with Mr. Bickford's remarks on 

 page 147 of the Bee Joui-nal, relative to Mr. 

 Wagner's foundation for combs, as ihey call out 

 whatever experience may have been had on the 

 subject. 



Twenty-five or more years since I inquired of 

 a bee-keeper how he managed to get the combs 



straight in his boxes, without guide combs. 

 They were scarce with me that summer. He 

 told me that if a line of melted beeswax was 

 drawn across the top of the box, the bees would 

 follow exactly every line. They failed to do so. 

 I applied to a young mechanic to aid me in 

 making a foundation of wax, to serve as a guide 

 and a beginning for combs, when stuck in the 

 top of my surplus boxes. The result proved a 

 small sheet— rather too thick, I think, for surplus 

 boxes— probably like Mr. Wagner's, perhaps not 

 quite so neatly made. It was accepted by the 

 bees, and they finished cells on them. Not 

 dreaming that I had anything of importance, 

 nothing further was done, or thought of till after 

 186), when a Mr. Steele — I think — visited me 

 from Jersey city, N. J , with some specimens of 

 foundations, about two inches square, requesting 

 me to try them. I thought them too small to be 

 of any account, and told him if he would furnish 

 me with sheets six inches square to fill a hive, I 

 would use them and report. I knew by my first 

 experiment that dies for a large sheet could be 

 cheaply made. A few days after his return 

 home, I received a package of fifteen sheets, six 

 inches square. The Langstroth frames tliat I 

 was then using were 11 by 18, and a hive held 

 eight. I suspended three of these sheets in the 

 top of a frame, using five such frames ; the other 

 three being empty. The hive was arranged for 

 the swarm, by putting the five furnished frames 

 in the middle, two empty ones on one side, and 

 one on the other. A medium sized swarm was 

 introduced, with queen's wing clipped to prevent 

 it leaving — it was swarming season. Instead of 

 commencing labor on the foundations, whei'e it 

 would seem almost compulsory ; they took the 

 two empty frames, next the side of the hive, and 

 filled them first. The empty frame from the 

 other side was then put with these two, and was 

 also filled before a cell was built on those foun- 

 dations. The bees now needed more cells, and 

 made them on the lower edge of the foundation 

 first, and then gradually worked upward, making 

 cells as marked by the dies. This experiment 

 proves* that when left to the bees, they prefer 

 to make their own foundations, even in a very 

 cramped position, when they had only four or 

 five inches above the bottom of the hive. And 

 that they only used them when they could build 

 in no other available spot. More than half the 

 slieets were left untouched. They were never 

 offered to the bees afterwards. Was I right in 

 considering them unprofitable ? I did not con- 

 sider it necessary to report this, as no one seemed 

 much interested in the experiment. I presumed 

 it had been tried by others, with similar resvilts, 

 else why have we heard so little of it since? I 

 should not have alluded to it now, had not Mr. 

 Bickford's article been calculated to raise hopes 



*The experiment proves just nothing, except that it failed 

 under Mr Quinby's manipulations. Mr. Q. does not seem to be 

 aware that for success in such a case, you must not only have 

 a ijood implement, but also know just hnw, and where^ and 

 when to u«e it. The most expert sempstress would make 

 small headway in stitching with the best sewing machine, 

 unless instructed how to use it ; and the electric telegraph 

 itself would prove to be a miserable failure lu the bauds of aa 

 untaught Indian. — Ed. 



