THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



211 



was not a review, but a topical journal. We 

 have seen all this for months, and have 

 waited very impatiently for what we deemed 

 the proper time to come to take the step 

 that will now enable us to really give the 

 "cream of the other journals;" to make 

 such a journal that when a man takes but 

 one it must be the Review. Don't judge of 

 the amount of '• reviewing" that is to be 

 done, by the quantity appearing in this issue, 

 as this "chat" and that great long index 

 take up a big lot of room. 



Finally, friends, let us hear from you. 

 When sending in your subsciptions, don't 

 hesitate to say what you think of the Keview. 

 We are not fishing for compliments, don't 

 think that. Of course, words of apprecia- 

 tion and encouragement are very pleasant, 

 but suggestions for improvements are still 

 more welcome. 



COHHESPOriDErlGE. 



Comb Foundation — When Use, Where Not Use. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



^HEN and where comb foundation 

 could be used at a profit, has been 

 a suVjject on which I have spent 

 much thought and conducted many experi- 

 ments. At times bees will apparently fill a 

 hive with comb without using a pound of 

 honey. At other times, it would almost 

 seem that the old estimate of " twenty 

 pounds of honey for one pound of comb" 

 was none too mnch. To illustrate : One 

 year when I was studying on this subject, 

 swarms came out when there was to all ap- 

 pearances only honey enough being gathered 

 for the colonies which did not swarm to live 

 from day to day ; yet these swarms, which 

 were hived in empty hives, except a starter 

 one-half inch deep in each frame, filled 

 their hives with comb and brood in from 

 fourteen to twenty days and were prepared 

 for the honey harvest when it arrived, fully 

 as well as were the colonies which did not 

 cast swarms. The really wonderful part 

 about it was, that colonies which did not 

 swarm, and the colonies which cast swarms, 

 did not have two pounds of honey in their 

 hives at time of swarming, and at the end 

 of the twenty days there was no more honey 

 in these old colonies than there was at time 

 of swarming, while the new swarms had 

 filled their hives with combs and brood, and 



had nearly if not quite as much honey at the 

 end of the twenty days as did these old col- 

 onies. At this time pollen was very abund- 

 ant, and was gathered apparently to the 

 detriment of the old colonies, for the brood 

 was actually crowded out by it, while, al- 

 though the new swarms seemed to gather as 

 much as the old, yet it was all consumed from 

 some cause, so that instead of combs of 

 pollen, as in the one case, I had frames of 

 new white comb filled with brood, with 

 scarcely pollen enough in the combs to last 

 the brood twenty-four hours, when a rainy 

 day occurred. 



At another time swarms thus hived did not 

 build combs at all, comparatively speaking, 

 as, after being hived a week, they did not 

 have comb equal in size to a man's hand, 

 and not a cell of honey in sight, while 

 swarms given empty combs would fill them 

 with brood, although little if any honey was 

 stored. In this latter case pollen was not 

 plentiful. From the above I conclude that 

 there are times when pollen can be converted 

 into wax, and used largely for comb building 

 and brood rearing, but it needs close obser- 

 vation on the part of the apiarist to know 

 when this can be depended upon. When it 

 can, such combs cost nothing and founda- 

 tion is lost. As friend Hutchinson has said 

 in his leader, I use small colonies largely for 

 comb building, and hive many of my swarms 

 on empty combs, which have been previous- 

 ly built by these colonies, for these small 

 colonies or nuclei will build comb to the 

 best advantage, while they can do nothing 

 else as well. 



While my combs are generally built by 

 nuclei, yet I have had hundreds of combs 

 built on the plan given in "The Production 

 of Comb Honey." and where I use full 

 sheets of foundation in the sections, or sec- 

 tions of empty comb left over from the sea- 

 son previous, I always believe it the most 

 profitable to have the bees build their combs 

 below ; but where I use combs below, then I 

 believe it the most profitable to use only 

 starters in the sections. In cases like the 

 experiments given in the first of this article, 

 the sections were not put on the hives at all, 

 for sections are of no use on a hive except 

 at times when the bees are getting more 

 honey than they consume, while it is often a 

 disadvantage to have them on in times of 

 scarcity, for the bees will often gnaw the 

 foundation starters down and cover the nice 

 white sections with propolis. When honey 



