tp american^ 



Apiculturist. 



A. Journal Devoted to Practical Beekeeping. 



VOL. X. 



JANUARY, 1892. 



No. I. 



FULL SHEETS OF FOUNDATION. 



I wish to give my endorsement to 

 the editorial on page 163 of the De- 

 cember issue of Vol. IX, condemning 

 the use of full sheets of foundation in 

 brood frames and sections. There is 

 no more nonsensical theory extant 

 among beekeepers than that brood 

 combs must be built on full slieets of 

 wired foundation. Without taking into 

 account the endless bother of wiring 

 frames it is certainly in most cases a 

 useless expense. Nine-tenths of the 

 readers of the bee journals are the men 

 who own from one colony to perhaps a 

 dozen ; poor men, mostly, and busy, who 

 can ill afford the money to buy such 

 quantity of foundation or spare the time 

 to wire it into the frames. 



An eight-frame L. hive takes in round 

 numbers 8 square feet of foundation, or 

 say i^ lbs. At usual rates this costs in 

 tlie neighborhood of fifty cents per 

 pound or about sixty- five cents per hive. 

 After this expenditure in the brood cham- 

 ber what have we to show for it? Some- 

 times a little less drone comb and — 

 well, that's all that I can think of just 

 now. I challenge any advocate of full 

 sheets of foundation to show more per- 

 fect combs than I have for years been 

 obtaining by the use of starters one inch 

 wide. Occasionally a colony will build 



more drone comb than I want. Espec- 

 ially is this true of new swarms that have 

 by some accident become queenless. 

 In such cases the cause is readily per- 

 ceived and easily removed. Combs 

 built by such colonies answer just as 

 well for the extracting super as any oth- 

 ers do. Drone comb as built by a col- 

 ony in normal condition is easily dis- 

 posed of. If there is too much of it I 

 simply cut it out and fit in a piece of 

 worker comb. If one owns only a half 

 dozen colonies he will nearly always 

 have sufficient broken comb on hand 

 for patches. If I do not have a piece 

 of worker comb to insert I let the bees 

 fill the vacant place themselves. This 

 method is not very satisfactory for they 

 are prone to build drone comb again. 

 But after all too much drone comb is a 

 rare exception ; so rare, that in an api- 

 ary of from twenty to thirty colonies 

 I have not found it necessary to patch 

 half a dozen combs in as many years. 

 It is often urged that in order to have 

 frames full of comb and fast at the sides 

 and bottom full sheets of foundation 

 must be used. This again is a fallacy 

 as every experienced beekeeper knows. 

 If the frames are filled full of founda- 

 tion it is sure to bulge from weight of 

 bees and from heat. If from thorough 

 wiring it escapes this disaster the bees 

 (1) 



