1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



809 



<^y is secured from the milkweeds. Mr. Chas. 

 Robertson, of Illinois, tells me that he has count- 

 ed over 1000 bees in a single walk captured and 

 killed by milkweed blossoms. Besides the 

 captures, many b(>(-s are so loaded by the stick- 

 ing pollen masses, \\hich ai'e torn off in the 

 struggle of the bees to escape, that the other 

 bees consider them useless hangers on and drag 

 them from the hives as mercilessly as they do 

 the di'ones when the latterare no longer needed. 

 The be<'s view social problems somewhat differ- 

 ently from what we do. They have no eleemos- 

 ynary institutions, but turn to and banish all 

 weak, feeble, and helpless members of the bee- 

 fraternity. 



The last bee-enemy to which I shall refer is 

 that of microbes. Foul brood is the most seii- 

 ous malady of this kind. This is caused by the 

 attack of a vei'y minute cylindrical bacillus 

 which attacks the brood. Its germs are con- 

 veyed in the honey from affected hives. It is a 

 very deadly enemy of the bees; but by close 

 study it has been conquered, or brought under 

 control, so that now many of our brightest bee- 

 keepers, wiio have had extensive experience 

 with this mici'obe. liave little fear of it. Yet 

 safety demands quite a full knowledge of its 

 habits, and the utmost caution. There are oth- 

 er microbe enemies, not so fatal in their effects, 

 and not so well understood. One of the most 

 common, causes the " nameless bee-disease." 

 Here the imago bee. and not the larva or brood, 

 is the seat of attack. The disease usually 

 abates in a short time, and is thought by some 

 to disappear upon superseding the queen. 



I think I have given in this paper all the ene- 

 mies that have attracted attention thus far 

 among the honey-bees of the United States. It 

 is probable that more will appear as the years 

 go by. A. J. Cook. 



Ag'l College, Mich. 



WIRING FRAMES. 



DR. MILLEK GIVES HIS VIEWS. 



I'm very glad the matter of wiring fi-ames is 

 still under discussion, and that the tendency 

 toward horizontal wiring has iiot gone beyond 

 the possibility of a protest. Horizontal wiring 

 may be best; I don't pretend to know; but at 

 least it will bear discussion. 



I never saw a frame wired horizontally, to no- 

 tice it; but I can not readily become reconciled 

 to the idea that we must tolerate, and make pro- 

 vision for sagging and bagging. Ev(m suppos- 

 ing that the stretching of the foundation is not 

 enough to materially spoil the shape of the 

 cells, there must be allowance made for it at 

 the bottom, and that will always leave a space 

 between the lower edge of the comb an,d the 

 bottom-bar. Indeed. I am afraid we shall al- 

 ways liave more or less of that, the best we 

 can do. unless we invert the combs, for I have 

 known cases in which the foundation came 

 clear down to the bottom-bar. and the bees 

 coolly gnawed It away to allow a passage under 

 it. 



By the way. does the bottom -bar itself have 

 any" thing to do with this '? D. A. Jones and 

 some others have bottom-bars that, instead of 

 being % wide and 3/ deep, are % deep and }4, 

 wide. What is claimed as the advantage in 

 this? and does it do any thing to prevent the 

 open space between the comb and bottom-bar? 

 If there is any real advantage in that kind of 

 bottom-bar. will some one tell us about it? 

 Yon know fiiend Hall was qui«!tly going on us- 

 ing his clumsy thick top-bars for a long time 

 before any of us thought there was any thing 



good in them. Possibly we may wake up some 

 day to find our bottom-bars are all wrong. 



1 have 2500 or more combs wired perpendicu- 

 larly. They are nice combs, straight as a board, 

 and until recently I felt entirely satisfied with 

 them. But wlien the younger Root raised 

 such a hullabaloo about small exact spaces, 

 then my frames wouldn't stand close inspection. 

 For perpendicular wiring, the wires must be 

 drawn so tight that the bottom-bar is curved 

 upward or else there will be bagging. Of 

 course, there is more or less tendency for the 

 top-bars to sag. and in a good many cases this 

 becomes more* than a tendency. But as to the 

 combs themselves, they are all that could be 

 asked. Possibly with top-bars % or an inch 

 thick there might be no trouble at the top; but 

 one would need very thick bottom-bars to keep 

 all straight below. 



When the Keeney wiring came to light, that 

 seemed to offer a way out of the difficulty; but 

 upon trial tlKM'e was too large a surface of 

 foundation unsupported by wire, consequently 

 bagging. The good part of the Keeney plan 

 was the fact that the wires were attached to no 

 part of the frame except at* the four coruei'S, 

 making sure that there would be no interfer- 

 ence with the straightness of the top and bot- 

 tom bars. It also helped to hold a frame rigid, 

 so that, if square when wired, it was likely to 

 remain so. 



I have done quite a bit of studying over the 

 problem how to combine the good features of 

 both the Keeney and the perpendicular systems, 

 eliminating the fault of each. The picture 

 shows the ideal I settled upon. You see that 

 there is a series of upright wires, giving the ad- 

 vantages of the perpendicular wiring, and at 

 the same time everything is supported from 

 the four cornei's. There can be no more chance 

 for sagging than with the perpendicular wiring 

 I have so thoroughly tested, except above and 

 below the horizontal wires; and as there is only 

 % of an inch between the horizontal wires and 

 the bai's at top and bottom, there can be no 

 great amount of bagging there. 



DK. MILI-EK'S plan OF WIKING. 



But it is easy to make perfect things on pa- 

 per. The real often differs widely from the 

 ideal. For some weeks I was so driven with 

 work that I could give the new plan no trial. 

 Wlien I did get time to try it, 1 found that the 

 up-and-down wires, instead of being taut and 

 straight as in the picture, were curved and 

 curled in all shapes, even wdien I stretched 

 them so tight that they were all pulled out of 

 place. 



Without giving all my failures. I will give in- 

 structions how to do as I finally succeeded in 

 doing. Cut a board, no special matter about 

 the thickness, so it will just fit easily inside 

 the frame. Take nine one-inch wire nails and 

 drive them about half way in at the point.s 

 where you want the upright wires to cross the 

 horizontals. This should be about % of an inch 

 or less from tlu^ edge for the two central nails 

 near the top-bar, and for the central nail 

 near the bottom-bar. The other nails should 

 be nearer the edge, forming a curve. Now cut 

 off the heads of the nails. That's all the ma- 

 chine you need. With an awl, punch a iiole at 



