1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



379 



next tier of hives, and so on as high as you 

 ■choose to pile them. This is for open-bottom 

 hives. I should be at a loss to know how to se- 

 -cnre the needed ventilation in a fixed-bottom 

 hive. The cellar needs but little ventilation- 

 very little, so long as the proijer temperature 

 ■ can be maintained. 



Ohio. N. W. H. R. Boahdman. 



I use the same rim mentioned in answer 180 — 

 M) cubic inches of air space, but with generous 

 ventilators upon the sides, covered with wire 

 cloth: a slot on each side 1x12 inches: the en- 

 trance is left open full size. I do not pay so 

 much attention to cellar ventilation as former- 

 ly. I think the ordinary cellar will have plenty 

 of means for the entrance of pure air. I believe 

 a rapid cnange of air is detrimental to the bees. 

 My i-ule is to test the air once a week with my 

 no-*e. If sweet and healthful, the ventilation 

 will take care of itself. 



New York. E. Rambler. 



1. None above, but all you can conveniently 

 give below. For the sake of the bees, I'd like 

 to have the bottom entirely open; but for my 

 own convenience I like a deep bottom-board, 

 leaving two inches of space under the bees, 

 and the fiont entirely open. On one account 

 this is better for the bees, for then they can be 

 piled straight up, and jarring of one pile will 

 not affect others. 2. ^lore than some think it 

 • does. It needs enough so that it will seem fresh 

 and sweet every time you go into it. In a 

 windy time it needs no" attention; but when 

 still, if warm enough I'd open dooi'S and win- 

 dows. A sub-ventilator helps, and a pipe open- 

 ing into a chimney is about absolutely necessa- 

 ry. A low tire in a st()\ c \\iien weather is not 

 too warm, gets uj) \entilati()n. 



Illinois. N. C. C. Miij.ek. 



FROM DIFFERENT F-ELDS, 



WAX QVESTIOX REVIVED AGAIN; HOW MAXY 



I'OUXDS OF HONfiY TO ONE 



POUND OF WAX? 



Seeing so much in the bee- journals about how 

 much honey it takes to make a pound of comb, 

 I can not overlook all these articles without 

 saying something relative to my experience. I 

 rather cling to the old ti'adition of 20 pounds of 

 honey to make one of comb. Now for my rea- 

 sons: In the summer of 1878 I found an after- 

 swarm of bees on a limb of a small tree. It was 

 the 8th of July when I got them. I put them in 

 a raisin-box which I found. As I knew noth- 

 ing about bees, I thought it would do all rignt. 

 This raisin-box was 14 inches long, 10 wide, 8 

 deep. Now, you see this was a small hive. I 

 did nothing "more with them till September, 

 when a friend of mine, who understood bees, 

 •came to see me. He took the box up and looked 

 at them closely. He said they would need feed- 

 ing. The box was about a third full of comb, 

 but not much honey, so I began feeding sugar. 

 I fed ^r, worth of sugar, or 50 lbs. The water 

 that was added to this would make it over (iO 

 lbs. Now comes the test. When I began this 

 feeding, the honey season was all over. The 

 hive was only a third full of comb, very little 

 honey in it. Now. when I got through feeding 

 this amount, the hive was tilled with comb to 

 the bottom; and when I carried them into win- 

 ter quarters the hive. bees, syrup and all. 

 weighed 20 lbs. Now. I should like to know 

 what became of all this syrup if they did not 



use a lot of it for comb-building. Suppose the 

 bees used 2.5 lbs. of this syrup for brood-rearing, 

 and 15 Ibs.foi' winter stores. You see how much 

 would be left. I hav(^ been keeping bees ever 

 since I got this hive, and I have had good suc- 

 cess. Some years I have had tons of honey. 

 Birr, Out, Jan. 26. Wm. Coleman. 



[Your raisin-box, if we figure rightly, would 

 contain about 2 pounds of comb: hence the bees 

 must have built, after feeding, l):; lbs. If there 

 were 15 lbs. of stores, and the be(>s consumed 25 

 in brood-rearing (they probably did not con- 

 sume so much), there would be 20 lbs. left for 

 comb-building, or 15 llis. of honey to a pound of 

 wax. As the bees pioliably did not consume so 

 much in brood -n^aring, tiie proportion in this 

 case would come pretty near that of the " ven- 

 erable falsehood," as it has been called; but it 

 should be said, that there are many more re- 

 ports of experiments in this line that make the 

 proportion all the way from 1 to 3. to 1 to 15. 

 The geneial avei-age has been perhaps one of 

 wax to ten of honey. It has been shown that 

 pollen makes considerable difference in results. 

 You do not say so. but we judge that at the 

 time you fed your bees they were not gathering 

 much pollen, though it is evident they must 

 have had some for brood-rearing. If you were 

 to rej.eat the experiment at a time of year when 

 there is an abundance of pollen, using honey 

 instead of sugar syiup, yon might see a differ- 

 ence in results.] 



the per cent of avax obtained by a solar 

 wax-extractor. 



I made a solar wax-extractor last summer, and 

 extracted all my wax nicely: l)ut toward the 

 end of the summer I discovered that only about 

 <)0 or 70 per cent was exti'acted. I boiled a lot 

 (half a market-basketful) of refuse, and it yield- 

 ed almost a pound of second-grade wax: but I 

 had to squeeze it l)y hand through a cloth, and 

 then boil it in water to collect it and wash it. 

 Honey is up high now. 15 and 25 cts. 



Ml'. Doolittle measured to get the distance 

 between combs in some box hives he had; but 

 he says that he measured the marks where the 

 comb was built on to the top-board, and found 

 the distance was ,% inch between the combs. I 

 bought some comb in old-fashioned box hives 

 from a neighbor last summer, and measiu'ed on 

 the top-boai'd and in the broud-nest, and I found 

 that the distance varied fi'om 34 to }^ inch all 

 over. They do not always build straight unless 

 the one next to it is straight. 



Geo. E. Fra den burg. 



Kansas City, Mo., Jan. 18. 



[Your observation agrees with ours.] 



esparcette; another promising honey- 

 plant. 



I wish to call the attention of all bee-keep- 

 ers to what I believe is destined to be the most 

 valuable honey-plant known in the irrigated 

 district. It is the forage-plant called esparcette, 

 or sanfoin, and descril^ed in the catalogue of F. 

 Bai'teldes tt Co., Lawrence. Kan., page 7(), as be- 

 longing to the same family as alfalfa, and well 

 adapted to light chalky "soils, sands, gravels, 

 and bai'ren i'(>gions. where rainfall is not plen- 

 tiful and ii'i'igation is not obtainable. It is a 

 perennial. wii;h hard woody roots; but I am 

 told by those who are acquainted with it, that 

 it can be plowed under. And now for its honey 

 virtues. A small |)iece is under cultivation at 

 the Government experimental farm near my 

 apiary (about threes-fourths of a mile): and 

 while in bloom itwas more thickly covei'ed with 

 bees than any other blossoms I have ever seen. 

 This was at a time when they could get nectar 

 from othei' blos.soms. such as apples, a little 



