282 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 1 



Heads of Grain 



from Different Fields 



How to Hang Foundation in the Hive; Does it 

 Make any Difference How it is Hung ? 



In looking through the ABC and X Y Z book 

 I notice that the natural comb is made by our 

 little friends the bees with two vertical sides, thus: 

 I have just bought some cut 4x5 foundation ^^-^^ 

 from a dealer, and it has been cut so that it 

 lies in the sections having two horizontal 

 sides, thus: / — \ and I am inclined to 

 think that / \ this will make a difference in 

 my honey \ / surplus. Will you kindly an- 

 swer throu ^ — ' gh your columns what you 

 think in regard to this, as several of us are quite 

 interested? Inspector F. 



[Most comb foundation Is milled so that, when 

 the sheets hang in the frame, two sides of the cells 

 are vertical. The super foundation for 4K square 

 sections, however, is used either way; that is, with 

 two horizontal sides vertical or horizontal. The 

 super foundation for 4x5 sections is usually cut so 

 that the sheets are put into the sections with two 

 sides vertical. Perhaps this that you bought had 

 been cut down from a larger size, so that the cells 

 happened to lie ihe other way around— that is. with 

 two parallel sides horizontal. However, we are 

 very sure that you need not be anxious as to the 

 results, for. so far as we can see. it makes not the 

 least difference, especially in the sections, which 

 way the foundation hangs. One of our men once 

 made an experiment that proved conclusively this 

 very point. He equipped ten comb-honey supers 

 with foundation so cut that there were two hori- 

 zontal walls and ten other supers with the founda- 

 tion cut in the ordinary way, the cells having two 

 vertical walls. He made careful note of the results 

 from the time the bees entered the supers until the 

 honey was finished, and he found that there was 

 not the slightest difference in the time when the 

 bees began to draw out the foundation or in the 

 time the work of sealing began. 



The statement has been made that for brood- 

 frames the foundation should always be cut or 

 milled so that the cells have two vertical walls 

 when the frame is in position in the hive, for the 

 reason that the foundation would stretch less when 

 so cut than if two cell walls were horizontal. Pos- 

 sibly this may be true; but an experiment that we 

 performed recently seems to show that there is not 

 much difference as to how it is hung. Two long 

 wooden clamps were attached to two pieces of foun- 

 dation, in one of which pif ces two parallel walls 

 were vertical: and in the other, two parallel walls 

 were horizontal. The upper clamps were secured 

 to the top of a window into which the sun was 

 shining, and weights were attached to the lower 

 clamp. Out of four trials the results were evenly 

 divided: that is. twice the piece of foundation hav- 

 ing vertical walls pulled apart first, and twice the 

 other let go first. In each case the wax pulled 

 apart at a point between the two clamps, showing 

 that the clamps themselves had not weakened the 

 foundation. 



When bee? build natural comb, in most cases 

 they build it in such a way that there are two ver- 

 tical cell walls: but we have seen it several times 

 the other way. Therefore, it apparently makes no 

 great difference to the bees: and if the results in 

 the section.*! and in the artificial-stretching test are 

 the same, we see no reason why any one should be 

 concerned over this matter as to which way the 

 foundation hangs in the hive.— Ed.] 



Gable Covers; the Right and Wrong Way to Make 

 them. 



Last October you published a short description of 

 a hive-cover designed by me, p. ^69. In your com- 

 ment on the cover you said the boards would 

 "check or split at the nails" if not covered with 

 paper or other material. I wish to say that you are 

 wrong in that statement. Possibly thin boards 

 wovild crack in some climates: but I have quite a 

 number of covers, the tops of which are nailed to 

 end pieces in exactly the same manner, and there 



are but very few cracks. Most of my hives are 

 double-walled, and all of their covers are nailed 

 like that, and have no metal ncr paper over them. 

 In fact, I think your own double-walled hives (cov- 

 ers) are nailed that way. Do you cover them with 

 paper or metal? If not, they must crack and split, 

 according to your statement. 



If boards K inch thick are u.sed, or even Vs inch, 

 and the boards project over the ends but very lit- 

 tle, or large nails are used, then the boards would 

 be liable to split. But if half-inch boards are used, 

 and allowed to project so that the nails are an inch 

 from the end of the board, and small nails (the 

 same as you use for the F cover) are used, you will 

 find but very little splitting. Of course, any cover 

 will split sometimes, owing to several causes. The 

 boards may be % inch If allowed to project % inch 

 more beyond the ends. But It would be cheaper to 

 use several narrow boards, and cover them with 

 paper, which was what I had in mind Made In 

 this way it is very much superior to your G cover, 

 with which I have had lots of trouble. The only 

 fault (?) is that one hive can not be set on top of 

 another: but as it was designed for outdoor use en- 

 tirely, that does not matter. I think an impartial 

 investigation will prove what I say. 



Mystic, Ct. Elmer E. Waite. 



[Our correspondent falls to take Into considera- 

 tion the fact that this Is a big country, with a great 

 variety of conditions. In one portion of the coun- 

 try, especially in the East, there is a large amount 

 of humidity. In the arid regions we have extreme 

 dryness. In other portions of the country it will be 

 very wet during one season of the year, and very 

 dry at another -so dry, indeed, that vegetation, 

 even grass, is killed. A device that might give 

 perfect satisfaction in one section of the country 

 might give any thing but good results el.sewhere. 

 Mr. Waite does not take into consideration the fact 

 that the experiences of a supply-manufacturer who 

 deals with every section of the country should have 

 vastly more weight than the experience of one man 

 in one locality. 



While it is true, as he points out, that we once 

 used the same type of cover which we condemn, 

 for our double-walled hives, it has been several 

 years since we manufactured them. We have been 

 using a flat roof for these hives, covered with met- 

 al or paper, as experience showed us that the for- 

 mer type of roof was very poorly suited for some 

 portions of the United States. It is our policy now 

 not to make any covers using thin boards that are 

 not covered with metal, and that will not allow for 

 the contraction and expansion of the boards. For 

 that reason the roof-boards in all types of cover 

 that we now make that are not covered with metal 

 or paper are inserted In grooves cut in the end 

 cleats. These end cleats are held in place by means 

 of nails put close together near one edge of the 

 roof-boards, leaving the other edge to come and go. 



We found it necessary to adopt the same gene- 

 ral scheme with our bottom-boards. While the 

 principle has its objections, it is much more satis- 

 factory than placing nails as our correspondent sug- 

 gests. No. it is not true that making the boards 

 longer so that they will project over more will pre- 

 vent checking for all localltie,?. It might and prob- 

 ably would do in Connecticut. — Ed.] 



Bees Dying with Plenty of Honey in the Combs. 



I have ten colonies that were strong, but the past 

 year they all died but one. There was plenty of 

 honey in the hives, and but very few dead bees. 

 The combs were very clean, and all the honey was 

 sealed. In some of the hives the combs were stuck 

 together with a substance resembling cotton, with 

 a foul odor. If it is a disease, how can I get my 

 hives in condition to fill them with bees again? A 

 bee-keeper told me to put the hives, combs, and all 

 with supers, and all tools, in a tight room, and 

 burn sulphur. Would that leave the odor of sul- 

 phur so that the bees would not stay In the hives? 

 A neighbor lost forty stands the past year, the same 

 as I have. 



Kankakee, 111. L. L. Stirling. 



[There are so many reasons why bees might die in 

 winter and still leave honey In the hive that we are 

 not sure we can give you the real cause of the trou- 

 ble you mention. We would say, however, that 

 starvation may occur, even when there is honey in 

 the combs; for, unless the cluster is large enough 

 so that the bees can maintain the animal heat nec- 

 essary in the hive to move across to other combs to 



