April. 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



thrown away or plastered over the walls 

 of the hive? 



When the bees are filled with honey 

 and have no comb in which to deposit 

 it, there is no doubt that they hang in 

 clusters, "in warmth and inactivity," un- 

 til this honey is changed into wax. It 

 was once believed that a certain part of 

 the bees were "comb-builders," and that 

 their sole occupation was to build combs ; 

 that they differed from the field workers 

 in appearance, being larger in the abdo- 

 men and less active than the others. 

 This was asserted by Huber, who, with 

 the help of his faithful Burnens, made 

 such accurate discoveries. But Huber 

 had no means of discovering what was 

 later ascertained by the introduction of 

 the Italian bees, that those bees which he 

 named "comb-builders" are the young 

 bees before their first flight, and that 

 these bees become field-workers in their 

 turn. They are wax-workers when wax- 

 producing is necessary at the time when 

 they are too young to go to the field. 

 But when the combs are full, from one 

 end of the hive to the other, then all the 

 bees must become wax-producers, as 

 there is no other way for them to get rid 

 of their honey. 



Huber and others since have ascer- 

 tained that all the bees are capable of 

 producing wax when their honey-sack 

 is full and cannot be emptied. It is also 

 evident from the testimony of a number 

 of writers that at the time when the 

 adult bee is constantly carrying honey to 

 the hive, the wax-producing organs are 

 more or less active, and a small amount 

 of honey is constantly being changed to 

 wax. 



In all my experience with bees, and 

 while producing extracted honey, supply- 

 ing the bees with supers full of empty 

 combs already built. I have never seen 

 the bees waste wax, except when the 

 combs were full, and there was no more 

 room to build other combs, and no full 

 combs to seal. In one or two instances 

 I have seen wax-scales wasted, but in 

 each of these cases there was room to 

 spare; the waste was caused by a sud- 

 den change of temperature, and I as- 

 cribed it in each instance to the inability 

 of the bees to keep up the warmth of the 

 hive, the scales of wax becoming too 

 tough to be manipulated and had to be 

 thrown away. Such instances are so 

 rare as to be hardly worthy of notice. 



When the honey harvest begins, and 

 there is plenty of empty combs for the 

 bees to store the honey, there is very 

 little wax produced. That which is 

 brought forth is used to lengthen the 

 cells which have been cut down during 

 the winter and spring while consuming 

 the sealed honey, for any of our apiarists 

 know that the cappings are cut away 

 and wasted when the honey is used. So 

 the bees repair their combs' and "whiten" 

 them — a process well known to both 

 comb and extracted honey producers at 

 the opening of the crop. Should we 

 consider this whitening of combs as a 

 waste? No, for the wax is placed where 

 it serves the bees, and it is sufficient to 

 say that they always do it, whether they 

 have room for new combs elsewhere or 

 not. But they always place honey in the 

 cells, and have them fairly well filled 

 before this whitening goes on. 



" have never seen the bees build brace- 



combs except in too open spaces (in 

 their judgment, evidently,) or waste wax 

 otherwise by plastering it on the walls, 

 as long as they had plenty of empty 

 combs within their reach. 



It appears to me that we can very 

 easily reason the bees' action in comb- 

 building. When the crop is light, their 

 stomachs are never crowded. Only for 

 a few minutes at each load does a bee 

 find opportunity or desire to pass into 

 the digestive organs more honey than is 

 absolutely necessary for its sustenance. 

 When it reaches the hive, and hands 

 over its load to a young bee, the latter 

 easily finds a storing place for it. Then 

 there is no inducement for either of 

 them to build comb or to consume honey 

 in comb-building. But when the crop 

 is well on, or sudden ; when each adult 

 worker brings home a full load and at 

 once goes back for more, with all the 

 eagerness of a miner who has found a 

 fortune, then all the combs are soon 

 filled. If the apiarist has not provided 

 an extra supply, the young bees, after 

 filling all the cells, have to retain in their 

 honey-sacks as much as they can possibly 

 contain, since the harvest keeps arriving 

 from the held. Then it is that wax- 

 production is not only welcome, but in- 

 voluntary, for there is no other way. of 

 overcoming the difficulty. 



Every apiarist who has opened a 

 crowded hive at the time of a sudden 

 and plentiful harvest has noticed how 

 full all the bees look, how sluggish they 

 appear, hanging to each other in fes- 

 toons, apparently idle, waiting for their 

 honey to change into wax so that they 

 may build more combs. Should there be 

 no room for more combs, the wax would 

 have to be wasted, unless the bees 

 swarmed. This waste will not take 

 place as long as there is a single cell to 

 finish, a corner to fill, a cell to seal. 

 Open a hive in this condition and supply 

 it at once with empty combs and the 

 conditions will change. You will im- 

 mediately see a new activity. They de- 

 posit their honey and rush to the field 

 again. Those that have produced wax- 

 scales utilize them to repair the combs 

 given them, as well as to strengthen 

 these combs. 



The evidence of the great cost of 

 combs to bees is visible it seems to me, 

 in the economy with which they build 

 these combs. How light and fragile 

 they are ! If wax cost them next to 

 nothing, they would surely build them 

 stronger at first. But it is only when 

 they handle over old combs that wax 

 is added to make them strong — they add 

 a little here and there. Is that wasted 

 wax? Not by any means. If you are a 

 producer of extracted honey, you know 

 how much nicer it is to handle a comb 

 which is several years old, for it is much 

 tougher and less liable to break than the 

 new combs just built. 



In my experience, I have found no 

 more waste of wax in the production of 

 extracted honey than in that of comb 

 honey. As long as your bees have room 

 there will be no waste of material, but 

 whenever the combs are full and sealed, 

 and every space crammed, there is a 

 chance for waste of both honey and wax, 

 whether you are producing comb or ex- 

 tracted honey. 



That the bees must produce more or 



less wax during a harvest does not ad- 

 mit of a doubt, but that they must pro- 

 duce enough wax to store all the honey 

 they harvest, and that the supplying of 

 combs already built is a waste, I cannot 

 admit. Far from that, I hold that in 

 locations where the harvest is sudden 

 and very large for only a few days, there 

 is a positive loss in compelling them to 

 build their combs before they store the 

 honey. In countries where the flow is 

 gradual, beginning with a few ounces 

 per day, increasing steadily to a few 

 pounds, the loss from lack of combs is 

 smaller. But when the honey-flow is 

 delayed by unfavorable atmospheric con- 

 ditions until the blossoms are in profu- 

 sion and the harvest begins with a rush, 

 there are days when the bees are actually 

 compelled almost entirely to suspend op- 

 erations in order to secure combs to 

 store their crop. The loss is then three- 

 fold. There is the actual cost of the 

 wax in honej' consumption ; the loss of 

 time to the bees whose abdomens are full 

 and that cannot harvest more until they 

 can unload ; and the loss in breeding 

 caused by the filling of all available cells 

 with honey, in the brood-nest as well 

 as the supers. 



Some will say that such sudden crops 

 are rare. Not in this part of Illinois. 

 Our crops are sudden and short. We 

 have weighed hives at times to ascertain 

 the amount gathered each day, and we 

 have several times noticed an increase of 

 18 to 19 pounds in one day. This weigh- 

 ing of colonies is not carried on as per- 

 sistently on this side of the Atlantic as 

 in Europe. The "Societe d " apiculture 

 poure la Suisse Romande" publishes 

 statements every year of weights of 

 hives regularly taken in different loca- 

 tions. Such a statement was published 

 in the December number of their Bulle- 

 tin, from 23 different localities. Those 

 reports show plainly how sudden crops 

 may be. In some instances crops of 11 

 pounds are recorded following a day of 

 entire failure. In one instance there is 

 a record of 9, 10 and 11 pounds of in- 

 crease for 6 or 7 consecutive days. Bear 

 in mind that these large crops are made 

 with extracting supers filled with combs. 

 I doubt very much if such crops would 

 be possible if the bees had to build their 

 combs, no matter how favorable the cir- 

 ctunstances might be. 



The reader knows that we are almost 

 exclusively producers of extracted hon- 

 ey, but there was a time when we pro- 

 duced comb. I never could secure re- 

 sults at all adequate, when the bees had 

 to build their own combs. At one time 

 we had an apiary of 87 colonies with 

 all supers full and the crop still on. We 

 went to extracting and took off about 

 5,000 pounds in 3 days ; at the end of 

 the third day we examined some of the 

 hives extracted 2 days previous and they 

 did not have a single cell without honey. 

 It would have been utterly impossible 

 for those bees to gather the fifth of that 

 amount if they had had to build the 

 combs. Yet there was no waste of wax, 

 because the bees were not compelled to 

 retain honey long enough in their stom- 

 achs to digest it into beeswax. The pro- 

 duction of wax was at its minimum, 

 while if they had had to build combs it 

 would have been at its maximum. 



I have never heard of more than two 



