1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAl.. 



55 



least 80 per cent, of their victims were wasps which are gen- 

 erally considered m England as deadly foes of bees. And now 

 comes "The Bee-Master" to say a good word for the wasps. 

 It says if people only knew the benefit wasps are, they would 

 never kill one ; that a good wasp-year is a good honey-year, 

 and that wasps do more than bees to help the fruit crop. 



The Plain Section, says P. A. Gemmill in Gleanings, 

 needs very careful handling on the part of the retailer, so as 

 not to stick his clumsy fingers into the surface of the comb 

 when removing sections from the shipping crate, causing them 

 to bleed, etc. 



The French Section. — While there is some talk in this 

 country of a section higher than iiH inches. Revue Interna- 

 tionale mentions the " French section " advocated by It some 

 years ago, measuring 5J^x4ij(x2, and weighing when filled a 

 little more than a pound. 



Spoiling' the Market. — E. T. Abbott thinks it isn't the 

 farmer with his poor honey and low prices — rather the poor 

 honey helps to sell the better by its contrast — but the mixer 

 with his adulterated goods put up in attractive form, and the 

 producer who ships to a glutted city market and then cuts the 

 price. — Gleanings. 



The Capacity of Brood-Chamber, says abbe J. B Voir- 

 not in L'Apiculteur, should be In a box-hive 40 liters (2,439 

 cu. in.), and in a frame hive 50 liters (3,049 cu. in.). Quiuby, 

 in his day. put the capacity of a box-hive at 2,000 inches. A 

 hive with 1 L Langslroth frames would be about Voirnot's 

 standard for a movable-comb hive. 



Foul Brood Finishes an Apiary in 3 Years from the 



time it is first introduced if left entirely to itself, according to 

 the experience of R. C. Aikin. He tells of a well-read bee- 

 keeper in whoso apiary he lately found foul brood that had 

 been present, he thought, for two years. He allowed his bees 

 to swarm, and never opened a brood-chamber. A case of too 

 little handling of bees. — Gleanings, page 8. 



Honey-Vinegar. — Lefebvre-Duchange relates in L'Api- 

 culteur that after extracting he soaktthe extracted combs 24 

 hours in a tub of water, then upon extracting them got a dilu- 

 tion of honey of 6 ounces to a quart of water. One who had 

 no other use for his time might find this a good way to make 

 vinegar. In rare cases it might be a good plan to clean the 

 combs in this way where not convenient to have the bees do it. 



Tin Packages for Honey Safe. — Some discussion has 

 occurred in the British Bee Journal as to whether tin pack- 

 ages would damage honey. Otto Henner, President of the 

 Society of Analysts, examined a large variety of articles put 

 up in tin. Very acid fruits corrode the tin ; in animal foods 

 (sardines, salmon, etc.) only a trace of tin was to be found, 

 and only the slightest trace in honey. He considers it very 

 foolish to arouse any fears in this regard. 



Bearing ftueens. — '"If the 'South African Deacon,' as 

 Mr. Edwin Bevins calls him, will fill a 10-frame hive with 

 combs of brood, place it over a prosperous colony with an ex- 

 cluder between, and 11 days later remove all cells in the 

 upper story and shake all bees from the bottom body into it, 

 placing the latter with queen elsewhere, he will have bees in 

 the right condition to accept, start or build cells, and the 

 brood or prepared cups should be given as soon as the bees 

 show the queenless sign." — W. H. Pridgen, iu Southland 

 Queen. 



Three Side-Cut Sections. — In the British Bee Journal 

 there seems to be much discussion with regard to sections 

 split in two on top and two sides, some controversy as to the 

 invention, and mention of a patent. The section is folded and 

 lockt, then pulled apart sufficiently to admit the foundation, 

 after which the parts are tightly prest together, and the foun- 

 dation holds them together. Simmins' plan is to have a sheet 

 of foundation long enough to fill three or four sections, and 

 after the sections are put together the foundation is cut apart. 

 Sladen's V-slit section has, as its name implies, a V groove 

 running lengthwise, cutting nearly or quite through the sec- 

 tion, the V groove being the same as the familiar one cut 

 crosswise in the one-piece sections. These sections have been 

 used more or less for more than ten years in England, but 

 have not seemed to waken very general interest until lately. 

 Possibly one reason for the Interest in this matter in England, 



and the lack of interest in this country, is the fact that little 

 Is known comparatively in England of the different machines, 

 Parker, Daisy, etc., for putting foundation in sections. In 

 that excellent work by Mr. Cowan, the " British Bee-Keepers' 

 Guide-Book," even as late as the 1890 edition, no mention is 

 made of any of these foundation fasteners. An Englishman 

 would probably ask whether Americans knew nothing of other 

 waysof fastening foundation that they should use the machines 

 they do, and an American would wonder how Englishmen can 

 putter as they do and not adopt a heated-plane fastener. 



Temperature for Brood-Rearing. — In a normal colony, 

 with brood-rearing going on, Doolittle says 92^ Is the lowest 

 he found in the broodnest when the air was down to freezing 

 outside. When the mercury stood at 90- In the shade, the 

 brood-nest was 94-, and it never went above 9S- in the brood- 

 nest, even when it was a little higher than that outside. So 

 he concludes the bees have the ability to raise or lower the 

 temperature, keeping it from 92- to 98-'. And it seems they 

 have the ability to raise Djolittle's temperature tremendously, 

 for after working with bees nearly 30 years, as he relates 

 in American Bee Keeper, his bee-fever is now at white heat. 



The Winter Consumption of two colonies in a twin hive 

 with partitions, according to Devauchelle, in L'Apiculteur, is 

 6}-2 to 7 kilograms (about 14 to 15 pounds), while a single 

 colony consumes 5 to 6 kifograms (11 to 13 pounds). That 

 agrees with the generally received opinion that a strong colony 

 consumes less according to its weight than a weak one. Ac- 

 cording to Devauchelle's figures, a colony twice as large as 

 one that consumes 12 pounds, instead of consuming 100 per 

 cent, more, will consume only about 23 per cent. more. 

 Hence economy of stores in uniting two weak colonies in the 

 fall rather than to wait till spring. 



Bright Yellow Beeswax is secured by the following 

 method, says Edward Ochsner in the Review : 



"The material for such wax comes only from white comb, 

 cappings and burr-combs, and these are always kept separate 

 from the old, dark brood-combs. To render the wax I heat a 

 boiler half full of water, then put In the cappings and burr- 

 combs until the boiler is % full, and keep a slow fire until all 

 the wax is dissolved, when the boiler is set off. Just before 

 the wax is too cool it is dipt off, care being taken to get no 

 water, and strained through cheese-cloth into tin or earthen 

 vessels that have been moistened with honey or water." 



Prevention of Swarming, — G. M. Doolittle gives in 

 Gleanings a plan that he thinks well worthy of trial, as in a 

 single season's experience the plan has proved entirely suc- 

 cessful with him. First, as many queen-cages as necessary, 

 4x%x^2 made of wire-cloth with a wooden plug K inch long 

 in each end, tacking fast the plug at one end. When swarm- 

 ing-time comes, say a week or ten days before honey harvest, 

 cage the queen and lay the cage on top of a bottom-bar four 

 or five inches from the entrance, cutting away enough comb, 

 if necessary, for that purpose. Wait 9, 10, or 1 1 days, at 

 your convenience, then make sure to destroy all queen-cells, 

 remove the stopper from the queen-cage and replace it with a 

 stopper two inches long having a % hole bored lengthwise 

 filled with fresh queen-candy. That's all you do. The bees 

 do the rest, and will not swarm unless the honey-flow con- 

 tinues more than four weeks. 



The Plain Section, which is the better name (certainly 

 the plainer name) for the no-bee-way section, is one of the 

 things L. A. Aspinwall has been working with for some time, 

 as he relates in the Review. Instead of the fence separator, 

 he uses a tin separator with openings cut so as to allow ready 

 passage from one section to another throughout the entire 

 length of the upright pieces or sides of the sections. 



He uses a super of peculiar construction, a sort of knock- 

 down affair, that is held together by rods or bolts with screw 

 and nut, allowing expansion, so that 20 sections may be used 

 in a super, and as easily 24, 28, 32 or 36. 



The plain sections, he claims, cost about 20 percent, less 

 than the old style. They look better, and will bring a better 

 price, especially as the consumer buys 1/9 less wood in the 

 plain than in the old-style section. A saving of 20 per cent. 

 Is made in shipping-cases. The plain section admits of being 

 cleaned by machinery. 



Mr. Aspinwall is especially enthusiastic as to the beauty 

 of the finisht product as secured with his supers and separa- 

 tors, his honey bringing the highest price In spite of the ruin- 

 ous prices at which honey is sold right beside It by farmer 

 bee-keepers. 



