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THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER, 



April 



use foundation in both the sections 

 and the brood frames during a good 

 flow of honey, we may be assured that 

 we are doing so at the entire loss of it 

 in one or the other place, for the bees 

 always secrete wax enough at such 

 times to furnish combs for either the 

 one or the other, and if not used must 

 be surely wasted ; the wasting of this 

 wax meaning the same as the wasting 

 of the same amount of foundation 

 and the time and trouble of putting 

 it in the frames or sections. Does any 

 one doubt this ? Let him look at the 

 bees during such times of plenty, and 

 he or she will doubt no longer. The 

 wax pockets have each a wax scale in 

 them which is plaiuly seen as the bees 

 hang on the limb of a tree or on our 

 swarming basket. 



In the past it has been my practice 

 often to hold swarms out on limbs of 

 trees from one to four hours, accord- 

 ing to different experiments I wished 

 to make, they beiug thus held by plac- 

 ing the queen in a cage with them. 

 They could not go off as long as the 

 queen was caged, for should they try 

 to do so they would return as soon as 

 they found the queen was not with 

 them. In all of these cases of holding 

 swarm*, when honey was coming in 

 from the fields, there would be little 

 lumps of wax all along on the under 

 side of the limb or swarmiug basket, 

 and where the swarm was held as long 

 as four hours, these lumps of wax 

 would begin to assume the form of 

 comb. If I hived such swarms in a 

 hive having both the hives and sec- 

 tions filled with comb, I would find 

 the bottom board to the hive well cov- 

 ered with wax scales the next rnorn- 

 iug, while the combs which I had 

 given would be all plastered over with 

 wax scales, partly or wholly welded 

 on here and there promiscuously on 

 the outer edges of the cells. On an 

 old black comb this is very noticable, 

 but with new white combs it is not so 

 plainly seen. Even bees in the field 



after honey, have wax scales on them 

 in times of plenty, as Prof. Cook tells 

 us about, and it seems folly to me to 

 use foundation in all parts of the hive 

 when the bees are all prepared to build 

 comb in this way. It is even worse 

 than folly, for the bees are not often 

 content to allow this wax to be wasted 

 by tumbling it to the bottom of the 

 hive, and so they use it on the combs 

 and foundation, making them twice as 

 thick and heavy as they should be to 

 be relished by the consumer of honey ; 

 hence the term " fish bone " was given 

 to the foundation in honey in former 

 years. 



Understand me: I do not say that 

 all foundation was formerly made as 

 thin as it should be, but I do say, 

 that the allowing of no space in which 

 the bees could build comb had con- 

 siderable to do with this state of affairs. 

 Instead of the bees drawing out the 

 foundation as it is expected they 

 would, they simply added their wax 

 to it by welding it to the side walls of 

 the foundation, using their own wax 

 for the cells from there out, entirely, 

 so that after a section was completed 

 this wax could be scraped off, when 

 we had the foundation as perfect as it 

 was when first placed in the sections. 

 I became so disgusted with this mat- 

 ter when I first used foundation that I 

 declared that I would never use any 

 more ; but after finding the way of 

 using empty brood frames when the 

 sections are filled with foundation, I 

 have taken back what I have said. 



I once took a piece of foundation 

 out of a filled section of honey, scrap- 

 ed the honey off, washed and dried it, 

 sent it to the maker, together with an 

 unused piece and asked him which 

 had been used and which had not. 

 He sent them back saying " I cannot 

 tell." From the above I now hive 

 colonies or swarms on frames having 

 only starters in them, where I fill the 

 sections with foundation, and use only 

 starters in the sections where I use 

 frames of comb or foundation in the 

 brood-chamber. — Doolittle in Review. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



