Dec. 1. 1911 



711 



some of them, to fill up on the diseased 

 honey. This McEvoyplan should never be 

 practiced, of course, unless there is a honey- 

 fiow. Now, if more honey is coming in 

 than the bees need, such honey stored in 

 the combs is not likely to be diseased." 



Mr. Trickey remarked further that the 

 colony could be built up after this shaking 

 was done, in any way, provided the cluster 

 of bees was not disturbed. He said if the 

 cluster were broken they would very likely 

 swarm out in disgust. 



By removing all combs except those that 

 contain brood at the very beginning, it 

 takes so little time to brush the bees off 

 those remaining, eight days later, that prac- 

 tically no diseased honey is carried into the 

 new hive; and when the new combs are 

 built, there is no taint of disease left, and 

 the bees have a new chance once more with 

 no handicap before them. In this way the 

 removal of the first combs built, and the 

 shaking on to full sheets of foundation, with 

 all the attendant danger of swarming out, 

 is done away with, and still there is no 

 danger of the cure not being complete. In 

 fact, after practicing the plan for fifteen 

 years without change, Mr. Trickey believes 

 it is safe enough to give to the public. It 

 must be remembered that our friend is one 

 of the most extensive bee-men of Nevada, 

 and' his plan is not a new one, nor one that 

 has not been thoroughly tried by him. 



AMOUNT OF WAX IN DRAWN COMB. 



Having occasion recently to answer a 

 question relative to the amount of new wax 

 that bees use in building a comb, we select- 

 ed three combs for comparison, all of which 

 had been in a hive. The three frames had 

 originally contained a full sheet of medium 

 brood foundation. The foundation in the 

 first frame had apparently not been touched 

 by the bees, although it was somewhat 

 travel-stained. That in the second frame 

 was about half dra^\Ti out; that is, nearly 

 all of the cell walls were lengthened some- 

 what, and nearly half of them were almost 

 full depth. It would, perhaps, be safe to 

 say that this comb was half drawn out. 

 The comb in the third frame, while not an 

 old one, was fully drawn out, and had had 

 several generations of brood reared in it, in 

 the lower portion especially. The comb was 

 straight and of uniform thickness, the frame 

 being a metal-spaced Hoffman, and the up- 

 per part of the comb was no thicker than 

 that part where the brood had been reared. 



Weighing the three frames we found that 

 the first one tipped the scales at 8f| ounces; 

 the second, 9y\ ounces; and the third, 13| 

 ounces. We then cut out the comb from 

 the third frame, broke it up, melted it, and, 

 after pressing out the wax and cooling it, 

 we found that we had almost exactly three 

 ounces. In other words, only one ounce 

 more wax had been used than was contain- 

 ed in the full sheet of medium brood foun- 

 dation, w^hich originally weighed two 

 ounces. In this particular case, then, only 



one-third of the total amount of wax used 

 was new wax, or, stating it in another way, 

 the bees had added a half more in drawing 

 out the comb. 



Not entirely satisfied with the result of 

 the above experiment, feeling that the 

 chance for error was too great, we threw 

 aside the third comb that we had tested be- 

 fore, and used the first two together with 

 two others fully drawn, but which had had 

 no brood reared in the cells. The first 

 frame, therefore, contained a full sheet of 

 medium brood foundation which had been 

 on the hive, but was untouched by the bees 

 except slightly travel-stained. The second 

 comb was, perhaps, half drawn out, as 

 mentioned before. The third as well as the 

 fourth comb was fully drawn, and was as 

 near like the others as possible. 



On weighing these four combs we found, 

 as before, that the first one weighed 8{^ 

 ounces; the second, 9y\ ounces; the third 

 (that is, the fully drawn comb, together 

 with the frame) weighed 10y| ounces; and 

 the fourth one, 10}-g ounces. 



Analyzing this last set of figures we find 

 that the bees added two ounces of wax in 

 drawing out the comb — the difference be- 

 tween S\^ ounces and 10}f ounces. We re- 

 gard this result as the more accurate one — 

 that is, that bees in drawing out a comb 

 from medium brood foundation add about 

 the same amount of wax in completing 

 their work — in other words, that medium 

 brood foundation furnishes half the wax 

 necessary. 



Fearing that the difference in weight in 

 the wood of the frames might cause an error 

 we cut a full comb out of a frame and 

 weighed it, getting, as a result, exactly four 

 ounces, thus supporting the former figures. 

 We also proved the figures by weighing a 

 number of different combs; and while there 

 was a slight variation, we believe it is safe 

 to say that the average comb of Langstroth 

 dimensions, built in a self-spacing frame 

 that has never had brood in it, weighs not 

 far from four ounces. This would make 40 

 ounces for 10 combs, or 2)4 lbs. We admit 

 that, in rendering wax from old combs, over 

 three pounds of wax per ten combs has 

 more than once been obtained; but it is our 

 belief that such combs were either thicker 

 than ordinary brood combs or else larger, 

 possibly. We should explain that the 

 combs we used lacked half an inch, approx- 

 imately, of reaching the bottom-bar, and 

 they were also thinner near the lower edge. 



These results should go a long way toward 

 proving conclusively that bees do "draw 

 out " foundation in spite of the fact that 

 some have stated that they do not alter the 

 foundation, but build on with entirely new^ 

 wax. We might mention here, too, that 

 we have seen comb built from nothing but 

 a thin sheet of wax peeled from a board that 

 had been dipped in melted wax, and on 

 holding such comb up to the light it was 

 almost impossible to distinguish between 

 the part built naturally and that built over 

 the plain sheet of wax. 



