1897 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



119 



are not prejudiced, and believe you when you 

 say it. If the result is against my way of 

 thinl<ing, I shall not accuse you or any one else 

 of unfairness. To do otherwise would be equiv- 

 alent to saying, " If you can't play my way I 

 won't play at all.— Ed.] 



LOCKING HORNS. 



DOOLITTLE SQUARES UP TO DR. MILLER; COMBS 



BEING BUILT TO SEPARATORS; CAUSES, 



AND HOW TO PREVENT. 



By O. M. Doolittle. 



On page 884 of Gleanings for 1896 I find this: 

 "It would be fun to see Dr. Miller and Doolit- 

 tle lock horns. Gleanings will furnish the 

 arena." I have kept away from that "arena" 

 ever since, in hopes that Ernest would ask the 

 good doctor if he had "horns." Should that 

 question be asked Dr. M., I should expect the 

 answer to be, "I don't know." And if Dr. M. 

 don't know whether ho has "horns" or not, I 

 suspect he has none, and I don't wish to be in 

 an arena with any one trying to lock horns with 

 him, when he has no horns. Dr. Gallup used 

 to tell how he and a schoolboy mate used to 

 hold the old cat by turns while the other hit 

 him between the eyes to see what effect it 

 would have on the cat; so perhaps it will do 

 no harm for me to hit Dr. Miller a clip between 

 the eyes to see what effect it will have, horns 

 or no horns. 



Now, doctor, "right face!" Did you have 

 many combs built at their lower edges to the 

 separators when you were using the 4>^x4J^x3- 

 inch sections prior to the time you studied out 

 your "bottom starters"? Tell us; did not the 

 trouble with swinging foundation begin when 

 you reduced those sections to seven or eight to 

 the foot, instead of when you were using six to 

 the foot? If it did not, then you are an excep- 

 tion to the genera! rule. Now, doctor, we'll 

 give you time enough to turn your gaze toward 

 F. A. Salisbury, on page 17 of Gleanings for 

 1897. Don't you see that, in order to keep the 

 tall sections down to where they will weigh a 

 little less than one pound (so that the grocery- 

 men may be able to buy our product at pound 

 figures, and sell it at section figures), brother S. 

 cut his sections down to 1}4 inches in width, 

 instead of allowing two inches, as is the case 

 of the square section ? Yes, you see that. 

 Well, now suppose that Bro. S. had kept his 

 tall sections at 2 inches, and cut his square 

 ones down to IK inches, do you suppose he 

 would be telling us how the foundation in the 

 tall sections was bound to get attached to the 

 separators, while that in the square sections 

 behaved itself like a "little man"? Ah! you 

 begin to see it, do you? Well, suppose he cut 

 those square sections down to ^ of an inch 

 (about the smallest space in which bees will 

 draw out foundational all), so that he had only 

 about ^ of an inch between the foundation on 



either side and the separators, how many sec- 

 tions do you suppose he would have that were 

 perfect, without brace-combs? Twenty-five 

 per cent? Now I am ready to admit that, as 

 any (width of) section increases in height, the 

 liability of brace -combs at the bottom in- 

 creases, where foundation is used, as it would 

 be hard work to keep the foundation true in a 

 two-inch-wide section— if the same were a foot 

 high, in any event; but I do claim that the re- 

 duction in width of section has more to do with 

 the brace-comb nuisance than all else com- 

 bined (up to the present time), except not see- 

 ing that hives are level, and slip-shod putting 

 in of foundation. 



Now, doctor, "right face" again. What is 

 the trouble with you and Salisbury, that your 

 bees are determined to draw out one side of the 

 foundation before they do the other, thus curl- 

 ing it, and this curling causing it to be fastened 

 to the separator? There can be only two 

 things, that I know of, which will cause this. 

 First, too weak colonies to work in the sections 

 to the best advantage, and, second, putting on 

 too much surplus room at once. Is the first 

 the trouble with you? Oh ! I see the effect. 

 You're shouting back, "No, sir, 'ee ! " Well, I 

 judge you are right in this, generally. But 

 how about the other? Do you not know that 

 the veteran bee-keeper, Mr. Manum, who al- 

 ways produces a fancy article of honey, which 

 sells at top prices, as a rule puts on only from 

 one-fourth to one-half the amount of surplus 

 room atone time that you and Salisbury do? 

 In this way, as soon as the sections are on the 

 hive every section is filled completely with 

 bees; and if any foundation is drawn out the 

 whole is so drawn, and thus the foundation has 

 no chance to curl. Do you see? "Oh, yes! "I 

 hear you say, " that is one of your old hobbies; 

 but there is too much work to that." Will you 

 tell us which is the more work— doing as Man- 

 um does, or putting that extra starter in each 

 section ? For me I prefer the Manum plan. 



Now, doctor, I am going to let you look off 

 again. Just you look at Bro. Pettit, on page 

 51, Gleanings for 1897. Do you see how he 

 runs the bees up, with their loads of honey, on 

 the other side of the sections (from the center) 

 and thus overcomes your difficulty and Salis- 

 bury's? Well, what do you think of that? 

 Don't you know that Doolittle, after days and 

 weeks of watching with his one-comb observa- 

 tory hive, told the world that he never saw one 

 single bee go with its load of honey as it came 

 in from the fields, up to the surplus-arrange- 

 ment, but that all gave their loads to younger 

 bees before any reached as great a height as 

 the middle of the brood-comb ? Then you also 

 remember how at a certain point, after you had 

 changed queens, aiving an Italian queen in the 

 place of a black one, that you saw only black 

 bees going in and out at the entrance, when 



