242 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



of this circle, which would balance up that. 

 It would be interesting to know the sources 

 of honey within this circle. I believe many 

 more bees might be kept together than at 

 present with care in spring and fall. 

 .^ 

 Mr. Holtermann's drastic method of treat- 

 ing those engaged in adulterating honey 

 would seem to be pretty effectual. He can 

 not help giving the small-hive men a little 

 rap in closing; but I begin to think he is 

 about right on the subject, especially for 

 those engaged in the production of extracted 

 honey. I have had only two seasons' expe- 

 rience in extracting on a large scale, and 

 have much to learn. One thing has impress- 

 ed me strongly, and that is, it is a mistake 

 to use queen-excluders between the first and 

 second stories, as such hives have been as 

 ready to swarm as those producing section 

 honey. 



.& 



Prof. Bigelow's article in a December num- 

 ber calls for a little attention. I believe, as 

 he says, that the producers of honey put up 

 their goods in less attractive packages than 

 any other goods in grocery stores. It is very 

 hard for one who produces a few hundred or 

 a few thousand pounds' to believe that a lit- 

 tle more spent in fancy cartons and cases 

 will more than come Jiack to him in higher 

 prices for his hongy, besides increased sales; 

 and that whatever increases the demand has 

 a strong tendency to raise the price of the 

 product. I should not be surprised if some 

 of our most important improvements in fu- 

 ture would be along these lines. 



H. H. Root's two articles on making bees- 

 wax are, I believe, the best and most exhaus- 

 tive of any thing before published. I have 

 been using for several years a home-made 

 press after the Hatch-Gemmil pattern, and 

 have been getting so much wax, or so much 

 more than formerly, that I have had a very 

 satisfied feeling that I was doing the wax- 

 making all right; and now to be told by a 

 youngster that I am still losing a tenth of my 

 wax is rather humiliating, and still more so 

 when I remember the hundi-eds of pounds that 

 have gone to waste in the past because we 

 didn't know enough to get it out. And once 

 more let me commend his article in that he 

 seems oblivious to the fact that the A. I. Root 

 Co. is selling the German steam-presses, and 

 gives the unheated press credit for all it is 

 worth. 



Some one in a back number of Gleanings 

 tells how he is able to get foundation in full 

 frames drawn out. This has been a vexa- 

 tious job with me. I have, as a rule, found 

 it difficult to hive a new swarm on founda- 

 tion, and have them go to work contentedly. 

 If I gave some full combs and some founda- 

 tion, the foundation was apt to be drawn out 

 unevenly. If I shook a swarm on to foun- 

 dation they would many times desert the 

 hive altogether, or sulk for a day or two in 

 the best of the season. As a result of these 



experiences I have for quite a number of 

 years used but little foundation in the brood- 

 chamber, but, instead, old combs, carrying 

 them over from year to year. During 1905 

 we used a large number of old combs for ex- 

 tracting, and, besides, increased the number 

 of our colonies to a considerable extent, so 

 that the beginningof the season of 1906 found 

 VIS with a large stock of bees with compara- 

 tively few old combs. What should we do 

 for combs to hive or shake our swarms on, 

 seemed an all-important question for a time. 

 This was the way I solved it: I prepared 

 quite a large number of eight-frame supers, 

 tilling them with eight or nine frames of 

 foundation, placing them over brood-cham- 

 bers without any queen-excluder just before 

 clover opened. It was surprising to see how 

 quickly these frames of foundation would be 

 drawn out — yes, and filled with honey too. 

 Very few of these contained brood, the queen 

 preferring to lay her eggs in the old combs 

 in the brood-chamber. Not having any 

 queen-excluder or other obstruction between 

 the brood-chamber and frames of foundation 

 above, the bees accepted the foundation and 

 drew it out and filled it with honey before 

 they would have done nearly as mv;ch in sec- 

 tions; and, what is more, the combs thus 

 drawn out were about as true and even as 

 so many boards. From many hives thus 

 treated I removed one set of frames, when 

 the foundation was drawn and replaced with 

 another. Some of them would draw out 

 three sets before preparing to swarm. 



My right-hand man protested that it was 

 poor policy to keep strong colonies building 

 large frames of comb when they should be 

 filling their sections; but when, in the latter 

 part of June, I shook the bees from their 

 brood-combs and gave them a full set of these 

 new clean combs well filled with honey, and 

 two clamps of sections, and he saw how 

 quickly they were filled with the whitest 

 combs, he had no fault to find. 



All in all this has proved the most satis- 

 factory way of getting new combs from foun- 

 dation I have ever tried or seen recommend- 

 ed. 



P/CK/JVOS FROM OUR 



'Mighbors Fields 



"bvstemoC' 



We note with pleasure the appearance of 

 the Gommonivealth Bee-kee])er, published in 

 Melbourne, Australia. This is the otficial 

 organ of the Victorian Apiarists' Associa- 

 tion, and is edited by an expert bee-keeper, 

 W. L. Davey, who evidently understands 

 the duties of the editorial chair, for the Nov. 

 15th issue, which is before us, contains some 

 bright original matter that is a pleasure to 

 read. At present this paper is bound up 



