Febrvary, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



79 



x.(iiit;il wiros. When the brood went clear 

 to the t()j)l)ar I invariably found that either 

 the Stone or the Ventura scheme of wiring 

 had been used. This will be described below. 



Another interesting fact was that many 

 beekeepers who had bought bees from dif- 

 ferent apiaries were unable to explain why 

 brood went to the top-bar in one case and 

 not in the other; but when I showed them 

 the "trick" they caught on." 



There was another ])lan of wiring that I 

 found used in Ventura County. The scheme, 

 while employing the four horizontal wires, 

 was a little different. A staple is driven 

 on the under side of the center of the top- 

 bar. To this is hooked a short piece of 

 wire. This is looped under the top wire, 

 drawn upward, and then it is run under the 

 second wire, pulled upward and fastened. 

 See Fig. 6. Wherever I saw these combs 

 there was no stretching of foundation, and 

 brood would go to the top-bar. For extract- 

 ing purposes the comb is not held as firmly 

 as in the Stone method or in the method 

 shown in Figs. 7 and 4. 



Recently I ran across another idea that 

 looks good— very good to me. It is a modi- 

 fication of the Stone idea; and from the fact 

 that it would allow electrical imbedding 

 without overheating some wires, it appeals 



:^^ 



Fig. 7. — Recent method, which closely resembles the 

 Stone method and has some advantages over it. 



to me. The plan is exactly the same ;is the 

 Stone, except that, instead of running the 

 diagonal wire from A over the top wure at 

 B, as in Fig. 5, it is passed up thru a hook 

 or staple driven in the under side of the 

 top-bar, then run to the bottom holes on 

 either side as at A. See Fig. 7. This has 

 the further advantage that it reinforces the 

 top horizontal wire at E and E, and the oth- 

 er wires (see Fig. 7) at C and C, and D and 

 D respectively. Nor is it necessary that the 

 wires be drawn taut. The nice feature of 

 the plan is that it will permit slipping a 

 whole sheet of comb foundation between 

 the four horizontal wires on one side and 

 between the diagonal wires on the other 

 side. This will leave four wires on one side 

 of the sheet and the diagonal wires on the 

 other side. Each set of wires can be im- 

 bedded independently. When using the 

 Stone method, if electricity is used, only 

 one strand of wire can be heated at a time. 

 If there should be an attempt made to run 

 the current from A A thru all the wires (see 

 Fig. 5) there would be numerous short cir- 

 cuits, with the result that some wires would 

 be red-hot and others hardlv warm. This last 



plan makes it possible to carry out the 

 Stone idea and still use electrical imbedding. 



One thing ought to be said right here, and 

 that is that with any plan of wiring where 

 the wires cross each other, the bees are apt 

 to gnaw holes. Don 't worry about this as 

 they will close them at the first honey flow 

 or after the first season. That was the ex- 

 perience of A. I. Root with his form of wir- 

 ing. 



Now, then, dear reader, to recapitulate: 

 No matter which of the last three schemes 

 you use to prevent the top of the founda- 

 tion from stretching, you will increase the 

 brood room of an ordinary ten-frame Lang- 

 stroth hive by about 20 per cent without en- 

 larging the hive. In one way of looking at 

 it, this little ' ' trick of the trade ' ' makes a 

 12-frame hive out of a lO-frame hive at al- 

 most no expense. Where foul brood of the 

 American type is rampant one can very 

 soon convert his combs into the non-stretch- 

 ing sort. 



But the non-stretching combs mean an- 

 other thing that is very important. When 

 the brood goes clear up to the top-bar, the 

 queen is much more inclined to go into the 

 upper story with little or no coaxing, and 

 the result will be that swarming will large- 

 ly be eliminated. When, however, she conies 

 to about two inches of comb that is neither 

 drone nor worker she stops. She rather 

 hesitates about crossing that space, and, as 

 a matter of fact, she does not cross it. Also, 

 she will not lay eggs in the two outside 

 combs. When the eight combs have been 

 filled with brood in the height of the breed- 

 ing season, the colony is inclined to swarm 

 if the queen can not have more room. She 

 usually does not go above immediately. Put- 

 ting on an upper story where there is two 

 inches of stretched comb in every frame 

 does not usually stop swarming, unless some 

 of the brood are lifted above. 



Now, if you have read carefully all I have 

 said you will see why a big beekeeper said 

 the Stone method for eliminating the 

 stretching of foundation or comb was worth 

 more than a thousand dollars to him. He 

 could have said that, in a series of years, 

 it might have been worth many times that 

 to him in the elimination of swarming and 

 the saving of labor in lifting the brood into 

 the upper story. With labor conditions as 

 they are, it is almost impossible to get com- 

 petent men and w^hen you do get them they 

 may do the brood-spreading so unintelli- 

 gently that more harm than good is done. 

 No one but an expert should spread brood. 



Get my point. If you can make conditions 

 so that the queen or bees will do their owmi 

 spreading, don 't you see you cut down youi- 

 labor, your swarming, and at the same time 

 increase your honey crop at a time when 

 labor can scarcely be had for love or money? 

 Lastly, the bees or the queen will not spread 

 the brood too fast. When the frames are 

 properly wired the queen is much more in- 

 clined to spread her brood area without help 

 from the apiarist. 



