GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



will be made thin. I think the reason is this: 

 During a good honey-flow the bees wish the 

 wax secreted to go as far as possible in holding 

 the honey being so freely gathered. At other 

 times, as the flow for honey is slacking up after 

 a good yield, the workers, having a very large 

 amount of comb material at hand, and little 

 need of como, build the combs very heavy, 

 seemingly to save the secreted wax. Such 

 combs are often very heavy, and should be well 

 cut down if used in the supers. I believe, as 

 the queen is crowded for room at the opening 

 of the honey-flow, that the bees remove some of 

 the honey from the brood-chamber, and store it 

 in the drawn combs in the supers; whereas the 

 newly built comb is filled with newly gathered 

 honey, which would account for the better fla- 

 vor of the latter when from clover or basswood 

 bloom. I have many times noticed that the 

 first extracted honey taken in June was not as 

 fine in quality as that of the second extraction. 

 I account for this the same as above mention- 

 ed. The combs being built, some honey was 

 moved from the brood -chamber below, stored 

 the previous autumn. 



I have read the articles on drawn combs with 

 much interest, as they have from time to time 

 appeared in our bee-periodicals. 



Millpdgeville, 111. 



[Yes. I believe that, if drawn combs were 

 given soon enough before the bees began to 

 feel the need of more room, it will go a long 

 way toward solving that vexatious swarming 

 problem. Combs should not. I think, be any- 

 where near 1}4 inches thick. If anv thing, 

 they should be less than 1 inch, and % would 

 not be bad. All the bees require is a good start. 

 —Ed. J 



DRAWN COMBS AND BAIT COMB. 



ADVANTAGE OF DRAWN COMBS IN POOR SEA- 

 SONS; A LARGE HIVE. 



By E. H. Schceffle. 



I was under the impression that the use of 

 drawn combs in securing comb honey in "off" 

 years was common; but from late articles in 

 Gleanings I see that it is new to many. The 

 fact that bee-keepers working for extracted 

 honey have a crop when comb honey isafailure 

 should have suggested this to every one. That 

 " bait" combs are a good thing, has been gen- 

 erally admitted. In the season of 1895 the hon- 

 ey-flow was very strong up to March, and the 

 sections had their combs well drawn out, and 

 many of them full, when the flow ceased and 

 the bees emptied them of their entire contents. 

 During the remainder of the season the bees 

 just about made a living. This left me two 

 thousand sections filled with comb. This sea- 

 son I put all of these sections on. The flow 

 was very poor, but the sections with drawn 

 combs were all filled, while no comb was made 

 in any of the other supers, nor did any of the 



other bee-keepers in the section (who make 

 only comb honey) have a pound. 



It has always been a question with me 

 whether it pays to take comb or supplies from 

 a strong colony to stimulate a weak one. Gar- 

 field once said that " a man who can't save 

 himself isn't worth saving," and I sometimes 

 think a colony of bees that has got too weak to 

 help itself is not worth robbing a strong colony 

 to feed it. To get drawn combs, the stronger 

 colonies must be kept at comb-building, and in 

 consequence no honey is secured from them; 

 but for this I should like to have all bees at 

 work filling and sealing over drawn combs. In 

 a good season, when the bees " just roll in the 

 honey," I don't see the need of a drawn comb, 

 as every hive is then the equal of every other 

 hive, and the bees are all of one mind and in- 

 tent, and the favored bee-keeper has but to 

 keep the "busy bees" supplied with empty 

 sections as fast as the bees fill them. 



Of one thing I am becoming more and more 

 firmly convinced; that is, the conditions differ 

 with the locality. A system that is a success 

 in one section maybe a dismal failure in an- 

 other. For some time past I have been con- 

 vinced that a large hive was best adapted to 

 my section, and the past season I have tried a 

 hive 18xl8x3fi inches. Over this I put one of 

 equal size; and over that, one of half the size; 

 and although it was an " off " year this hive 

 did better than any hive in the apiary. Now, 

 I don't intend to increase all of my hives to 

 that size; but I believe we cramp our bees too 

 closely, and I shall try a 12-frame hive the 

 coming season. 



Murphys, Cal., Dec. 26. 



[I have given above three articles from bee- 

 keepers who believe thoroughly in the use of 

 drawn combs. I have more of them, and will 

 give them later. In the mean time I should be 

 glad to hear from others who have notyet writ- 

 ten. 



In the paper which I gave at the Lincoln 

 convention, after enumerating some of the ad- 

 vantages of the drawn comb, some of which 

 are given above, I expressed the hope that 

 some Yankee genius would get up a machine 

 that would make deop cell foundation or shal- 

 low drawn comb with cell-walls and bases as 

 thin and delicate as the natural; but at the 

 time, several expressed their doubts that any 

 such thing could ever be made. For reasons 

 that I will not now give. I did not then wish to 

 make public the fact that we had already 

 made in our establishment drawn combs, and 

 had tested them during the previous summer 

 in the apiary, and that the bees accepted them 

 at once. This comh had cf-ll-walls and bases 

 nearly as thin as the natural, hut the basps 

 were flat. I showed samples of it to a few 

 friends at Lincoln, and they could hardly be- 

 lievp. that it had been turned out by machinery. 

 Others, to whom we had sent samplps a year 

 ago, pxpresspd the same feeling of surprise and 

 pleasure. The bees not only accept this comb, 

 but deposit honey in it immediately, draw it 

 out and cap it ovpr, and in some cases before 

 they even touch foundation in sections next 

 adjoining in the same super. 



