418 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July, 1920 



HEADS O F GRAIN i OFROMifflDlFFER E>niFTFJ PS 



kssmhAmuss! 



Dr. Miller Answers 

 Questions on 

 Splints. 



F. E. Davis of New 

 Jersey wrote Dr. 

 Miller as follows: 

 ' ' I read your inter- 

 esting book, 'Fifty Years Among the Bees' 

 last year and adopted your idea of splints 

 and like them, but I had a lot of trouble 

 from the bees ' gnawing out the splints. I 

 waxed them as per direction, but they even 

 removed the foundation an inch each side of 

 the splints in their fury. Do you know why? 

 Last year was a poor one for us, June being 

 very dry and the rest of the summer excep- 

 tionally wet. During one or two light flows 

 the bees accepted the splints better. One 

 can do lots of stunts during a flow that 

 won 't work at other times. I used a bottom 

 starter, and the bees did build right down to 

 it, and the queen did lay way up to the top- 

 bars, which I never saw before in my 30 

 years of peering into the mysteries of bee- 

 housekeeping. 



"I extracted from the outside frames (I 

 use 12-frame hives), and had no trouble 

 fiom breaking combs, and I can make an ex- 

 tractor shake the building when I bear on a 

 little, which makes me believe that Mr. Eoot 

 is wrong (April Gleanings) when he says 

 that combs with splints will break in a 

 power extractor. I have a Eoot 4 reversi- 

 ble, which I can run as fast as they need to 

 be run. In fact, I tried to remove pieces 

 that the bees gnawed off and was surprised 

 to find how tough the wax had made the 

 splints — a fact Mr. Eoot did not take into 

 account. I made my own splints on a little 

 buzz saw I rigged up and hitched to an 

 emery wheel, using whitewood (Lirioden- 

 dron) for the splints; but I wish the bees 

 would leave the splints alone after I fix 

 them." 



To this letter Dr. Miller replies: "I'm 

 afraid I cannot tell you anything you do not 

 alreadj^ know. Bees are well called 'busy 

 bees,' and when they have nothing useful to 

 do they will be busy at some mischief, and 

 if a splint is not imbedded entirely to their 

 minds they consider it an impertinence and 

 try to dig it out. Let a flood of honey come, 

 and they have no time to potter with such 

 things, but build right over the intruder. A 

 little close observation will show that the 

 same thing is true of wired frames. The 

 only thing I know to do is to abstain from 

 giving foundation to be . built out when 

 honey is not coming in. That may Tje 

 awkward in such a lean vear as last year 

 was with you, but I don 't know any help 

 for it. When, however, you succeed in hav- 

 ing a frame entirely filled out with perfect 

 worker-cells clear from top to bottom-bar, 

 as you cannot have it filled out in any other 

 way, you feel well paid for all the trouble 

 you have had. I don 't know just how far 

 Mr. Eoot may be right in thinking that 

 splinted combs will not do for power ex- 



tractors, but I feel pretty sure that where 

 the extractor is turned by hand, as it is in 

 most cases, that splints will be found all 

 right. Moreover, if Mr. Eoot should actu- 

 ally try splinted combs in a power extrac- 

 tor, as I ver}' much wish he would, I think 

 he would find the breakage much less than 

 his theorizing would lead him to expect. 

 He may say, ' Alen that run power extrac- 

 tors don't have splinted combs;' to which I 

 can only reply in the words of Shakespeare, 

 ' 'Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis 'tis true.' " 



30^Qj: 



Splints Used on 

 Large Scale. 



On page 228, April 

 Gleanings, in an 

 article on wiring 

 frames, you have a fall-out with Dr. Miller 

 in regard to his splints, and end with the 

 statement that you know of no large bee- 

 keeper who is using splints. Now while I 

 may not qualify as a very large beekeeper 

 as beekeepers run in the West, still I am 

 operating on a strictly commercial scale and 

 basis, and at the present time have several 

 thousand very fine combs drawn on splints. 

 I have no sag whatever in them, and am of 

 the opinion that they are as fine a set of 

 combs as anyone can show. 



I wire my frames horizontally with four 

 wires, stretching them very tight, using No. 

 28 galvanized wire in place of No. 30 tinned, 

 as I find this is stronger and will not rust. 



Sliowina: Mr. Faircliild's use of splint.s. prfventing 

 all sagging in bis tliousaiuls of combs. 



I imbed wires with electricity, all four wires 

 at once. I take the current from an ordin- 

 ary lamp socket, running it thru an electric 

 flatiron for resistance. I then take a foun- 

 dation splint which has been previously boil- 

 ed for a half hour in wax, break it in two, 

 and put four such half-length splints al)out 

 2% inches apart at the top of the frame 

 over the wires, pressing them into the foun- 

 dation. I have absolutely no trouble what- 

 ever with sagging of the foundation, and I 

 find this is quicker than running the extra 

 brace wire, which nearly all of the sj'stems 

 you illustrate require. Instead of stringing 

 the wire thru the holes in the end-bars, I 

 drive 2-penny fine lath nails thru the end- 

 bar from the outside and turn them over 

 into a hook by means of a pair of pliers. 



