THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



373 



the bees. By referring to my diary for 1884 

 I find that about 40 sets of those sections 

 were supplied with 'drawn combs' pro- 

 duced Sy those bees while in this city. My 

 purpose was to have those sections, with emp- 

 ty 'drawn combs, ' tilled with honey after 

 repohiuy my desti atiou near East St. Louis. 

 B'lt on my arrival there I found the season 

 tjo far advanced to use the sections of 

 ' drawn combs ' to advantage, and there- 

 fore coufiaed the bees to extracted honey. 

 When the seasou closed the bees needed all 

 the honey they had stored there for winter 

 use, as Mr. Flanagan will now remember. 

 I came back to this city after the honey 

 season closed near Eist St. Louis, and the 

 8up9rs dllei with ' Jra>vti c ) nb^ in sections' 

 were left in or near the apiary. What be- 

 came of them I do not know ; but my recol- 

 lection is th vt they were, later on, taken 

 away and sent 'down south' to some other 

 apiary by Mr. Flanagan, or by his order. 



Again, in 188(5 1 had charge of three apiaries 

 in C )lumhia C )unty. Wis., and again on 

 shares. These bees were the property of one 

 Rufus Morgan when the contract was made 

 by me to manage them on shares; but later 

 on they became the property of the Roy 

 Broth'irs. Durlngthat seasononr total crop 

 of surplus honey was nearly 20,0ii0 lbs. — 

 about half of which was in sections. One 

 Eugene Otis, who then lived and still lives 

 in Batavia, III., was my partner in the man- 

 agement of those bees. During that season 

 Mr. Otis and I paid special attention to 

 'drawn combs for sections, ' and we secur- 

 ed not less than half of the section crop of 

 honey in such combs. These combs were 

 simply drawn out on foundation in full- 

 sized sheets, and then cut to proper sizoi and 

 transferred to the sections. The sheets 

 were of the same size as those used for 

 brood-frames. And this, in my opinion, is 

 the only practical way to secure snob combs 

 to advantage, and propprly drawn nut for 

 comb honev. I regard the method describ- 

 ed by Mr. Simmins in spcuring such combs 

 as extremely crude, and by no means equal 

 to the one adopted here — not by me alone, 

 but by others whom I will not attempt to 

 mention now. 



Now. I trust that no one will harbor the 

 idea that the writer of this claims to be the 

 originator of ' drawn combs for sections. ' 

 for such is not the case. It is my belief 

 that the party who tirst conceived the idea, 

 and who, perhans, has made a more extend- 

 ed and profitable use of it than any other 

 man living, whether in Europe or the 

 United States, is still alive, and resides in 

 this (Kane) county, but who, for reasons 

 best known to himself, did not regard it as 

 good business policy to make the matter 

 public through any of the regular bee-peri- 

 odicals. For that reason mainly, the mat- 

 ter has been kept virtually a secret by the 

 few to whom it was disclosed a long time 

 ago. " 



It will be seen that the exact modus oper- 

 andi is not given, but this much is told, the 

 foundation is drawn out in fnll sheets, then 

 cat up and fitt<3d into the sections, but the 



time of the year when the drawing oat ia 

 done, the part of the hive in which it is done, 

 the manner in which the bees are induced 

 to do the work, whether by feeding or by 

 giving them the foundation during a slight 

 flow, how the brood is kept out of the drawn 

 foundation, etc., are not given, and perhaps 

 some ot these matters would be varied 

 according to circumstances. I wish that 

 friend Baldridge would tell the Review all 

 the particulars that he can, and will, with- 

 out violating any confidence. 



I have no faith in making deep-celled 

 foundation or artificial combs for- use in 

 sections. It seems that it would be impossi- 

 ble to approach the thinness of the natural 

 combs, and besides, it will lack its brittle- 

 nese or friability — it will be tough and 

 leathery, the quantity of wax used will be 

 great, and the whole thing will be a damage 

 to the quality of the honey. 



Amalgamation. 



This subject of the Amalgamation of the 

 North American Bee-Keepers' Society and 

 of the National Bee-keepers' Union is now 

 uppermost in the minds of bee-keepers, and 

 it is one that cannot receive too much consid- 

 eration ; for this reason I copy the follow- 

 ing article into the Review. It was written 

 by the editor of the Review and published in 

 a late issue of the Ameeican Bee Journal. 



"The Bee-Keepers' Union was created 

 for a specific purpose, that of defending its 

 members from uujast prosecutions by law. 

 It fulfilled its purpose well, and has made 

 sc many precedents, some in high courts, 

 that but few suits of this kind are now 

 brought, or. if brought, are dropped when 

 the record of past similar suits are laid be- 

 fore the interested parties. Practically, the 

 Union's hard work in this direction is fin- 

 ished — was finished several years ago. It 

 has made a record And when that record is 

 laid before some would-be antagonist, and 

 he is still further informed that the Union 

 is yet in existence, with a good sum of mon- 

 ey in its treasury ready to be used in the 

 defense of its members, all further thoughts 

 of a suit are at an end. About all that the 

 Union now has to do in this line is to fur- 

 nish these records and ' show its hand. ' So 

 little money has been used in conducting 

 su'ts for the last few years years that it has 

 been accumulating and now amounts to 

 several hundreds of dollars — seven hundred, 

 I believe. 



These persecutors of bee-keepers have 

 been put under foot, so to speak ; but, in 

 the meantime, another and ten-fold greater 

 evil has been growing, that of the adultera- 

 tion of honey. So great did this become 

 that there was strong talk of forming 



