1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNALa 



579 



Then, there is another item against feeding back, which 

 Is that, from some reason or other, this fed-back honey is far 

 more likely to candy or become hard in the comb than is that 

 put in the comb at the time it is gathered from the field. 

 When first taken from the hive it looks very nice and attrac- 

 tive ; but when cool weather comes on in the fall it assumes a 

 dull, unattractive appearance, thus showing that the honey 

 has hardened in the cells ; while comb honey produced in the 

 ordinary way is still liquid, and will keep so for from one to 

 three months after the fed-back article has become almost 

 unsalable. 



COMBS OF HONEY FOR NEXT SEASON. 



Question. — I have on my hives about 200 combs, very 

 full of honey, which I wish to use for next year's increase. I 

 am at a loss to know what to do, so ask if it would be advis- 

 able to throw the honey out with the extractor and use the 

 empty combs, or would it be best to use the full combs of 

 honey ? I expect to make my increase by natural swarming. 



Answer. — If extracted honey brings a good price in your 

 market, and the honey in the 200 combs is of good quality, 

 then my advice would be to extract the honey and sell it ; for 

 the old saying, " A bird in hand is worth two in the bush," 

 is generally correct. 



If, on the other hand, extracted honey drags heavily, at a 

 price hardly above the cost of production, or the honey in the 

 combs is of a quality not fit for market, then I would store 

 the combs of honey away till spring (allowing the bees to pro- 

 tect them till there was no danger of damage from the larvse 

 of the wax-moth), when I would use these combs for building 

 up colonies in the spring, by exchanging them with the colo- 

 nies for combs that they might have which were empty, or 

 nearly so. In this way you will get this honey converted into 

 brood, which brood, when hatcht into bees, will store for you 

 large quantities of honey. If the colonies in the spring had 

 no need for this honey, then I would use the combs of honey 

 something as you propose, hiving new swarms on them. If 

 the combs are only from one-third to one-half full of honey, 

 then you may secure the best results by hiving your swarms 

 on the full number of frames, and putting the sections on at 

 the time of hiving. But if completely full from bottom to top, 

 it will be better to use only from four to six combs to the hive 

 when hiving the swarms ; for, if given a full hive of full 

 combs of honey, the bees may not carry much of the honey to 

 the sections, as they generally will do with the whole where 

 only a few are used. 



If the bees do not immediately start to carrying the honey 

 from these full combs, the result will be little or no honey in 

 the sections, and little brood and few bees in the hive in the 

 fall. But should the honey in the 200 combs be of inferior 

 quality, or of dark quality, or both, then the only thing to do 

 with it is to extract, or use it for spring seeding ; for if such 

 inferior honey is given at swarming time, more or less of it 

 will find its way into the sections, thus injuring the sale of 

 the honey, and giving yourself a bad reputation. — Gleanings. 



Comb Fouudatiou — Is Its Use Profitable? 



BY S. A. DEACON. 



A great deal has appeared from time to time in works and 

 journals devoted to bee-keeping, concerning the very great 

 advantage of using full sheets of foundation. Amongst other 

 claims so frequently urged in favor of its use, is "straightness 

 of combs." This, I contend, is no advantage proportionate to 

 its cost; starters, made by running molten wax along the 

 upper bars by means of damp strips of wood will insure quite 

 sufficiently straight combs, and can be done as easily and as 

 rapidly as. fixfiiy costly embost starters. The only advantage 

 I can see is the exclusion of drone-cells. 



When the supposition existed that it took 20 pounds of 



honey to form one pound of wax, the arguments In favor of its 

 use were slightly feasible, but careful experiments have con- 

 clusively demonstrated the fact that less than silt pounds of 

 honey are required to make one pound of comb. Experiments 

 have also shown that altho artificial comb is provided by the 

 bee-master, the secretion of wax still goes on, and that the 

 scales fall wastefully to the floor of the hive where they would 

 otherwise be used in the building of comb. 



Another great argument in favor of its use is, of course, 

 the saving of time. Is this as great as is generally assumed ? 

 Take two exactly strong colonies at the commencement of a 

 good honey-flow ; give the one ,'^-inch starters, and to the 

 other full sheets of foundation. Would there be any appre- 

 ciable difference in the time the hives would be furnisht with 

 completed combs ? And even should there be a slight saving 

 in time, would it it be proportionate to the extra cost? 



What is " foundation ?" It is by no means, as many sup- 

 pose, the equivalent of completed combs. It is, after all, 

 merely the septum or base ; yet how many thousands of bee- 

 keepers, who annually lay out large sums in the purchase of 

 foundation, are aware of this fact ? I, myself, deceived by 

 the misleading expressions one is always reading about — 

 " drawing o\U the foundation" — and " draivi7ig out the side- 

 walls" — have for years past foolishly imagined that the 

 "foundation " contained sufficient wax to perfect the comb, 

 and that the bees actually "drew out," or pulled out, or by 

 some unexplained means, extended the slightly-elevated walls 

 of wax into full-length cells ! Let any one who entertains 

 this silly and most unreasonable belief, take two sheets of 

 foundation of exactly equal weight, put one in a hive to be 

 " drawn out," and when so " drawn out " take it out, clear it 

 of all foreign matter, and weight it against the other. Now, 

 if the completed comb were formed by simply "drawing out" 

 the supposed extra sufficient wax around the base of the cells 

 (as we are led to believe to be the case), they should, of 

 course, both weigh precisely the same ; but I fancy those who 

 try this very simple experiment will be somewhat surprised at 

 finding that the additional wax necessarily contributed by the 

 bees to complete the comb has nearly doubled its weight, and 

 that all the apiarist had furnisht his bees with was the sep- 

 tum or base, and for which the bees, could they make them- 

 selves intelligible to their owner, would hardly thank him, so 

 little would it really have aided their labors. 



Before me lies the catalog of an English bee-appliance 

 manufacturer — a leading man in the trade — and, under 

 "Foundation," this is the ridiculous nonsense with which he 

 seeks to gull his readers : 



"All foundation made by me has the walls already started ; 

 the machine is so constructed that no pressure whatever is 

 placed upon the walls, consequently they remain soft and 

 plastic, ready for the bees to work out ; with this foundation 

 combs are built out in a few hours — 12 to 24 hours sooner 

 than with the ordinary foundation ! ! !" 



Did ever any one hsar such preposterous rot ? Did ever 

 an observant apiarist see bees "drawing out" or "pulling 

 out " these stumpy sidewalls, be they ever so plastic ? If so, 

 how do they do it ? In the first place, is it in their nature to 

 thus elongate the comb, and thus form cells, or are the walls 

 of the cells not built up by the laboriously adding together of 

 minute laminae of wax, even as a mason adds brick to brick in 

 the construction of a wall ? It is true, the particular maker 

 I quote avoids the common jargon about "drawing out," and 

 substitutes the somewhat less objectionable phrase, " working 

 out." However, one is led to infer that in buying foundation 

 one acquires all the material necessary for the construction of 

 perfect combs — whereas, all the buyer gets is the septum — or 

 really the " foundation ;" and as the bees have to manufac- 

 ture half the weight of the perfect comb themselves, is the 

 use of foundation, I ask, really as advantageous as it is popu- 

 larly supposed to be ? 



