318 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



water is an advantage, providt-d the difficulty 

 mentioned could be successfully eliminated.— 

 Ed.] 



Hon. Eugene Secor is a good man wher- 

 ever he has been tried so far, and he's likely to 

 keep up his reputation as General Manager of 

 the U. S. Bee-keepers' Union. [Yes, indeed, 

 he is a good man all round. He is popular, in- 

 fluential, and a thorough-going business man, 

 and one whom it is a real pleasure to know. 

 With all his other accomplishments he is the 

 poet laureate among the bee-keepers of Amer- 

 ica.— Ed.] 



The price of drawn foundation must come 

 down a good bit before I can afford to fill sections 

 with it, but I think I might afford it for bottom 

 starters. [Of course, it is understood that our 

 drawn foundation is now made on small dies, 

 and at present prices could not be sold very 

 cheaply. We hope, before the season is out, to 

 have dies 5x8, at which time we shall be able to 

 supply our friends with the product, at reduced 

 prices. Next season, if the article proves to be 

 the success that is now seems assured, we shall 

 make dies and hydraulic machinery on a suffi- 

 ciently large scale to supply the article in 

 quantities, and at prices within the reach of 

 bee-keepers. — Ed.] 



Dr. L. Latinne says in Progres Apicole that 

 drone comb within the cluster of bees in winter 

 is detrimental. Each empty cell has a bee, 

 making the cluster ,50 per cent less compact 

 where drone-cells are. He thinks spreading the 

 combs for winter is at least useless, as with 

 empty cells the bees are practically clustered 

 solid. [Before the advent of Hoffman frames, 

 in our apiary we invariably spread the frames 

 in the fall for winter, thinking it to be an ad- 

 vantage; but since using the self-spacers we 

 have been in the habit of leaving the frames 

 just as they are In summer; and our success In 

 wintering has been just exactly as good; indeed, 

 we have had much better results in the last 

 four or five years. While we would hardly at- 

 tribute It to the closer spacing it is very evident 

 that just as good results can be and are secured. 

 -Ed.] 



EiETSCHE, the inventor of the Rietsche foun- 

 dation press, of which 10,000 are now in use, a 

 press turning out 150 sheets in an hour, now 

 uses a lubricant made as follows: Put into a 

 little bag 2 ounces soft soap; stir the bag in 5 

 quarts warm water till the soap is thoroughly 

 dissolved; then add 5 qts. cold water. [Strange- 

 ly enough, we sent for and obtained one of these 

 presses, and we made it work after a fashion, 

 but it was altogether too slow. It now stands 

 on a shelf, unused. It is doubtful whether such 

 a machine would find a sale in this country, 

 even if advertised at the same price as in Ger- 

 many, because, at present prices of foundation, 

 no bee-keeper could afford to make his own, es- 



pecially if he could turn out only 150 sheets an 

 hour. Foundation-making in this country is 

 now left almost entirely to the large makers; 

 and very many of the large supply houses can 

 not afford to make their own, because they can 

 buy cheaper. — Ed.] 



My EXPERIENCE has led me to like thin sur- 

 plus foundation better than extra thin. How 

 does that compare with the general drift? 

 What's the proportion of thin to extra thin 

 manufactured? [The foreman of our founda- 

 tion department tells me there is about a half 

 more of thin called for than of extra thin, not- 

 withstanding the fact that, since the advent of 

 the new Weed process, we have made the thin 

 about as light as the old extra thin, and the 

 extra thin lighter still. The new process of 

 sheeting makes the foundation so much tougher 

 that we found we could make all our grades of 

 foundation lighter; and I believe that our extra 

 thin, light as It is, 13 to 13 feet, will be more ac- 

 ceptable to the bees than our old extra thin of 

 11 to 12 feet to the pound. Another season it 

 may be possible to reduce the weight still more. 

 Your experience that led you to prefer the thin 

 was reported in Gleanings, and was at the 

 time we were making foundation by the old 

 process. — Ed.] 



I don't know every thing, Mr. Editor, but I 

 thinli I know that you don't know what you're 

 talking about on p. 286. I've used drawn combs 

 by the thousand, and I don't care how deep the 

 cells are so they're nice and clean, and don't 

 come close enough to the separators to be bridg- 

 ed. [While you are perhaps able to use full- 

 depth cells, the majority do not seem to make 

 a success of It. While I may be wrong, I base 

 the reasons for my opinion, as stated on p. 286, 

 on two things: Honey stored in shallow cells, 

 the cells being drawn out gradually as they are 

 filled, acquires a certain delicious flavor that I 

 do not believe will be found in honey stored in 

 deep cells at the start. Theoretically, at least, 

 honey will ripen in shallow cells more perfectly 

 than in deep ones. A good many people always 

 believe that comb honey is a little finer-flavored 

 than extracted; and I believe the real founda- 

 tion for this belief lies in the fact that honey In 

 sections is generally produced from foundation 

 (comb- building keeping pace with the storage), 

 while the extracted is almost Invariably stored 

 In full - depth extracting- combs. My second 

 reason for favoring the shallow-depth drawn 

 (or level) comb is that the bees have a chance 

 to work the cell walls over, where, if they were 

 full-depth, they would let them alone. In any 

 case, full-depth or not, one object of leveling is 

 to take off the top of the cells the slight ring of 

 wax that the bees always leave, because the 

 cell walls themselves without this ring would 

 not be strong enough to withstand the constant 

 travel of the bees.— Ed.] 



