54 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Jan. 26, 1899. 



Chaff may be used. I have had no experience with an y 

 other than flat covers. 



E. Milleson — Anything may be used in the super which 

 will not attract mice. 



M. A. Gill — I have become thoroughly cqnverted to the 

 flat cover. A colony of bees in Colorado should always 

 have the super on. I use leaves. In this climate, fs-inch 

 -stuff' with light nails will not stay in its position in the 

 cover. The Higginsville cover is not reversible ; it is light, 

 and after the first year it shrinks. A cover of J^-inch stuff', 

 thoroughly painted on both sides, is best. I have noticed 

 covers while inspecting three or four thousand colonies, and 

 have found the flat cover best. 



■\V. W. 'Whipple— I have used the flat cover. I fix up my 

 bees the last of August. I use no blanket, but let them seal 

 the cover tight. I tip up the hive two inches, with plenty oi 

 ventilation below, and leave until spring. I have no trouble 

 in wintering bees. 



MORE ox THE SUBJECT OF SPRAYING. 



Prof. C. p. Gillette, Professor of Entomology at the 

 State Agricultural College at Ft. Collins, then read "a paper. 

 Before doing so, he again referred to the sprayingf law, say- 

 ing it was never necessary to spray until the blossoms had 

 all fallen, and that to get the best results it is better to 

 wait until a week after. There will be some trees, such as 

 the Duchess, which will bloom early, and if one waits until 

 a week after the late trees have bloomed, the early trees will 

 have closed the calj'x, so that the poison cannot enter in. 

 Hence it is best to keep watch of the early bloom, and not 

 spray the whole orchard at once. If ever necessary to sprav 

 forfungoid diseases, the Bordeaux mixture should be used. 

 This is harmless to bees, and the only effective remedy for 

 those diseases. The following is Prof. Gillette's paper : 



Experiments with Drawn Foundation. 



Last t^pring I obtained a quantity <if drawn comb foun- 

 dation from the A. I. Root Co.. for the purpose of compar- 

 ing its use ill sections with the use of the ordinary thin 

 foundation. In order to make a proper comparison the sec- 

 tions were filled half with drawn and half with plain foun- 

 dation, the foundation extending about , two-thirds of the 

 way down in the section so that the lower third would be, in 

 each case, all natural comb. 



There was no question but wliat the bees went to work 

 more freely upon the drawn foundation. Some of the colo- 

 nies workt for several days upon the drawn foundation be- 

 fore beginnings on the undrB.wn. 



They do not, however, begin storing honey at once in 

 the partly-drawn artificial cells. They never fail to go over 

 every part of the surface of the cell with their mandibles, so 

 biting- and roug-hening it as to render it more translucent. 

 After the cells had been workt over, and before they had 

 been drawn out farther, the thickness was found to be re- 

 duced about one-sixteenth of an inch, or, in round numbers, 

 the whole thickness was reduced one-sixth. 



Another advantage from the use of the drawn founda- 

 tion was ill the tendency to unite the sides quickly and 

 completely to the section without leaving holes for passage- 

 ways. Where there is a thin foundation only, this is often 

 done, but the bees seem to be loath to tear down the comb- 

 ceUs for this purpose. It was also noticed that sections 

 having- the drawn foundation were, on an average, built 

 more strongly to the sections, and with fewer passage-ways 

 through the sides and corners. 



The sections on being- removed from the hive were as 

 white and beautiful as any, and I doubt if any but the most 

 notional would detect an unpleasant flavor or thickness to 

 the comb. But if the honey be extracted and the comb 

 washt and examined, it will "be noticed that the lower half 

 of the cells, and the septum, are of an amber, or beeswax 

 color, quite in contrast to the exquisite whiteness of comb 

 that has been entirely made by the bees. 



I found that after carefully removing the cells from the 

 .septum in natural comb that it would require an average of 

 18.8 square feet of the septum to weigh a pound. From 

 similar computations I found that the septum of comb built 

 from drawii artificial foundation only required 13 square 

 feet to the pound. At the same time f found that the sep- 

 tum of the artificial drawn foundation, after the removal of 

 the cells, would require 21.8 square feet to weigh a pound, 

 which shows that the artificial septum, before it is workt, is 

 lighter than the natural. This seemed to me to indicate 

 very strongly that the bees, instead of thinning this foun- 

 dation, really thickened it by adding to it. 



To further test this point, I took samples of foundation 



of three different weights, one being a very heavy product 

 of home manufacture obtained from Mr. Frank Rauchfuss ; 

 another was a medium-weight brood-foundation, and the 

 third was a good quality of very thin foundation for use in 

 sections. In each case I carefully weig-hed accurately meas- 

 ured pieces of foundation before the bees had toucht it, and 

 then similar pieces of the septum of comb built on each 

 kind of foundation, and the following table shows the re- 

 sults : 



WEIGHTS OF FOUND.^TIONS AND COMB SEPTA : 



The table shows very conclusively, as do the samples of 

 foundation and comb septa that I nere show, that in cases 

 where heavy foundation, or even the thinnest of ordinary 

 foundation, is used, the bees thin the fotindation before 

 storing hone)' upon it. 



The added weight in cases of drawn foundation seems 

 to be due larg-ely to thickened deposits made upon the sep- 

 tum along some of the aug-les. and not to an even distribu- 

 tion of the added wax. These thickened deposits may be 

 plainly seen b^- looking through the comb towards the 

 light. These deposits are mtich more abundant in some 

 pieces than in others, and just what their occasion may be 

 I cannot say. Perhaps the ang-les at the bottom of the 

 cells are not just as the bees would make them, or perhaps 

 there are other imperfections in the cell that the bees cover 

 over. These deposits are absent in natural comb, and I 

 find very few of them in comb built from ordinary plain 

 foundation. 



According- to the weighings that I have made, the 

 amount added is equal to about two-thirds the weight of 

 the septum in natural comb, .so the saving of wax from the 

 use of the drawn foundation would not be as much a.'-, would 

 at first seem. 



On the whole, I am pleased with the drawn foundation, 

 and would heartily recommend its trial, at least, by the 

 practical bee-keeper who wishes to obtain the largest pos- 

 sible crop of Comb honey. C. P. Gii,i,ette. 



The samples of foundation and .septa which Prof. Gillette 

 past around for inspection wei'e arranged in pairs, clampt 

 between pieces of section-wood fastened tog-ether with light 

 nails, and illustrated his points very fully and satisfactorily. 

 Besides these were several sections of comb built on drawn 

 foundation, etc. One of these contained a starter of the 

 heavy brood foundation referred to, which had been black- 

 ened at the lower edge, and then left with the bees a short 

 time. This showed the cells scarcely begun, but streaks of 

 black where the foundation toucht the wood at the sides and 

 above, and also down at the bottom (if the section, where 

 the V-grooves fold together, showing that the wax obtained 

 by thinning foundation may be taken away and used else- 

 where. 



Commenting on the reason for the deposition of wax in 

 drawn foundation, Pres. Aikin said that when bees begin 

 to draw out ordinary fotindation they make the bases of 

 the cells of a rounding or concave form. He inferred from 

 this that the cell-base is first made concave, and afterwards 

 flattened. When drawn foundation is given, the side-walls 

 are so high that the bees may not be able to manipulate the 

 bases, but, instead, they round out the sharp angles at the 

 juncture of the wall with the base. The less side or cell 

 wall to begin with, the better they will thin the base. He 

 was also of the opinion that home-made foundation is not 

 prest so hard as the factorj'-made, and therefore is more 

 easily workt by the bees. 



Mr. Porter — Do you suppose that bees ever gather wax 

 to make comb ? I had always supposed that wax brought in 

 from outside was used in the same manner as propolis. 



Prof. Gillette — I don't know. I might mention here a 

 circumstance of a dift'erent nature that seems worthy of re- 



