I 



\)c (Dee-f\eepeps jAcvieo. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tl^e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR, 

 w. z. HUTCHINSON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL. VN, FLINT, MICHIGAN, SEP, 10. 1894. NO, 9. 



Work at IVCicliigaii's 



Experimental 



Apiary. 



B. L, TAYLOB, APIABIST. 



JT has long beeu 

 a question with 

 some bee-keepers 

 of experience 

 whether all sam- 

 ples of secti ou 

 foundation are 

 alike in point of 

 desirability for 

 practical pur- 

 poses and it was 

 with the hope of 

 doing something toward the solution of this 

 question that experiments were instituted 

 last year for tlie purpose of comparing sev- 

 eral of the different makes of foundation. 

 These experiments were made with the idea 

 that there were two leading and important 

 points in either or both of which it might be 

 there existed considerable difference among 

 different samples of foundation and these 

 points were first the readiness and rapidity 

 with which the bees worked out the founda- 

 tion and secondly the thinness to which they 

 reduced its septum. The importance of the 

 determination of these matters and of the 

 reasons for differences if any existed, to the 

 interests of bee-keepers, is too evident to 

 require comment. 



During the season of 1893 it was thou t: lit 

 practicable to make at least an api)ro!,oh 

 toward the solution of the first point by lill- 

 ing sections with the different samples of 

 foundation and then, after placing Ihuse 

 containing the several kinds alternately in a 

 case without separators, giving them to the 

 bees to be worked out and filled. It seemed 

 exident that the kinds which the bees workc d 

 the most pr6mptly and rapidly would con- 

 tain the greatest amount of honey when 

 completed and that by weighing separately 

 the sections which had been filled with each 

 kind of foundation the preferences of the 

 bees and the consequent desirability of each 

 kind of foundation would be determined by 

 the definite criterion of the scales. 



This experiment for two principal reasons 

 was only partially successful. One cause of 

 the partial failure was that sections of too 

 great width were employed. The sections 

 were scant 1% inch while as is well known 

 sections of a width of from IV4 inch to 1% 

 inch would afford ample space for the build- 

 ing of comb of such thickness as tlie bees 

 usually prefer, so that, as a consequence of 

 the use of the sections of the greater width, 

 though the bees began to work some samples 

 of foundation sooner and more rapidly than 

 some others, it was observed that, when a 

 comb in a section arrived at the stage where 

 it was a little thicker than what they usually 

 prefer, the bees suspended work upon it 

 largely and hesitated, to bring up the combs 

 built from foundation less liked by Ihem, so 

 that when completed there was not the dif- 



