970 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



press it up against the under side of the 

 frame till it touches all the way, thus mak- 

 ing a joint that the melted wax will not run 

 through, when you will pour enough wax in 

 at the upper end of the trough from your 

 spoon so that it will flow all along to the 

 bottom end. Put the spoon back in the 

 melted wax ; fix frame and foundation on the 

 next board, and pour the wax in at the up- 

 per end of the V-shaped trough again. 

 Then do the third one in the same way, 

 when the first one will have the wax all cool, 

 and the guide stuck fast, ready to be lifted 

 out and placed in the hive where it is to re- 

 main. Now put in a frame, fit up your 

 foundation strip and pour in your wax, where 

 this iirst frame has been removed, when 

 your second frame is ready to be hfted off 

 and set in the hive. In this way you can 

 put on these guide-strips faster than I am 

 doing the teUing how." 



"Well, that is simple after you know 

 how." 



"This, as you will notice, not only secures 

 the combs built straight in the center of each 

 frame, but also starts the bees with build- 

 ing cells of the worker size." 



' ' Yes, I see. But is that all you have to 

 do to get them completed all worker comb?" 



" No. And I can best tell you the rest by 

 supposing we are putting a swarm in a hive 

 having nine of the started frames. Suppose 

 we hive a swarm in such a hive this fore- 

 noon. Two days later I open the hive, and 

 usually find that the bees have made a start 

 on five frames; but if they have not, I leave 

 five in the hive just the same. The other 

 four frames are now taken out, and a dum- 

 my taking the place of two frames is set on 

 either side, so that we have the five frames 

 in the center of the hive. I now take the 

 sections from the old hive from which the 

 swarm was taken, and, after putting them 

 over these five frames, the hive is closed. 

 This throws the full force of the bees on 

 these five frames and in the sections, and 

 they will soon fill these five frames with 

 straight worker comb, and have them filled 

 with brood; for in thus fixing things the 

 bees are incited to the rearing of worker 

 brood below, while the honey is being stored 

 above. This also gets the bees into the sec- 

 tions as soon as may be, and we secure a 

 good yield of honey of the choicest kind." 



' ' But, why did you not put on the sections 

 when putting the bees in the hive?" 



"Had I done this the bees and queen 

 would have gone up into the sections as far 

 as possible, and the queen commenced her 

 brood-nest there, unless we had used a queen- 

 excluder under the sections. And, even with 

 the queen-excluder, had the bees commenced 

 work in the sections while on the parent hive 

 the queen would have tried to get in the 

 sections, and work in the frames below^ gone 

 slowly, with not nearly so nice combs." 



"After the five frames are filled, what 

 then?" 



" I generally leave things thus till the har- 

 vest of white honey is over, when the hive 

 is filled out with combs from some of those 



tiered-up colonies I tell about in the Febru- 

 ary 1st Gleanings for this year. If we try 

 to have the bees build more than these five 

 combs, we shall have no trouble in getting 

 them straight, because they can be no other 

 way, if we set an empty frame between two 

 full ones ; but we shall have trouble with the 

 bees building drone comb, if we try further. 

 Therefore I prefer to fill out the hive with 

 combs already built; and in the absence of 

 such, use frames filled with wired founda- 

 tion for completing the full number of combs 

 to the hive." 



"Well, I thank you for this interview. 

 Good morning." 



" Good morning." 



Our boys have about discarded the use of 



excelsior or sawdust for fuel, including plan- 

 er-shavings. We are now burning in our 

 smokers little square blocks of basswood 

 that we get out of the kindling-pile. One of 

 our Jumbo Cornells filled will last all day 

 with such fuel. Mr. Bingham has long ad- 

 vocated hard wood cut up in small pieces. 

 Our wood is soft, or semi-soft, and we pre- 

 fer it because it burns a little better. Then 

 it lasts long enough for all practical pur- 

 poses. 



USE OF BEE-STINGS AS A REMEDIAL AGENT. 



In the spring of this year, Wm. A. Selser, 

 of 10 Vine St., Philadelphia, who has charge 

 of the apiary on the roof of that building of 

 The A. I. Root Co., was called upon by the 

 Associated Press reporter for information 

 regarding the use of bee-stings in medicine. 

 He called just at a time when Mr. Selser 

 was putting up 10 pounds of bees in alcohol 

 for a large drug company in Philadelphia. He 

 seemed intensely interested in the subject, 

 and was very particular to know what they 

 were used for, and also the stings, as Mr. 

 Selser also had an order for 15,000 stings to 

 be supplied the coming season, to be ex- 

 tracted and placed on sugar. This reporter 

 called at the office of the Philadelphia Di-ug 

 Co. to inquire in what way these stings were 

 used in medicine. He found they were used 

 not only in preparations with other solutions 

 for rheumatism, but in cases of diphtheria 

 with other solutions, and some other diseases. 



He returned to the roof apiary, took a 

 number of photographs, and wrote up quite 

 an article regarding the same, and sent it to 

 four or five of the leading papers of the 

 United States. From this Mr. Selser was 

 deluged with inquiries and reporters from 

 different papers and magazines; and as it is 

 customary for a magazine to enclose a check 



