564 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Septeviber 8 



space for the bees to fill that frame as plump full as the others. 

 In short, the whole thing is as slipshod and faulty an arrange- 

 ment as can well be; unnecessarily heavy, frames too shallow 

 and too narrow, and these offsets wanting. 



Altho it would be the very height of presumption for me 

 to call In question the wisdom and correctness of such experi- 

 enced veterans as the Messrs. Dadant in the construction of 

 their appliances and fixtures, still I am puzzled exceedingly to 

 know why they make the top-bar of their shallow extracting- 

 frames as heavy as those of their very deep brood-frames, 

 viz.: 1 'g inches square. Does not this add unnecessary size, 

 and consequently weight, to the super ? If Messrs. Dadant 

 can assign good reason for having these top-bars so enormously 

 thick and heavy, then Root again must be wrong ; for in pro- 

 portion to the depth of the " dovetailed's " extractlng-frame 

 its top-bar should be nearly an Inch thick in place of J-4 of an 

 inch, as now made. 



Nor is It easy to understand why the Dadants use such a 

 thick bottom-bar — both for brood and extracting frames — 

 viz.: K inch square, where Root's bottom-bars are only half 

 that thickness, or '4 inch. We may be assured that were 

 there not good and sufficient reason for the use of these seem- 

 ■ i?igjy unnecessarily thick bars the Messrs. Dadant would not 

 increase the size and weight of their supers by using them ; 

 hence Messrs. Root are here, we must assume, again wrong. 

 There is no gainsaying the experience and the intelligence 

 which guides and directs the Dadants in even the minutest 

 particular connected with their system of honey-production; 

 and we must admit them to be standing authorities in the 

 matter of producing extracted honey ; hence, more satisfaction 

 would be given to their customers were supply manufacturers 

 to take their cue from such men, and make their goods in ac- 

 cordance with what the very many years of intelligent prac- 

 tice have decided to be best. As it is, this divergence of opin- 

 ion (in many small, yet important details) among our recog- 

 nized experts is, to say the least, confusing to the intellect of 

 the average bee-keeper who is anxious to conduct his busintss 

 aright, and in accordance with the methods most approved by 

 men of long experience, and who have brought a high order 

 of Intelligence to bear upon their, and our, pursuit. 



South Africa. 



The Use of Comb Foundation. 



BY E. B. MAQOON. 



I should like to reply to S. A. Deacon's article, on page 

 579 (1897), headed, "Comb Foundation — Is its Use Profit- 

 able ?" If the author of that article Is a practical and experi- 

 enced bee-keeper he must know from observation and experi- 

 ence that the use of comb foundation is very profitable for 

 the bee-keeper, both in the brood-chamber and super. 



As to whether it will take 20, or even 6, pounds of honey 

 to make one pound of couib or wax, I shall not say, but I am 

 of the opinion that we lose, or fail to get, more than six pounds 

 of honey by the bees having to produceone pound of wax. To 

 help prove my assertion I will mention a little experience I 

 had last season (I had the same experience many seasons 

 before). 



I hived a large swarm in a 10-frame hive, each frame 

 being filled with nice, clean comb. I placed the hive on 

 scales, and balanced the scales early the next morning. At 

 night they tipt the beam at I21.4 pounds gain, and 7K the 

 next day. Now I am of the opinion that had the same swarm 

 been put in an empty hive the gain would have been 2J^ to 3 

 pounds. That had been my experience in previous tests. 



Another assertion that I consider altogether misleading, 

 and as far from the truth as the east is from the west — " That 

 the bees go on producing wax whether they need it or not; 

 and if we furnish them foundation the wax-scales are dropt 

 on the floor of the hive, etc." 



Now I know from personal observation that the bees do 

 not produce wax (to amount to anything) unless it is needed 

 for comb-building or filling cracks. Also, that the bees do 

 draw out the extra wax in the sidewalls of foundation and 

 build it into the comb, so that not one particle is wasted; I 

 have watcht the process by frequently examining foundation 

 of bright yellow wax, that the bees were building into comb, 

 and I could see just how far the wax extended in the comb ; 

 and in some cases there was wax enough to nearly finish the 

 comb. I nor any other manufacturer of or dealer in comb 

 foundation ever claimed that the foundation furnisht all the 

 wax nepessary for the completion of the comb. 



Mr. D. wants to know if the use of foundation is as ad- 

 vantageous as it is supposed to be. I answer yes, and even 

 more than it is popularly supposed to be, or there would be 



more used, or it would be more generally used. I believe we 

 get enough more honey to pay the extra cost of foundation, 

 and get nice, straight worker brood-combs to boot. 



Athens Co., Ohio. 



Improving Stock — Methods of Selection. 



BY W. A. VABIAN. 



Improvement of stock and methods of selection are sub- 

 jects in which there seems to be a little burst of interest at 

 present. I am just through my swarming season, and while 

 it has been going on I have been reasoning on the occurrences 

 as they went. I have been running by the natural-swarm 

 system, commencing with 38 colonies and Increasing to 66. I 

 lost seven swarms that I knew of, and some more that I did 

 not see go. Before the season was nearly over I saw I should 

 not have hives enough for near all the swarms cast, so I began 

 to double in nearly every case ; in two or three cases where 

 the bunches were small I put in three, and even turned the 

 hive on double swarms when I knew where the last one came 

 from ; and with all this doubling I have as yet to find a colony 

 that is queenless among them. 



What has Imprest itself on my mind is the quantity and 

 thoroughness of forced natural selection put through in run- 

 ning an apiary in this fashion. Of course the contests of the 

 queens are but seldom on even terms, so the work done in 

 selection for vigor is not as great as it looks at first. I should 

 expect that where an old queen and a virgin were hived to- 

 gether the young one is killed. But in all cases where two 

 laying queens, or two virgins, are hived together, the most 

 active and strongest is the one that survives. 



Then there is the natural selection of wintering (which 

 paralyzes weakness). Of course this applies to all apiaries 

 whatever way the bees are managed. 



It appears to me that the selection for vigor that goes on 

 in hives under this system must be very great. This safe- 

 guard against degeneracy Is totally absent in all kinds of arti- 

 ficial increase and non-swarming systems ; therefore, some 

 form of artificial selection should be practiced. I suppose 

 that a nucleus is a requisite In nearly every apiary (at least 

 where they de-wing the queens and cut queen-cells), and the 

 eggs, brood and bees used in forming the nucleus we can gen- 

 erally count on being taken from some of the stronger colo- 

 nies, and give part of the improvement or maintenance of 

 vigor, but I do not think tu as great an extent as in the nat- 

 ural system, so they ought to be requeened from specially 

 selected stock once in awhile. 



I think the improvement caused by natural selection in 

 the stock of some of the old-timers who have, and still follow, 

 the natural-swarming plan is the chief cause of the great crops 

 of honey they sometimes produce. At least that, and being 

 rapid, easy workers in the apiary themselves. 



The preceding paragraphs were written before I received 

 and read the Bee Journal for July 21, and Mr. Crane's arti- 

 cle, which pleased me greatly. I look on It that the producers 

 of the honey crop should be able to weave into their systems 

 of management, automatic selection for honey crop — or pro- 

 ductiveness — by rearing all extra queens from those colonies 

 which till the supers and work the extractor. And that the 

 other selection for vigor will be attained by the better win- 

 tering of the stronger, and the occasional doubling of 

 swarms. All special variations, such as color, length of 

 tongue, size, quietness, and such things, are in the domain of 

 the queen-breeder, and to be introduced by purchase when 

 produced. Weld Co., Colo. 



The Golden Method — A Swarm-Hiver. 



BY L. A. SYVERUD. 



On page 483, Mr. S. A. Deacon seems to ridicule Golden's 

 method of producing comb honey, and further says he cannot 

 see how there can be any difference between this and the old 

 method of putting back swarms. I think there is a wide dif- 

 ference between the two. First, it will be the same as to pro- 

 vide the bees with a new home, to hive them in the supers, as 

 they will be settled down and have begun work by evening of 

 the same day as hived, when the brood-chamber Is set on top. 

 By the old way of putting the swarm back they will only try 

 the same thing over again, or else hang around and do noth- 

 ing, as a rule. 



Secondly, you will save the expense of an extra hive; and 

 taking into consideration the extra labor to tend to the larger 

 number of colonies with a greater amount of winter stores re- 



