THOUSAND ANSWERS 275 
emptying one side only partly, reversing and extracting the other 
side, and again reversing to empty the first side. 
Q. If I wire the shallow 6-inch frames, can I use extra thin 
surplus foundation in them? How many wires ought I to put in, 
and where should they be? 
A. I fear you could not use extra-thin without four or five 
wires. You could probably use thin* surplus foundation with two 
horizontal wires, one two inches below the top-bar and the other 
one and one-half to two inches lower. 
Q. Is it necessary for frames to be wired? 
A. Not absolutely necessary, but better, to have the combs 
strengthened by being supported by wires or foundation splints. 
Q. Is vertical wiring as good as horizontal? If not, why not? 
A. That depends. If top and bottom-bars are sufficiently 
rigid, vertical wiring is as good or better. With vertical wiring, 
the wire must be drawn tightly, and unless a bar of some kind is 
in the center to hold top and bottom apart, the bottom-bar will 
be curved upward, and if the top-bar be not pretty thick it will 
sag. 
Q. What do you think of using wire from baled hay or straw 
in place of your wooden splints in brood-frames? 
A. Such heavy wire would be objectionable. Only very fine 
wire is used in wiring frames. 
Worms in Bees. — Q. Sometimes when I take off the lid there 
is a worm crawling on the underside of the lid about an inch long 
and one-fourth inch thick, gray color. Can that be some of the 
larvae that got out of some cell, or is it some other prowling 
stock? 
A. That worm is not an escaped larva from one of the cells 
of brood, but "prowling stock” of another sort. It is the larva 
of the wax-worm, which destroys combs when they are not prop- 
erly protected by the beej. These prowlers are not worth mind- 
ing in strong colonies, or those of good Italian stock, but when a 
queenless colony is on hand, especially a weak black one, these 
moth larvae finish up, like a lot of crows about a carrion. (See 
Beemoth.) 
Worker-Bees. — Q. Can workers lay? 
A. Not as a rule; but when a colony has been queenless a 
long time they may undertake the business, and then we have the 
pest called drone-laying workers. (See Laying Workers.) 
