334 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



October 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



=3 Established by Samuel Wagner in 1861 C= 



The oldest Bee Journal in the English language. Consolidated with Tin 



National Bee Journal in 1874. 



Published monthly at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Ha 



lilton, Illinois. 



Subs, «,pt,on RATES-In the United States and All subscriptions are stopped at expiration. Dale 

 -Mexico. $1 per year; three years, $2.50; five of expiration is printed on wrapper label, 



years, $4. Canadian postage 15 cents, and C P D d 



other foreign countries 25 cents extra, per Frank C . pYlle^'I A^,,,ate Editor 



year - Maurice G. Dadant . Business Manager 



(Copyright 1918, by C. P. Dadant.) 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



The Editorial Staff 



Mr. Frank C. Pellett, who for the past 

 two years, beginning March, 1916, 

 has been staff correspondent of the 

 Journal, is now with us in a more 

 permanent capacity. He is our asso- 

 ciate in the editing of the Journal. 

 Mr. Pellett has been met by many of 

 our readers, for he has attended 

 numerous meetings of beekeepers. 

 For those who have never met him, 

 we will say that he has been State 

 Inspector of Apiaries in Iowa, Presi- 

 dent of the State Association, Vice 

 President of the National Associa- 

 tion, author of "Productive Beekeep- 

 ing," one of the leading modern bee- 

 books, "Practical Queen Rearing," 

 and of "Our Backdoor Neighbors," a 

 delightful book of Nature study. 



It is unnecessary to say more. 

 Judge him by what he will do. We 

 expect him to "make good" in his 

 present position. 



He is now settled with his family 

 at Hamilton and his permanent ad- 

 dress is at this office. 



Beeswax Production 



In another column our readers will 

 find an account of experiments by 

 Mr. I). A. Davis, at the University of 

 Minnesota on the above subject. 

 These experiments are interesting, 

 but they still leave the matter of 

 cost of wax in the indefinite condi- 

 tion we have always known. From 

 the time of Martin John (Fribourg 

 1684) the man who is said to have 

 first discovered that wax is a product 

 of digestion, like milk, hundreds of 

 experimenters have attempted to get 

 at the actual cost of wax to thi be< s, 

 in honey. The results have varied 

 greatly, not only because of differ- 

 ence in food, warmth, condition of 

 the bees and inaccuracies in the ex- 



periments, but also probably because 

 the amount of wax produced natur- 

 ally by bees from a given quantity 

 of food is as variable as the produc- 

 tion of milk or of butter fat in ani- 

 mals. 



But what is most important for 

 our producers to know is the answer 

 to the following question : 



At what time of the honey crop is 

 it most profitable to give the bees 

 full combs or full sheets of comb 

 foundation? 



Some will reply without hesitancy: 

 "At any time." But is not this 

 wrong? W. Z. Hutchinson, a man 

 who made his mark, as editor of the 

 "Beekeepers' Review" and as author 

 of "Advanced Bee Culture," testified 

 to the fact that "in hiving swarms 

 upon drawn combs, the loss was 

 always so great that it seems like 

 folly to repeat it." What explana- 

 tion can we give for that experi- 

 ence ? 



That the building of combs by the 

 bees is very expensive to them does 

 not admit of a doubt. Those who 

 have placed it at a low figure have 

 always overlooked some factor 

 which would have added greatly to 

 tin cost. But in the experience of 

 Hutchinson, it is probable that the 

 emptj combs provided to the bees oi 



a swarm al the height of the h i 



crop wen- tilled with hone} so 

 quickly that the queen was actually 

 deprived of breeding room, while in 



tin delaj caused by comb-building 

 the queen would have had time to 

 till them with brood as fast as thev 

 •tiilt. 

 This subject, mentioned by us in 

 paragraph 425 of the Langstroth 

 Dadant "Hive and Honey Bee," 

 brought us the following judicious 



remarks from Mr. Oscar Ritland, ot 

 Elroy, Wisconsin : 



"I should like to make a suggestion 

 in regard to your excellent book, 

 Langstroth Revised. In paragraph 

 425 you mention what Mr. Hutchin- 

 son says about hiving swarms upon 

 drawn combs, but you have failed to 

 say that he was talking about comb 

 honey. This, in my opinion, ex- 

 plains why he found it to be a loss 

 to hive a swarm on drawn combs. 



"If ymi hive a strong swarm, in a 

 good flow, in a hive full of drawn 

 combs and give it one or two supers 

 of sections with foundation at the 

 same time, 1 suppose that in most 

 cases the bees will jam the brood 

 chamber full of honey before the 

 queen can get a start, and the result 

 would be as Mr. Hutchinson stated. 

 But if you hive a swarm, in a good 

 honey flow, on a hive full of drawn 

 combs and give them also one or 

 two supers full of drawn combs, you 

 would not expect that the bees 

 would crowd the queen so that the 

 swarm would decline in strength, 

 would you?" 



It seems to us that this suggestion 

 solves the matter, but it is advisable 

 for each beekeeper to understand 

 fully the possible advantages and dis- 

 advantages of comb supply. There 

 are times when the hiving of swarms 

 upon full combs gives the bees op- 

 portunity to breed promptly, in the 

 early part of the season, if the crop 

 does not come in too fast, and per- 

 haps double their capacity for in- 

 crease before the end of the crop. 

 There are also times, near the end of 

 a crop, when the supplying of 

 empty combs or comb foundation 

 may be the saving of the swarm, 

 since a scanty supply of harvest 

 might be entirely inadequate for the 

 building of the combs but would 

 prove ample to sustain the colonj 

 till the next harvest. 



These are questions for our col- 

 lege men to experiment upon. Prac- 

 tical apiarists who have neither the 

 time nor the facilities for experi- 

 menting and keeping data will be 

 glad of more tests, at different times, 

 carefully recorded. But perhaps 

 honey would give us a more correct 

 result than sugar syrup, which was 

 the food employed bj Huber, Dumas 

 and Milne-Edwards, by Professor 

 Cook and dozens of others. Strange 

 to say, sugar gave a greatn percent- 

 age of wax than honey. 



Gundelach, Berlepsch and others 

 were also convinced by their tests 



