118 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



rectly against the side of the hive, with the 

 result that the comb is either fastened to 

 the side of the hive, or is imperfect, owing 

 to the lack of space. Whether this is 

 the fault of the manufacturers or the one 

 who nailed up the hive, I do not know; but 

 a strip about i inch thick should be nailed 

 at each end of the side of the hive for the 

 end-bars of the first frame to bear against. 



WOODEN SCREWS FOR FRAME COMPRESSION. 



It has been assumed by some that the 

 wooden thumbscrews are unfit for use in a 

 locality subject to dampness, like that of 

 the States near the great lakes, or, for oth- 

 er reasons, in a dry climate like that of Colo- 

 rado. There are two troubles that operate 

 against the use of screws in bee-hives. The 

 first is, that, unless proper care is taken for 

 its avoidance, moisture, such as that from 

 rains or the general dampness of early spring, 

 will so swell the screw and the wood sur- 

 rounding it, that it becomes immovable. 

 This is a very real trouble, and in my first 

 experiments with the Heddon hive it came 

 near making me abandon the whole thing in 

 disgust. But the way out of it is very simple. 

 Before being put into use, the screws should 

 be well boiled in tallow or vaseline. Proba- 

 bly paraffine or beeswax would be good, 

 though I have always used tallow, because 

 cheaper and entirely satisfactory. This boil- 

 ing in tallow ought to be done by the manu- 

 facturers of the screws, and none should be 

 sent out without it, as, unless it is done, 

 there is bound to be more or less trouble and 

 dissatisfaction in their use. It is also a good 

 plan to take a brush or swab and saturate 

 thoroughly with hot tallow or vaseline the 

 threads cut in the hive-side. This will make 

 the wood waterproof to a great extent, and 

 the lubricating material will not work out 

 entirely for years. In boiling the screws, 

 care should be taken not to boil them too 

 long nor get them too kot. In fact, I be- 

 lieve the tallow should never really boil, 

 though when the screws are put into it there 

 will be a lively ebullition, caused be the es- 

 cape of the air in the wood which is replaced 

 by the tallow. If heated too hot, the wood 

 is carbonized and shrunk to an almost incred- 

 ible extent. I think a piece ©f dry well- 

 seasoned hard wood can be shrunk in diame- 

 ter fully one-fifth in this way. The other 

 trouble in using screws is that they will not 

 follow up a shrinkage like springs. I gave 

 them up in comb supers on that account. 

 Sections are seldom thoroughly seasoned un- 

 less they have been kept on hand a year or 

 more; and after the screws have been set up 

 against them, they shrink so as to leave 

 every thing loose. They are often swollen 

 more or less, too, from the water used in 

 wetting the joints so they will not break in 

 folding. This trouble of shrinkage does not 

 bother so much with brood-frames, as they 

 should never be made of any thing but thor- 

 oughly seasoned wood. At present I prefer 

 the screws for brood and extracting frames 

 and springs for comb-supers, though a more 



extended trial of the springs may cause me 

 to change my mind. For reasons I have al- 

 ready given, I think springs are likely to 

 suit the average bee-keeper better. 



INTERCHANGEABILITY OF BROOD AND EX- 

 TRACTING FRAMES. 



Some of those who use the Hoffman frame 

 for extracting, putting seven frames in an 

 eight- frame super, or nine in a ten-frame, 

 defend their course on the ground that it is 

 desirable to have frames that are interchange- 

 able between super and brood-chamber. _ I 

 could never see any great advantage in this, 

 and for many years there has been practi- 

 cally no interchanging in my apiaries. I do 

 not want brood in my extracting-combs, and 

 there is seldom any reason for putting ex- 

 tracting-combs in the brood- chamber, the 

 only time when it is really desirable being 

 when there is a shortage of honey in the 

 brood-chamber which might be remedied by 

 full extracting-combs. It is so seldom that 

 this condition can not be avoided or overcome 

 just as well in some other way that it is not 

 of much importance. Extracting-combs, es- 

 pecially if old ones, generally require consid- 

 erable reconstruction before the queen will 

 lay in them, unless she is very anxious for 

 laying room. I aim to have plenty of ex- 

 tracting-combs at all times, and I want to 

 have them at all times available for that 

 purpose. My system of management tends 

 toward an accumulation of brood-combs. 

 This tendency I overcome by sorting out the 

 poorest of them and transferring them into 

 extracting-frames. At least 95 per cent of 

 my extracting-combs are transferred brood- 

 combs; but once they are turned over to the 

 extracting department, they are used for 

 nothing else. 



Brood in the extracting-frames is a nui- 

 sance. When large quantities of unsealed 

 brood are thrown out with the honey, as is 

 sometimes the case, the quality of the honey 

 may be perceptibly injured, to say nothing 

 of the loss of the brood and the fact that 

 people of nice sensibilities do not like the 

 idea of having worms mixed with their food, 

 even if they are strained out again. A more 

 serious objection is the pollen which is al- 

 most always present in brood-combs, and 

 which usually mixes more or less with the 

 honey extracted from them. Some kinds of 

 pollen are much worse than others in this 

 respect, and it is impossible to extract hon- 

 ey from combs containing them without a 

 large admixture of pollen. No honey is im- 

 proved by having pollen mixed with it, and 

 in some cases the quality is very materially 

 damaged, as the pollen gives the honey a 

 strong and unpleasant flavor besides darken- 

 ing it somewhat and making it turbid and 

 cloudy. 



The late lamented Dr. A. B. Mason made 

 some experiments which he claimed proved 

 that honey extracted some of the color from 

 old brood-combs, and various others have 

 claimed that they could not produce the fin- 

 est, whitest honey, such as they wanted 



