804 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



never hesitate to add a full story of combs, 

 alternating them with the combs of brood. 

 This induces the queen to lay to her full 

 capacity; and. as nearly all have noticed, a 

 queen in a weak colony will just spread her- 

 self when she does get the chance. I am 

 fully aware that many do not believe in the 

 spreading of brood; and I agree that, if 

 practiced to excess, it is a detriment; but if 

 intelligently done it will well pay for the 

 time and labor many times over. It is also 

 a means of keeping down the swarming 

 fever; for if the brood- nest is clogged with 

 honey, as it sometimes is, they will some- 

 times swarm rather than take it out to ac- 

 commodate the queen in laying. Again, 

 when the brood is mostly in one end, change 

 end for end with a couple of combs. This 

 induces brood-rearing the full length of the 

 comb. I want combs that are practically 

 full of brood, and also all I can get of them; 

 and the way that will get the most of them 

 is what I want, even if it does take a visit 

 or so more. It means, many times, the 

 amount spent in labor, in returns later on. 

 In this way we build up a mammoth colony, 

 and at the opening of the white-clover flow 

 we have all the way from sixteen to thirty 

 combs of brood in each double colony, ac- 

 cording to conditions and prolificness of 

 queens. At this point I dequeen the same 

 as for extracted honey, though some may 

 prefer giving a ripe queen-cell instead of a 

 young laying queen. However, with the 

 easy way to control swarming and detecting 

 queen-cells (described later) it is practically 

 immaterial; and, if any thing, I prefer the 

 laying queen as she gets to laying from eight 

 to twelve days earlier than if a cell is given. 



Queenless bees will enter the sections 

 more readily than bees having a laying queen; 

 but with the comb-honey attachment (de- 

 scribed later) they will enter the sections 

 readily any way. 



Madison, Wis. 



COMB FOUNDATION. 



When and How to Use it; How to Prevent 

 Sagging; a Valuable Article. 



BY R. F. HOLTERMANN. 



The commercial value of extracting- combs 

 has often been under discussion, and a very 

 varied estimate put upon them. It will be 

 found that, if a sheet of foundation between 

 medium and light be put in a frame, and 

 this be inserted in the hive, and the bees 

 draw out and build upon the foundation 

 when the comb is completed, the bees have 

 just about doubled the amount of wax. To 

 a bee-keeper who has 50 colonies of bees 

 (say he buys them), which he intends to run 

 for extracted honey, and who has not in 

 stock any combs for the supers, to such a 

 person combs up to a certain number are very 

 valuable. With nothing but comb founda- 

 tion in the extracting- supers it is a difficult 

 matter to draw the bees into the super. To 

 put up a comb of brood, and replace it by a 



sheet of foundation, is. under such circum- 

 stances, common and perhaps the best prac- 

 tice, but it id very far from the equal of 

 having the drawn comb. How much, then, 

 can a person afford to pay for combs built 

 in proper frames, and on comb foundation 

 wired? Until I had at least one-third to 

 one half the number of surplus combs re- 

 quired for the first extracting-super I would 

 pay 25 cts. for each comb, and, of course, 

 as much less as I could get them for. 



As years go by I have less and less incli- 

 nation to put any thing but full sheets of 

 foundation in frames. Even in the produc- 

 tion of comb honey, when all that is for or 

 against the practice of starters in the frames 

 of the brood-chamber has been weighed in 

 the balance, in my estimation the practice 

 is found wanting unless one can secure at 

 least $1.75 to $2.00 per dozen for No. 1 and 

 "Fancy " comb honey, sections 4JX4JX7 to 

 the foot. 



There are many bee-keepers who balk at 

 the idea of buying full sheets of foundation 

 for their hives; there are many who are not 

 prepared to make such an outlay upon bees 

 of which they know little, and of which prof- 

 itable returns are to them problematical. 

 Truth to tell, I have not much use for bee- 

 keepers who are not prepared to put time, 

 thought, or money into their business. I 

 never rebel at people who keep bees about 

 me so long as they keep them properly; but 

 the slipshod bee-keeper is a constant men- 

 ace to those who are about him, be he a bee- 

 keeper on a small or on an extensive scale. 

 If any of the readers of Gleanings are inclin- 

 ed to keep bees on ' ' the cheap. ' ' grudging the 

 expense of foundation and the like, let me 

 say, comb foundation is to the hive what a 

 good solid foundation is to a brick or stone 

 house. Put a poor foundation under the 

 house, and it is a constant and ever present 

 annoyance, menace, and, in the end, loss to 

 the builder. Or for the bee-keeper not to 

 buy comb foundation for his apiary, on the 

 ground of expense, after getting good hives 

 would be something like the dairyman build- 

 ing fine well-ventilated and properly con- 

 structed stables and barns, and then run- 

 ning around buying $25.00 cows which, for 

 the same feed and care, will give him only 

 half the milk in return that $50.00 cows 

 would give. 



To those who are beginners it might be 

 well to say that comb foundation is valuable 

 over the empty frame in that the bees have 

 a guide to build straight comb, and in that 

 the bees have a greater inducement to go 

 into the compartment where the foundation 

 is placed, be it brood- chamber or super, pro- 

 viding the frame is properly spaced. I say 

 "'providing the frame is properly spaced," 

 because of an experience I have had. My 

 hives and supers are 17 inches in width in- 

 side; these normally contain 12 frames. In 

 spacing the super frames I now put ten 

 frames in the 17-inch space. The bees will 

 take to foundation spaced 12 frames to 17 

 inches much better than when the founda- 

 tion is spaced at the rate of 10 frames to 17 



