1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAIU 



691 



at the special request of the editor of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal, otherwise it would not have been written, for I loathe to 

 carry on what is popularly termed as " ax-grinding." With 

 this explanation I will take up the subject. 



As everybody knows, there are three main advantages 

 claimed for the use of full sheets of foundation, viz : 1st, 

 securing straight combs ; 2nd, securing worker-combs; 3rd, 

 saving the cost of the comb to the bees. Mr. Deacon makes 

 light of the first of these advantages, holding that starters 

 made by running molten wax along the upper bars of the 

 frames will insure quite sufficiently straight combs. I will 

 make bold to venture the assertion that Mr. D. has but little 

 experience in the matter, or he would not make so sweeping 

 an assertion. We introduced the practice of making a starter 

 of molten wax on the frames in this country, and readers of 

 the American Bee .Journal, who have its volumes for 30 years 

 past, can ascertain that we advertised and sold what we called 

 the comb-guide press in 1870-74 to make these guides. The 

 use of this press is certainly a help, but it is far from succeed- 

 ing in every instance, and as it makes a very shallow guide it 

 is not unusual for the bees to deviate from it after carrying 

 the comb down a couple of inches and fastening the end of it 

 to the edge of the next side bar, thus uniting two frames. 



Even with the use of comb foundation in narrow strips — I 

 will appeal to the memory of any reader who has had much 

 experience — does it not often happen that the combs are thus 

 warpt by the bees and so joined together that they have to be 

 cutjapart? Before we used sheets of foundation, we were 

 accustomed to carry with us to the apiary a wash-pan and a 

 towel, as in handling the combs we would often cause honey 

 to run and get our fingers in it. We have no longer any such 

 trouble, and when the foundation is put in correctly the combs 

 are at all times as straight as a board. This is of more im- 

 portance than a beginner would think, for the breaking of 

 combs causes leakage, which in turn causes robbing among 

 the colonies, and delays the apiarist, besides risking the safety 

 of the colony. 



Mr. Deacon further takes issue with the fact that the 

 foundation saves a great deal of expense to the bees. He says 

 that "careful experiments have conclusively demonstrated 

 that it takes less than six pounds of honey to make one pound 

 of comb." Pray, who made those careful experiments ? Have 

 we had more careful and more accurate experimenters than 

 Dumas, Milne-Edwards, and Berlepsch? These men spent 

 lives in making tests and experiments. Of late years, Vlallon 

 and others made experiments on combs built by swarms, but 

 in every instance they failed to take into account the greater 

 amount of honey consumed by a colony that could breed at 

 once in built combs, as compared with the colony that had to 

 build its combs, and this Increase of population surely is of 

 great value to the bee-keeper at the time when foundation is 

 usually f urnisht — at the opening of the honey crop. 



All these experiments, when carefully examined, show 

 that It takes from 7 to 1.5 pounds of honey to produce one 

 pound of comb in the very best circumstances. Neither is 

 this to be wondered at when we reflect that to produce wax 

 the bees have to digest the honey, and it is quite probable 

 that there is as much difference in the quantity of honey con- 

 sumed under different circumstances to produce wax as there 

 Is in the quantity of grain consumed by stock, under different 

 conditions, to produce fat. The majority of practical bee- 

 keepers in this country are evidently of that opinion, and to 

 see the persistency with which they continue to spend their 

 money for this article (foundation) in large lots for large api- 

 aries, one would come to the conclusion that the assertions in 

 favor of it cannot be altogether what Mr. Deacon so elegantly 

 calls "rot, ridiculous nonsense, rubbish, or ridiculously erro- 

 neous opinions." 



I do not know what experience the bee-keepers of South 



Africa, like Mr. Deacon, have in the bee-line, but I do know 

 that the American bee-keeper does not usually foolishly 

 throw his money away. The average American is about as 

 practical a man as can be found on the face of the earth. 



Mr. Deacon makes too many assertions that have no foun- 

 dation, for me to take the time to answer them all. There is 

 too much guess in his article. He says the secretion of wax 

 must go on in the hive, and the scales are wasted when foun- 

 dation is used. This is not so, as there is always a necessity 

 of wax for lengthening the comb and for sealing. 



He says the use of foundation causes no saving in time, 

 and he wants us to try two colonies side by side— one with 

 starters, the other with full sheets. Why doesn't he make the 

 test himself? This has been tried by thousands in this coun- 

 try, and they have come to the conclusion that they want the 

 foundation. That is why so many hundreds of thousands of 

 pounds are sold in America. 



Mr. Deacon says bee-keepers "foolishly imagine" that 

 the bees can draw out the foundation, and then goes on to ex- 

 plain that this " silly and most unreasonable belief " is all a 

 mistake. Evidently, Mr. Deacon is speaking of that which 

 he does not know. Any little boy who has seen foundation 

 put into a hive, and taken out again after the bees have workt 

 upon it, has seen that the looks of it are changed ; that its 

 base and sidewalls are thinner, very perceptibly so, and altho 

 they do add some of their own wax, it is certain, and cannot 

 be disproven, that they do make the greater part of the comb 

 out of the wax that is thus f urnisht them. 



Now for the opinion of Mr. Simmins, for whom I have 

 great regard, and whom the gentleman quotes. Mr. Simmins 

 says there is no advantage in high sidewalls, and he finds 

 them all scraped off. I beg pardon, but the foundation Mr. 

 Simmins used was surely not of the proper kind, as we have 

 never seen this, and I doubt whether a single man can be 

 found in this country who will assert such a thing. The bees 

 do not scrape off the sidewalls, if they can use the foundation 

 at all, but, on the contrary, they remodel them and use the 

 wax in them to deepen the cell, Mr. Deacon to the contrary 

 notwithstanding. We have tried foundation without side- 

 walls at all, and it has not proven satisfactory. 



Mr. Deacon admits that the use of foundation does away 

 with the rearing of so many drones, but he makes light of it. 

 And yet if foundation is properly hung in the hive so that it 

 will not sag, the use of one sheet in place of a sheet of drone- 

 comb will pay for that sheet, nay, for the entire supply of that 

 hive in one season. 



To conclude, I will advise Mr. Deacon, instead of " strain- 

 ing at gnats and swallowing whole caravans of camels," as he 

 says, to make some thorough experiments, and stop writing 

 till then, for it does not do him any good to try to contradict 

 the experience of thousands of his brother bee-keepers. 



Hancock Co., III. 



California Notes and Comments. 



Br PROF. A. J. COOK. 



The Scent of Insects is astonishing. A female moth 

 in a room has attracted scores of males through a slight space 

 in the window, and evendown a chimney and through a stove- 

 pipe and stove. In one case a female in a room attracted a 

 flock of males to the outside of the room, altho the windows 

 were shut. Yet to us there is no perceptible scent at all. 



Discouraging Prices. — The honey-production in Califor- 

 nia this season is very large, but the prices are discouraging. 

 Think of 3>i cents for the finest extracted honey ! 



Value of Bees to Fruit. — There are very few com- 

 plaints now about the injury bees do to fruit in Southern 



