THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



129 



comiiift educated ; just let me give an 

 illustration : Last fall, to till out an 

 order, I was obliged to till two jars 

 witli extracted honey that had just 

 been melted up. A week or two after- 

 wards, as I was in the store where the 

 honey was on sale, the proprietor 

 called me to one side and said : " You 

 might just as well carry home those two 

 jars of liquid honey ; no one will buy 

 them ; people are beginning to lind out 

 that pure honey will granulate upon 

 the approacli ot cool weather." I ex- 

 plained the circumstances to him, and 

 the condemned honey was sold before 

 I left the store. 



The essentials of a (jood location. 



Byron Walker: I would prefer a 

 location in which the bees can tind 

 honey to gather as soon as it is warm 

 enough for them to fly. Raspberries 

 are excellent honey producers. Fall 

 flowers are more certain to yield honey 

 than tliose that blossom earlier. I 

 would not advise any one to run away 

 from white clover and basswood, but 

 to take in the swamps and fall flowers, 

 if possible. 



L. C. Whiting : I would like a loca- 

 tion that has willows, soft maples, 

 barb maples, white clover, basswood ; 

 in fact, 1 want a succession of bloom. 



M.D.York: I have sowed alsike 

 to help furnish a succession of bloom, 

 but tlie honey is of poor quality com- 

 pared to white clover or basswood. 



Prof. Cook : It seems to me, Mr. 

 York, tliat you must be mistaken ; 

 are you certain that it was alsike 

 cloveV honey that you found of poor 

 quality y 



M. t>. Y'ork: Yes, I am certain. 

 Tlie bees were working upon nothing 

 else ; and I extracted it before they 

 commenced to work on anything else. 



W. Z. Hutchinson : I, one year, had 

 300 pounds of alsike clover honey, and 

 nothing could be Hner. It has a pink- 

 ish color, wliile the flavor, although 

 distinct, is very pleasant. 



Prof. Cook : Instead of moving to a 

 location near swamps, would it not be 

 better to cultivate honey producing 

 plants V Some have reported obtain- 

 ing excellent results by cutting alsike 

 clover just before it blossoms, thus 

 bringing it into bloom after the close 

 of the basswood honey harvest. 



D. Shangle : I have sowed alsike 

 clover with wheat. It made such a 

 growth that, when the wheat was cut, 

 tlie clover also was cut. The clover 

 grew up again, blossomed and pro- 

 duced hone v. 



W. Z. Hutchinson : Mr. J. H. Rob- 

 ertson advises pasturing alsike until 

 the last of .June. By this method he 

 says that two crops can be obtained ; 

 one crop of honey and one of seed. 



Comb Foundation. 



Prof. Cook : I have used foundation 

 ever since it was flrst sent out by 

 "John Long,"' or whoever he was. 

 and I am becoming more and more 

 convinced, each year, tliat it is one of 

 the greatest inventions that has ever 

 been given to bee-keepers ; I do not 

 think, however, that drone foundation 

 is going to be used. 



R. L. Taylor : I consider foundation 

 invaluable. One of its greatest ad- 

 vantages is that it enables us to con- 



trol the production of drones. I have 

 used the flat-bottomed foundation in 

 boxes, and with this I have found a 

 " flsh bone " in the honey. By fllling 

 the boxes with foundation, the bees 

 build their comb straighter and 

 quicker. I have given the bees a 

 frame of foundation, late in the after- 

 noon, and the next day found it drawn 

 out and tilled with eggs. I have used 

 all kinds of foundation, and, unless it 

 is wired it will sag. In light colonies, 

 or cool weather, it may work very 

 well, but in full colonies, or hot 

 weather, it will sag, warp or break 

 down. If it sags, the top cells are 

 drawn out so large that drones will be 

 reared in tliem. With the Given 

 press the foundation is made directly 

 into wired frames, thus saving all 

 trouble of fastening in the foundation. 

 J. H. Wellington : I have nothing 

 to say against wired foundation or 

 wired frames, but I do wish to say a 

 word in favor of the flat-bottomed 

 foundation. I have used it very thin, 

 and found no " flsh bone " in the 

 honey. Perhaps Mr. Taylor may have 

 used thicker flat-bottomed founda- 

 tion than I did. 



L. C. Whiting : I wish to put in a 

 word in favor of the flat-bottomed 

 foundation. I have used the Given 

 foundation, but the bees gnawed it 

 out before the honey flow came. It 

 may be because the Given was softer 

 than the flat-bottomed. 



W. Z. Hutchinson: May not the 

 quality of the wax have something to 

 do with this ? 



R. L. Taylor : So large a surface of 

 the flat bottomed foundation receives 

 pressure that it makes the founda- 

 tion too hard, and instead of drawing 

 out the wax tlie bees build on it. 



J. II. Wellington : I have always 

 noticed that tlie base of the cells were 

 worked into a natural shape. 



Dr. Rulison : I have used a great 

 deal of foundation, and prefer that 

 which is wired. 



M. D. York : I use the regular 

 Langstroth frame, and have kept the 

 foundation from sagging by using 

 wliat are called Cheshire rakes, but it 

 is a very troublesome method. 



D. Shangle: I use no wires, and 

 have no trouble from sagging. My 

 hives are 1 inch larger, each way, 

 than the regular Langstroth. 



Dr. Rulison : I live near Mr. Shan- 

 gle, and I would say that he makes 

 his foundation very heavy. 



D. Shangle : I dip the boards three 

 times. If tlie wax is very hot I some- 

 times dip once or twice more. 



H. A. Fenner had used foundation 6 

 or 7 feet to the lb., and it did not sag. 

 L. C. Whiting : I have used founda- 

 tion in which there was some para- 

 ffine, and it always stretched badly. 



Prof. Cook : I have used the flat- 

 bottomed foundation, and I must say 

 that the bees did not work it out very 

 readily. 



Byron Walker : I would not have 

 foundation, for any purpose, made 

 heavier tlian 6 or 7 feet to the pound. 

 Praf. Cook : I have seen them mak- 

 ing foundation at Mr. Jones', and 

 they reverse the dipping board each 

 time they dip it, thus making the 

 sheets of uniform thickness. 



R. L. Taylor : There is a great dif- 

 ference in wire ; some is " springy " 

 and will tangle up. other kinds give 

 no trouble ; get that, that does not 

 "tangle." I wind the wire around a 

 board, and the board is of such a 

 length that when the wire is cut 

 where it passes around one end of the 

 board, the pieces of wire are just the 

 right length for wiring a frame. 



Mr. Taylor then had his Given press 

 brought into the room. A dish of 

 water was brought to him. He put 

 one or two pieces of concentrated lye, 

 as large as a kernel of corn, upon the 

 dies, wet an old shoe brush in the 

 water, and with it washed the lye all 

 over tlie dies. Some wired frames 

 were piled beside the press, the small 

 bundle of sheets of wax that had been 

 lying behind the stove were handed 

 to Mr. Taylor, when presto, the wired 

 frames tilled with the beautiful foun- 

 dation were soon being passed about 

 the room amid the clapping of hands 

 and exclamations of delight. A hearty 

 vote of thanks was extended to Mr. 

 Taylor for bringing the press and 

 showing the manner in which it 

 worked. 



Mr. Shangle had an Olm foundation 

 machine on exhibition, and wished 

 to show how it worked, but had not 

 the proper lubricator there. 



Overstocking. 



Prof. Cook : I think it well-nigh 

 impossible to overstock a locality. If 

 there is plenty of honey it is difficult 

 to have bees enough to gather all of 

 it ; if no honey is secreted, it makes 

 little difference whether there are few 

 bees or many. 



Clark Simpson : The secretion of 

 honey is so rapid that I consider it 

 impossible to overstock a locality. 



Byron Walker : I have noticed that, 

 wherever a few colonies of bees are 

 kept just out of my range, they al- 

 ways give better results than I get 

 from my large apiary. 



J. H. Wellington : There was, at 

 one time, 600 colonies kept in the city 

 of Saginaw, and my partner (Mr. O. 

 J. Hetherington) and myself were 

 obliged to move most of our bees out 

 into the country in order to get any 

 surplus. We kept just enough bees 

 at home to show that we were in the 

 business. 



Different varieties of bees. 



Prof. Cook : I consider the Italians 

 better than the blacks, and the Syr- 

 ians better than the Italians. The 

 Syrians are more prolitic, and are ex- 

 cellent honey gatherers. 



Clark Simpson : The Syrians are 

 worse to swarm ; but, for all of that, 

 I like them. ^ , 



Prof. Cook : It has been reported 

 that they do not seal their honey 

 properlv. Did you notice anything of 

 that kind V , ^ 



Clark Simpson : Nothing of the 

 kind, they make as nice comb honey 

 as any bees. 



M D. Y'ork: I had a colony of 

 Syrians, last season, that outstripped 

 an Italian colony that was its equal 

 in all respects that could be discerned. 



D. Shangle : I have tried blacks, 

 Italians and Syrians, and the blacks 



