136 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



May 



celled foundation. In fact the value 

 of drawn comb is, I believe, the moth- 

 er of the invention. It gives promise 

 of being a good thing for bee keepers, 

 notwithstanding some "progressive" 

 bee keepers prophesy dire results will 

 follow its use, and are loud in their 

 cries of fraud, adulteration, etc. The 

 most reasonable objection yet put 

 forth is that the " fiih bone," ever re- 

 sulting from the use of foundation, 

 will be heavier and the comb drawn 

 from it will l)e less friable, but 

 tests made by some of our best bee 

 keepers, covering a wide range of ter- 

 ritory, as well as by the Roots them- 

 selves, seem to prove this fear ground- 

 less. It would be well to suspend our 

 judgment a while yet. It has been 

 said that the triumphant march of the 

 inventor and discoverer must be made 

 up hill. True progress has ever been 

 retarded by well meaning but .nis- 

 guided hands. 



G. M. Doolittle tells in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal how to destroy wax 

 moths and worms in comb honey. He 

 says, "My way is as follows : take an 

 old iron kettle of suitable size and put 

 some ashes in the bottom of it so that 

 there will be no danger of fire result- 

 ing from the heat from the coals which 

 are to be placed therein. When I have 

 the kettle thus prepared I take it to 

 the room where the honey is kept and 

 pour sulphur over the coals (the sul- 

 phur having previously been weighed) 

 to the amount of one-fourth of a pound 

 to every 75 cubic feet contained in 

 the room, v/hen the kettle is quickly 

 pushed under the pile of haney (it 

 having been piled a little off the floor 

 for the purpose) and the room closed, 

 I even look at the windows (two of 



which should be provided for ventila- 

 tion in any honey room) to which any 

 bee or fly which may chance to be in 

 the room will come, hoping to escape 

 their doom. As soon as the last of 

 these are lifeless I take out my watch 

 and after the lapse of five minutes I 

 open the windows so as to carry off 

 the fumes as soon as possible." This 

 is a very valuable thing to know, and 

 as it is out of season for its use now, 

 it would be well to lay this away, 

 where you can get at it when you 

 need it. 



For the sake of convenience it is 

 better to have our hives placed on low 

 stands near the ground, but one draw- 

 back to low hive stands is the great 

 amount of bees that will be "gobbled" 

 up by the toads. At this season of the 

 year bees are precious and not a single 

 one to spare for toad feed. I mitigate 

 this nuisance with a paddle made of 

 a piece of board like we boys used at 

 school to play " paddle ball " with. I 

 use his toadship about as we used to 

 the ball. No doubt some will think 

 this is cruel and wicked, as toads are 

 useful for catching flies, bugs, etc., but 

 I assure you that a toad that has once 

 learned to gather his living off the 

 alighting board of a bee hive will 

 never again be much of a fly catching 

 toad. A little watching for a few 

 evenings will make toads a scarce 

 article. 



Franklin, Pa. 



We have just gotten out a 16-page 

 pamphlet entitled "Successful Bee 

 Keeping,'" by W. Z. Hutchinson. It 

 is well written and instructive, and is 

 especially intended for those who are 

 not very far advanced in bee keep- 

 ing. We will send a copy postpaid 

 for Gc in stamps. 



