222 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15. 



to be at least as coarse as 1 ^ ; possibly 2 would 

 be better. But, understand I do not say that 

 sandpaper will not fill up, but it has not been 

 my experience thus far. — Ed.] 



J. A. A'., Pa. — Ducks and bees thrive nicely 

 together, notwithstanding the ridiculous state- 

 ments of some quacks to the contrary. 



O. P. //., 7>.r.— vSections 4 14x5^x1 >4 you 

 would find a little too large for the thickness 

 of the comb, I think. The 4x")xl?'s seems to 

 be as large as it is admissible. That holds an 

 even pound. Your 4;^x5-)^ would, I think, 

 hold 1 's to 1 \ lbs., and it is not desirable to 

 have a section over 1 lb., as customers have 

 the impression that a box of honey should not 

 cost over I'lc; and if you were to charge as you 

 would have to for 1 % lbs. it might make a 

 hard-selling section. If your section is made 

 at all, it seems as if it ought to be a little more 

 than 4^ wide. The regular super is 18 '4 long, 

 and >4 inch play is a little too much. If it 

 were made 4>^ plump, say 4i|, it would fill 

 out the space better. 



L. A'., ///. — You ask why the slats were 

 spaced iurthi r apart in our regular fences than 

 in our Ideal. 1 >ne reason was because auto- 

 matic machinery made the regular, and hand 

 machines made the Ideal. The first named 

 was spaced for j''.^ inch, and the last named for 

 yi inch or less ; but we have concluded to 

 make the new stock of I fences with spaces i", 

 inch. We do this because some of our cus- 

 tomers like yourself have objected to this 

 close spacing. There is danger, if the slats 

 are spaced too far apart, that the honey will 

 \s& slightly ridged. Two-twelfths is all right, 

 and causes no ridging ; but sometimes the 

 machine would get them a little further apart, 

 and we therefore determined to be on the 

 safe side. But we have made a little change 

 whereby all this will be fixed. The new I 

 fence, or stock, that we are making, from now 

 on will have the slats spaced a scant ,\ — that 

 is to say, as nearly as we can get it, ^'.lii- 



A. B., Texas. — Under some conditions the 

 bees will build straight combs from only a 

 starter 2 inches wide ; but the beginner had 

 "better use full sheets, otherwise he may have 

 a lot of drone comb on his hands. The con- 

 dition under which bees will build all worker 

 is just before the honey-flow. If a starter is 

 given them during a time when honev is com- 

 ing in they may (and quite likely will) build 

 storfe cells — that is, drone comb. 



I see no reason why you could not unite the 

 bees in a box hive with those in your frame 

 bive. Simply proceed by what is known as 

 the Heddon short method of transferring, as 

 given on page '.V2 of our catalog. 



The honey that is taken from the solar 

 wax-extractor is inferior, both in quality and 

 •color, to honey taken out by the ordinary 



honey or centrifugal extractor. It is not cus- 

 tomary to throw chunk honey — that is, honey 

 in the comb — into the solar wax-extractor 

 unless it is so badly broken that it is desirable 

 to secure the wax and the honey in separate 

 lots. The better way to dispose of chunk 

 honey is to put it up in pails or glass jars, and 

 sell it in the local market. If sent to a com- 

 mission house it will bring a low price, because 

 the buyer — that is, the one who purchases of 

 the commission house — is liable to think it is 

 nothing but glucose and chunk honey. 



J. //., N. }'. — The worst objection I see to 

 the Manum hive is that it is rather large and 

 expensive — a good hive, by the way, if one is 

 willing to pay the extra difference in price ; 

 but I really can not see how it will produce 

 more honey at less cost than our more cheaply 

 constructed Dovetailed chaff. With regard to 

 the chaff rattling down, or settling, so as to 

 leave only air-space between the two walls, I 

 will say this may happen if the hives are not 

 tightly packed. It is our rule to pour in the 

 packing- material, and ram it with a board, 

 about as you would ram a wad in a gun. The 

 packing-material is poured in and rammed; 

 more is poured in, and then rammed again. 

 We have packed hundreds of hives in that 

 way, and the packing material never, to my 

 knowledge, settled away from the top of the 

 space between the two walls. Perhaps you 

 wonder how I know. When we had foul 

 brood a few years ago we had something like 

 (iO or 75 two story hives infected that were 

 packed in our usual way. In order to make a 

 good job of disinfection the bottoms were 

 removed, and the chalf pulled out and burned. 

 We fotind that it was packed as solidly as the 

 day it was put in, and nice clean, and dry. 



With regard to your plain section, 7 to foot, 

 4 '4 square, I can not for the life of me see 

 why they should hold such scant weights. 

 By looking at your separator I find some of 

 the cleats are a scant ^'^, and some only ^s 

 inch thick. If they were of the latter thick- 

 ness this would account for the shrinkage in 

 weight, for in that case the separator would 

 have '2 bee-space and the bees would take the 

 other half out of the face of the honry; and 

 as the combs would be a whole bee-space 

 thinner, figuring % bee-space for both sides, 

 this would, of course, make up for the light 

 weight per pound. We have been careful to 

 make the thickness of our cleats exactly {'., in. 

 As every thing about our fence is made by 

 machinery, it is fair to assume that we get 

 more uniform results than you secure from 

 the double-cleated separators with cleats of 

 varying thickness. Indeed, I know that 

 some who have used plain sections 1>^ inches 

 wide and 4 '4 square, with fence such as we 

 i:se and recommend, have secured combs 

 weighing on an average the same as combs in 

 old-style sections with bee-ways 1% wide. 



But suppose, for instance, that our 1^ plain 

 sections would run only about 12 or l;-> ounces. 

 I am not sure but it will be a blessing in dis- 

 guise. The markets everywhere are clamoring 

 for ten-cent comb honey ; and the only way 

 that is practicable to put honey on at that 

 price is to have V -pound combs. 



