Aug. 17, 1899. 



americafn bee journal 



519 



Amount of Wax from Brood=Combs. — Editor Holter- 

 niann savs in the Canadian Bee Journal : " F. A. Gemmill 

 says in the Bee-Keepers" Review that the amount of wax he 

 has been able to secure from a set of 8 Lang-stroth combs 

 is 3 pounds. I will guarantee I can take 8 Langstroth combs 

 and g-et 4 pounds of wax from them." 



Surplus Honey in Frames. — MeTition is made in the 

 British Bee Journal of a plan of producing comb honey that 

 was introduced by R. A. H. Grimshaw. Shallow frames of 

 foundation are taken to the moors, the frames being- wired. 

 When it is desired to make use of the long slab of honey on 

 the table, the wire is dipt from its fastening and drawn out 

 endwise. 



Keeping Comb Honey. — G. W. Demaree says in Bar- 

 num's Midland Farmer that he has a few sample boxes of 

 comb honey two years old with cappings as white and pure 

 as when taken from the bees, and such honey can be kept 

 in this condition for an indefinite time if kept in a warm, 

 dry room. If chunk-honey must be packt in crocks, set the 

 combs on edge, and when filled within a few inches of the 

 top, cover with extracted honey. 



Solar Wax=Extracting.— W. R. N.. in the British Bee 

 Journal, says he has found it advantageous, instead of plac- 

 ing in his solar wax-extractor the material to be melted di- 

 rectly upon the perforated bottom of the tra^', to put first on 

 this some very thin and cheap cloth, and then when it comes 

 time to clean out, this cloth can very easily be peeled out 

 ■while the heat is present. He thinks well of going still 

 farther and having only the cloth, then it can be thrown 

 awav as often as it becomes clogged. 



Apis Dorsata.— Here's what Editor Holtermann, of the 

 Canadian Bee Journal, thinks about it : "I cannot imagitie 

 that we want a bee which can rear drones and workers in 

 the .same cells. We can control drones in Apis mellifera 

 with comb foundation, surely no intelligent and well posted 

 bee-keeper would go back to the system where he cannot 

 control drones by using worker-comb foundation. It is well 

 to investigate, but the more I hear of the bees the lessfavor- 

 bly I am imprest with their economic value." 



The Source of Honey=Dew is discust in an interesting 

 manner by R. McKnight in the Bee-Keepers' Review. He 

 greatly disagrees with Prof. Cook, who thinks all honey- 

 dew is the production of aphides. The honey-dew seems to 

 be much the same thing as the nectar of the flower, only 

 found in a different place. He speaks of the change of ma- 

 terial into starch, then into sugar, and then into woody tis- 

 .sue, and says : 



"From the saccharine stage of digestion comes our 

 hoiicy and hoiiey-deiv. The former is in some manner, as 

 yet unexplained, determined to the flower, while the latter 

 is the result of the sap-cells, under certain atmospheric con- 

 ditions, becoming gorged, when a portion of the sweet juice 

 they contain exudes thru the pores of the leaf and green 

 shoot, and rests on their surfaces — hence our honev-dew." 



Weed Foundation. — C. Davenport, in Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture, says that after making most of his foundation for 

 years he shall probably bU3- instead of make in the future. 

 The great difference between the price of wax and founda- 

 tion is more than oft'set b)' the amount of work in rigging 

 up, properly purifying the wax and making into founda- 

 tion. For bottom starters he has found the Weed much 

 better than his own, and in one case he gave it a very se- 

 vere test. He put small, three-cornered starters at the top, 

 and at the bottom about as narrow starters as could be fast- 

 ened with a Daisy machine, and not six out of a thousand 

 failed of being accepted, drawn out, and fastened to the 

 upper one as soon as it was built down low enough. The 

 severe point in the test was that this was at a time when 

 the flow was scant and irregular. 



This certainly shows superiority in the Weed founda- 



tion, for with the older kinds there was complaint that when 

 the bottom starter was thin it would topple over or be 

 gnawed down by the bees unless the top starter came close 

 down and there was a fair flow of honey. The A. I. Root 

 Co. say they can now furnish in quantity the Weed founda- 

 tion running 18 feet to the pound with fair sidewalls, and 

 if this will be used by the bees without being gnawed in a 

 scant flow, and will stand up when used for bottom starters, 

 there surely ought to be no more trouble about "fish-bone." 



Bee-Paralysis in the South is a very serious matter, 

 much more serious than Northern bee-keepers are likely to 

 imagine, for in the North it amounts to verj' little. In the 

 South. Editor Root thinks it may be even worse than foul 

 brood, two bee-keepers to his knowledge having been driven 

 out of the business by its ravages. O. O. Poppleton. of 

 Florida, says in Gleanings in Bee-Culture that he can cure 

 it, but at the expense of any income from the colony for the 

 season. In a number of cases Mr. Poppleton has found the 

 daug-hters of purchast queens to give the disease to their 

 colonies, altho the colonies of the mothers may have re- 

 mained healthy. The queens were obtained from reliable 

 men, and he has no idea that paralysis was suspected by 

 the sellers, even if it existed. 



Bees Photographt in Glass Hives is the heading of an 

 article in the Canadian Bee Journal copied from the Buffalo 

 Courier. It gives a somewhat detailed account of observa- 

 tions to be made (by whom is not mentioned), deciding un- 

 .solved problems about bees. Among other things, when a 

 bee leaves the hive, it passes thru a vestibule where its 

 weight is accurately determined, " a delicate mechanism" 

 marks the bee with color, and on its return its weight is 

 again taken to measure its load. Just how much depend- 

 ence mav be put in the whole affair may perhaps be judged 

 from the somewhat amusing statement that one of the 

 things to be studied is " the curious method by which the 

 bees are enabled to ' construct ' queen-eggs when the regu- 

 lar queen-eggs have been destroyed and there is no resident 

 queen to lay others." How's that ? 



Covering for Hive-Roofs. — J. A. Green has reported 

 very favorably as to the use of corrugated sheet-iron over 

 his hive-covers. On this matter a writer in the British Bee 

 Journal says : " I note that the question of the advisability 

 of using thin zinc as a covering for hive roofs has been 

 raised both in the Bee Journal and Record. If your corre- 

 spondents mean a wood-roof covered with zinc laid close 

 down, and turned in at corners and edges, let me say I 

 adopted that plan, and mj' experience is that roofs so cov- 

 ered prevent rain entering from the outside, but, owing 

 probablv to the continual condensation of moisture, these 

 roofs were always damp inside, altho in my case they have 

 the usual ventilating- holes fore and aft. To avoid this 

 fault, I last summer covered the roofs of two hives with cut- 

 tings of corrugated-iron roofing, simply laying them loose 

 on top and weighting down. In March last both roofs were 

 quite dry. 



" If we could get thin galvanized iron (say 24-gauge) 

 with small corrugations, I think it would answer well, as it 

 is the want of free circulation of air beneath the zinc that 

 causes dampness, and this is obviated by the use of corru- 

 gated iron." 



Drone-Cells vs. Doolittle Cups. — Editor Root having 

 said. " without artificial cups nothing could be done," W. C. 

 Gathright replies in Gleanings in Bee-Culture : 



" I have been rearing cells by the Doolittle plan for 

 three years, in upper and lower stories, with the laying 

 queen in the hive all the time. I have not made an artifi- 

 cial cell for two years, and would not think of going back 

 to that plan. I use strips of drone-comb with the cells cut 

 down half depth, and place a larva in every other cell. This 

 gives room to cut them apart. I often get every cell ac- 

 cepted, and as many as 22, tho I destroy all but about 12 or 

 IS. I make a frame with top-bar and ends only '2 -inch 

 wide, and do not put on a bottom-bar, but put in a bar about 

 ^s square, half way between the bottom and top. This mid- 

 dle bar is to fasten the strips of drone-comb to. 



"I next cut ray drone-comb in strips about fs wide and 

 4 inches long. I use three pieces for each frame. To fasten 

 them to the bar I use melted wax. I dip each piece into the 

 wax, first letting the edge of one side touch the wax, when 

 it is placed on the bar, and it is fixt perfectly solid in a mo- 

 ment. I can fasten a strip of drone-comb in the same time 

 it would take to fasten one artificial cup." 



