1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



497 



above you say: "We want the truth, cut 

 where it may. Let us have reports." 



Before the advent of the fence separator I 

 had tried various forms of supers, and 

 finally settled down to the 7-to-foot section 

 without separators, but with four beeways. 

 The theory of this was, with separators 

 each section would be divided off into a 

 compartment by itself, cutting- off all com- 

 munication with the bees in the neig-hbor- 

 ing- section, with the result that the bees 

 were slow in entering the super. Taking- 

 away the separator, bees would have freer 

 communication, and enter the super more 

 readily; and opening the section at the side 

 would give them still more communication, 

 and cause them to build their combs 

 straighter. 



Now, practice has fully carried out the 

 above theory with me; yet I admit that 

 combs were somewhat irregular, but not to 

 an alarming extent, yet enough so that I 

 was ready to try the fence separator as 

 soon as it made its appearance, with the 

 result that I have adopted them and am us- 

 ing- them exclusively, and I never expect to 

 find any thing better. 



Mr. Dibbern says: "I have used these 

 fences quite extensively; but with me there 

 is too inuch trouble with brace-comb; also, in 

 a few years the bees will gnaw the strips 

 and thus leave the combs ribbed." Now, this 

 is all contrary to my experience. Mr. Dib- 

 bern may have used them more extensively 

 than I have, but not any longer in succes- 

 sion, and I never had any trouble to speak 

 of with brace-comb. He thinks the trouble 

 with brace-comb is increased in the tall 

 section. Now I am using the five-inch-tall 

 section, and have no more trouble than I 

 had with the slotted separator in a 4/4 sec- 

 tion. 



As to the gnawing of the strips, I will 

 say I have not noticed this in the least in 

 my experience, yet I will admit that I had 

 some combs slightly ribbed — that is, the 

 bees would build a small rib on the comb 

 right opposite the crack in the fence. This, 

 however, was due to overcrowding, and 

 these sections were always too heavy. Bees 

 should never be crowded to this extent for 

 room. 



Now as to the slotted separator or fence. 

 I am convinced by actual test that these 

 cracks in the fence are of great importance 

 in giving the bees a freer communication. 

 For several seasons I had only 500 fences, 

 so I would use only 5 fences to the super in 

 about half of my cases, with a thin board 

 on the outside, which, of course, had to be 

 cleated. The other half of the supers were 

 used with fences on the outside as you rec- 

 ommend, with the result that, in nearly ev- 

 ery instance, the outside row of sections of 

 those supers that had fences on the outside 

 was well filled and finished, nearly as 

 quickly as the center sections; while those 

 that had only thin boards on the sides were 

 badly filled and slowly capped, and had to 

 be sold at a discount. M. P. 



Kalona, Iowa. 



[Your experience is in line with other re- 

 ports we have received from time to time; 

 but we have hesitated about publishing 

 them, as it might be considered we had an 

 ax to grind; but as all the manufacturers 

 are making plain sections and fences now, 

 which was not the case a few years ago, 

 perhaps we may not now be accused of a 

 desire to sharpen the aforesaid ax. If comb- 

 honey producers could only know that in 

 some markets, at least, they could get (!>^^- 

 /(?r prices, and in all markets no lower a' 

 price than for beeway sections, they would 

 find they could not afford to use the old- 

 style section and separators. 



But in some localities, and with some 

 strains of bees, there is an occasional diffi- 

 culty of the kind complained of by friend 

 Dibbern; but even these objectionable fea- 

 tures are overbalanced by good ones in the 

 mind of not only Mr. D., but of many oth- 

 ers. 



The scheme of using an outside fence for 

 the outside row of sections is in line with 

 the perforated separator so persistently ad- 

 vocated by our friend S. T. Pettit, of On- 

 tario. His arguments in favor of such a 

 separator, and the preliminary trials of us- 

 ing an outside fence, were so convincing 

 that we equipped all our supers for the 

 trade with two extra fences. A bee-keeper 

 who would not use a perforated divider or 

 fence for his outside rows, it seems to me is 

 very shortsighted indeed. Suppose he gets 

 a cent a pound more for his outside sections; 

 that would be 8 cents for the super, or $8.00 

 for 100 supers. This earnirg is not very 

 much, it is true; but it is the saving of these 

 pennies that makes the dollars a%d the p-tof- 

 Z/^.— Ed.] 



♦♦♦♦#♦♦♦♦ * 



TROPICAL HONEY=PLANTS. 



Their Value for Honey°production. 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



It used to be taught, and even now is be- 

 lieved by intelligent persons, that the flow- 

 ers of the tropics are inconspicuous, and 

 the birds non-singers. Even so able a nat- 

 uralist as Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the 

 justly celebrated evolutionist, and author of 

 famous works on tropical natural history, 

 states in his work on the Amazon region 

 that the tropical regions could not compare 

 favorably with the temperate in the matter 

 of flowers; and not long ago an intelligent 

 English lady who had spent seven or eight 

 years in the tropics said tome, "Oh, my! 

 Mr. Morrison; I don't see how bees can ex- 

 ist out here, as there are no flowers." For 

 an answer I asked her just to look out the 

 door and see the mango, avocado, logwood, 

 golden apple, genip, and other trees in full 

 bloom. " They have eyes to see, but they 

 see not." In point of fact, no pen, how- 

 ever nimble, can do justice to the flowers 

 of the tropics; and I can well remember A. 

 I. Root's astonishment at seeing bougain- 

 villea in full bloom for the first time; and 



