THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



April, 



ting one for the purposes of its crea- 

 tion. It is, therefore, a practical sys- 

 tem, too, and one that honey producers 

 cannot well afford to ignore in the use 

 of comb foundation. Taken in any 

 oilier way, tae power of the comb to 

 resist the specific gravity of honey is 

 greatly lessened. 



There is not a vertical wall in the 

 make-up of honeycomb, even the sep- 

 tum that forms the bottom of the cells 

 is shaped to assist in overcoming the 

 tendency tn sag. The effect of ad.iust- 

 ing the conil) in all its parts so that 

 each wall will contribute in an equal 

 manner to the support of its neighbor, 

 makes the structure exceedingly 

 strong, and enables it to remain firm 

 and true under all conditions of nat- 

 ural usage. Now, in the manu- 

 facture of comb foundation, or 

 rather, in the manner of using it, 

 one-third of the cell walls are ver- 

 tical walls, thus breaking the sym- 

 metry of the comb and resulting in an 

 abnormal lengthening of those walls. 

 By losing their tiiie relationship with 

 the surrounding walls, chey no longer 

 possess the strength of the union of 

 all the walls, but that of a dividea 

 structure. The supporting power of 

 the comb is, therefore, no greater than 

 that represented by the vertical walls, 

 for nothing is stronger than its weak- 

 est part. The fact of the comb being 

 suspended in the hive positively for 

 bids the use of any plan or mode 

 of construction wherein a true vertical 

 line or wdll would form any part of 

 the comb. If you will get a sheet of 

 comb foundation and hold it up before 

 you in the manner in which it is cus- 

 tomarily used in the comb-frames, and 

 then turn it up the other way, you will 

 see the difference at once. By revers 

 Ing the order of construction as it ex- 

 ists in natural honeycomb, the rertlcai 

 walls of comb foundation serve best to 

 promote any tendency to sag that 

 combs built from refined wax m;iy 

 have. 



I hardly think that bees ever ar- 

 range the size of the worker cells for 

 the rearing of drones. Were they 

 guilty of that misdemeanor under cer- 

 tain conditions, we should expect, at 

 least, to see them stick to the regula- 

 tion way of rearing their drone-brood 

 along the bottom edges of the comb 

 and not at the top, where honey is 

 supposed to have the right of way. But 



since that feature is conspicuous by its 

 absence in hives of natural-buUt 

 combs, we conclude that the enlarged 

 cells in the upper half of combs built 

 from comb foundation are due to defi- 

 cient sustaining power of those combs. 

 However, bee-keepers would better 

 look into this matter fully, and ascer- 

 tain, if possible, to what extent the 

 sagging of comb lOundation is direct- 

 ly attributable to having departed, in 

 the manufacture of it, from the true 

 ai'chitectural style of honeycomb. 



Commercial comb foundation saves 

 the bees much time in buildmg their 

 combs, for a tremendous large force of 

 them can begin the work of complet- 

 ing it, at the same time. This tends to 

 increase the yield of honey, but it 

 adds nothing to the quality of bonev. 

 Ready-drawn combs are even more 

 pernicious in that respect, for the 

 temptation to store raw or partialh- 

 ripened honey in them is, according- 

 ly, that much greater to the bees. The 

 results are that honey thus obtained 

 is not so wholesome, is not so easily 

 assimilated by the human s.ysteni, and 

 it will more surely i.,ianuiaie. 'the 

 natural process of building comb and 

 storing it with honey is more tedio'is 

 but it is necessarily so that the trnns 

 formation of nectar might be com 

 plete. 



Yes, Brother John iiard,scrabblp. yov 

 are always buttin' in — always war 

 bling that ginger-butter-and-'lasses 

 melody of yours. Surel.v you must b( 

 subject to hallucinations more grievou 

 than a nightmare. I am really snr 

 prised that you made even a tolerably 

 fair guess as to my meaning whereii 

 I thought to state, p. 262, that I li:'( 

 observed that bees usually accomplish 

 ed more, when engaged in comb -build 

 ing, if they were free to extend th 

 combs downward instead of laterally 

 And I'll sandwich in the assertioi 

 right here that not only is a dowuwar< 

 course more favorable to a vigorou 

 prosecution of the work, but the bee 

 manifest more enthusiasm in the pei 

 formance of it. The picture of yr 

 and the "purps" is good; it is real cut 

 of you all. But I don't just like th 

 combination, Bro. John, for it sorte|! 

 instills into one's mind a suspicion tha 

 a man who is willin' to be caught wit 

 a bee-hive under one arm and a doH 

 under the other, is hunting trouble. 



Now, in all sobriety, Bro. John. 



