157G 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



to carry the spot to them. You will do well 

 to hx these pictures in your mind, for Mr. 

 Alexander will have mucli to say about them 

 in his future articles. — Ed.] 



AVAX-PRODUCTION. 



The Essentials to Success in the Southern 

 States and the Tropics; the Value of a 

 Shed over an Apiary to Avoid Stings. 



BY W. K. MORRISON. 



A Gleanings subscriber in Arizona asks 

 me to give every detail of my system of ex- 

 clusive wax-production from start to finish 

 —no honey being wanted. Now, it should 

 be strictly understood that the plans and 

 practices of the tropics generally and the 



I sometimes read articles in the bee-maga- 

 zines about wax rendering and refining 

 which involve a great deal of painstaking 

 work. It does not pay a live man to do 

 such work. Better start right and make up 

 your mind not to bother with old comb. 

 Use only combs of virgin jjurity, and thereby 

 enalile yourself to attend to the wants of 500 

 colonies with no assistance whatever. The 

 whole apiary may be converted into a sort 

 of automatic machine. The sun will do the 

 melting and bleaching. Careful attention to 

 every little detail will save trouble later on. 



For this work the ordinary eight-frame 

 hive answers very well, but can be improved 

 by using nine frames instead of eight. This 

 will give a large force in a confined space. 

 The bees will "boil over" when the brood- 

 chamber is opened. Next, don't allow any 



FIG. 7. — A CORNER OF ALEXANDER'S APIARY SHOWING THE NUCLEI USED IN QUEEN- 

 REARING. 



West Indies particularly will hardly tit so 

 peculiar a climate as that of Arizona; yet a 

 live bee-man who uses his horse sense freely 

 can readily adapt this system to his own pe- 

 culiar needs. 



Wax-production can l)e followed with al- 

 most any sort of hive; but there is a great 

 (.lifference between the amount of work in- 

 volved, as between a hive properly arranged 

 for the wax business and one that is not. 

 For example, I once came across a man in 

 the West Indies who produce<l about 800 lbs. 

 of wax per annum, using only box hives — i. 

 e., kerosene-cases He lost about a third of 

 his wax in his slumgnm; but. what was far 

 worse, he six-nt three-fourths of his time in 

 labor that could have been avoided. 



drone comb in the brood-chamber. This is a 

 vital point. The bees being deprived of 

 drone comb below will build some upstairs 

 on every favorable opportunity, even when 

 very little nectar is coming in. Of i-ourse, 

 a queen-excluder simply ?»?<,s'/! be used — there 

 is no way out of it; but you can ease the bees 

 considerably by providing a small entrance 

 to the upper chamber. Remember a hive so 

 fixed is practically non-swarming, and this 

 is the reason why the system pays — laborious 

 work is practically done away with. Start- 

 ers are used in the surplus-chamber; and as 

 fast as the combs are made they are cut out, 

 leaving not more than an inch as a starter. 

 Don't atCi^mpt to use five, six, or seven frames 

 in the super, as some recommend. That 



