IS'. 14 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



101 



to gi't right down to your question, 5()0() bees all 

 day will gather a pound of nectar, and that 

 " all day " may mean 13 or 14 hours. From clo- 

 ver the bees will be able to gather less than 

 half as much per day. Mr. E. E. Hasty figures 

 that from 3500 to 7000 bees can carry a single 

 pound of nectar. Averaging the number at 

 5000 it would seem that either there is a less 

 number of working bees or else they make only 

 a few trips to the fields. During basswood, bees 

 are generally loaded down. 



Now, who will tell us how many loads an 

 average bee. under an average flow of bass- 

 wood, will carry In a single day of 12 or 14 hours, 

 and who will straighten out our figures? 



THE CORRECT DISTANCE TO SPACE FRAMES. 



A RATHER STARTLING STATEMENT. 



By Major Shallard. 



There is a great diversity of opinion among 

 all sections of bee-keepers about this most im- 

 portant point. Each party seems to follow 

 some " rule of thumb," or else blindly follows 

 the lead of some other person. In America — 

 that home of progressive bee-keeping — we find 

 the bee-keepers spacing all the way from l^a 

 inches to 13-2 inches from center to center. The 

 frames used to be cut }i of an inch wide, but 

 now they range from that to 1}{, and from % to 

 a full inch thick. With the old X frames 

 SfTacedlJo inches from center to center, the 

 distance actually between the frames was -X 

 of an inch. The trouble then was, that the bees 

 would build these together with brace-combs. 

 To get over the brace-comb trouble, the Amer- 

 icans tried inch-thick top-bars; and some, 

 wishing to " go one better," made them also a 

 full inch wide. They claim that the deep wide 

 top-bar does away with burr-combs. I dispute 

 this point. I have had these frames in use for 

 the last seven years, and have thoroughly test- 

 ed them, with the result that, in my opinion, 

 the amount of space between the bars, and not 

 the thickness of them, controls burr-combs. 



Perhaps I can explain my position better 

 from another point of view. The depth of a 

 brood -cell is f^j of an inch. Two of these, back 

 to back, make a comb X of an inch thick. If 

 the cells are any thing over this depth, the 

 queen can not deposit eggs in them. The 

 width of the frame, and the distance they are 

 spaced apart, govern the depth of the cells; 

 therefore if you use a wide frame in the brood- 

 nest, either the queen can not use the cells, or 

 —what really does happen— the bees keep the 

 level of the cells below the level of the frames. 



To leave the subject of wide frames, and 

 come to the matter of spacing theK: If these 

 are spaced 1,'>(' from center to c(>nter, the comb 

 will be kept just level with the frames. If the 

 distance between the frames exceeds this, the 

 cells near the top-bar will be drawn out by just 

 that distance, and filled with honey, and the 

 space left between the surfaces of the comb — 

 not the frame — will be found to be just a little 

 more than ^^ inch. Does not this prove that, 

 according to the bees' ideas, that space is suffi- 

 cient? The space which contains brood below 

 these elongated cells will, of course, be greater; 

 but as the season goes on, and the queen goes 

 off laying, the honey-cells will be extended. 

 Here comes in the objection to wide spacing. 

 The brood-nest of the hive should be kept for 

 the brood only. The honey should go into the 

 top story. By wide spacing, a large percentage 

 of the honey is deposited in the brood-nest, and 

 it is always a growing amount. The bees get 

 the habit of depositing there, and by degrees 

 crowd the queen, so that she has not sufficient 

 room for egg-laying, and they get disinclined 

 to enter the top story at all. I have thorough- 

 ly tested this matter. I do not speak from 

 theory, as I have all my frames spaced 1}4 from 

 center to center. The combs are built on full 

 sheets of foundation, on wired frames. They 

 are exactly the thickness of the frames, and I 

 do not think any one can show a finer lot. 



I find here that I have missed a point which 

 I wished to ventilate. The bees always build 

 brace-combs if the space is more than a full 

 quarter of an inch: and by careful experi- 

 menting I have proved that, at that width, 

 they build least; in fact, they build scarcely 

 any at all. My section-crates have a slatted 

 bottom, and I do not use a queen-excluder for 

 sections of any sort. If I keep the bottom of 

 the crate a full quarter of an inch from the top 

 of the frames, I get scarcely any burr-combs, 

 and can lift the crate off clean. If the space 

 exceeds that mentioned, the burr-combs are 

 built freely, and I have a sticky mess when the 

 crate is taken off. If, on the contrary, the space 

 is less, the crate is stuck down with propolis. 



I have experimented largely in this matter, 

 and am fully satisfied that a full ^4 inch is the 

 proper bee-space, and that spacing and not 

 thick or wide top-bars is the secret of burr- 

 combs. 



Glenbrook, N. vS. W., Dec. 1. 



[With us. the wide and thick bars do pre- 

 vent, almost entirely, burr-combs but not in all 

 cases bn(cc-coml)s— those spurs of wax between 

 the bars— and this is confirmed by scores of bee- 

 keepers. Possibly your long seasons, warmer 

 climate, and locality, cause the difference in 

 results. About that spacing: If there are any 

 bee-keepers who make a practice of spacing all 

 their combs tolVi"ch from center to center, 

 we were not aware of it. The majority space 



