Manual of the apiary

by Albert John Cook

To make the thin sheets of wax, Mr. A. I. Root takes sheets or plates of galvanized iron with a wooden handle. These are cooled by dipping in ice-water, and then are dipped two, or three times if the wax is very hot, in the melted wax, which is maintained at the proper temperature by keeping it in a double-walled vessel, with hot water in the outer chamber. Such a boiler, too, prevents burning of the wax, which would ruin it, while it is being melted. After dipping the plates in the wax, they are again dipped, when dripping has ceased, into the cold water, after which the sheets of wax are cleaved off, the plates brushed, wiped, cooled, and dipped again. The boiler used in melting the wax has the gate with a fine wire sieve attached near the top, so that the wax as it is drawn off into the second boiler, will be thoroughly cleansed. Mr. Root states that two men and a boy will thus make four hundred pounds of wax sheets in a day.

Others use wooden plates on which to mold the sheets, while the Hetherington brothers prefer, and are very successful with a wooden cylinder, which is made to revolve in the melted wax, and is so hinged, that it can be speedily raised above or lowered into the liquid.

For cutting foundation, nothing is so admirable as the Carlin cutter ([Fig, 67, a]), which is like the wheel glass-cutters sold in the shops, except that a larger wheel of tin takes the place of the one of hardened steel. Mr. A. I. Root has suggested a grooved board ([Fig. 67, b]) to go with the above, the distance between the grooves being equal to the desired width of the strips of comb foundation to be cut.

USE OF FOUNDATION.

I have used foundation, as have many other more extensive apiarists, with perfect success in the section-boxes. The bees have so thinned it that even epicures could not tell comb-honey with such foundation, from that wholly made by the bees. Yet, I forbear recommending it for such use. When such men as Hetherington, Moore, Ellwood, and L. C. Root, protest against a course, it is well to pause before we adopt it; so, while I have used foundation, I think with some small advantage in sections and boxes for three years, I shall still pronounce against it.

It will not be well to have the word artificial hitched on to our comb-honey. I think it exceedingly wise to maintain inviolate in the public mind the idea that comb-honey is par excellence, a natural product. And as Captain Hetherington aptly suggests, this argument is all the more weighty, in view of the filthy condition of much of our commercial beeswax.

Again, our bees may not always thin the foundation, and we risk our reputation in selling it in comb-honey, and an unquestioned reputation is too valuable to be endangered in this way, especially as in these days of adulteration, we may not know how much paraffine, etc., there is in our foundation, unless we make it ourselves.

Lastly, there is no great advantage in its use in the sections, as drone-comb is better, and with caution and care this can be secured in ample quantities to furnish very generous starters for all our sections. This will readily adhere, if the edge be dipped into melted beeswax, and applied to the sections.

If any one should still be disposed to make such use of foundation, they should only purchase of very reliable parties, that they may be sure to use only such wax as is genuine, yellow, clean, and certainly unmixed with paraffine, or any of the commercial products which were first used to adulterate the wax. Only pure, clean, unbleached wax should be used in making foundation. We should be very careful not to put on the market any comb-honey where the foundation had not been properly thinned by the bees. Perhaps a very fine needle would enable one to determine this point without injury to the honey.

But the most promising use of foundation, to which there can be no objection, is in the brood-chamber. It is astonishing to see how rapidly the bees will extend the cells, and how readily the queen will stock them with eggs if of the right size, five cells to the inch. The foundation should always be the right size either for worker or drone-comb. Of course the latter size would never be used in the brood-chamber. The advantage of foundation is, first, to insure worker-comb, and thus worker-brood, and second, to furnish wax, so that the bees may be free to gather honey. We proved in our apiary the past two seasons, that by use of foundation, and a little care in pruning out the drone-comb, we could limit or even exclude drones from our hives, and we have but to examine the capacious and constantly crowded stomachs of these idlers, to appreciate the advantage of such a course. Bees may occasionally tear down worker-cells and build drone-cells in their place; but such action, I believe, is not sufficiently extensive to ever cause anxiety. I am also certain that bees that have to secrete wax to form comb, do much less gathering. Wax secretion seems voluntary, and when rapid seems to require quiet and great consumption of food. If we make two artificial colonies equally strong, supply the one with combs, and withhold them from the other, we will find that this last sends much fewer bees to the fields, while all the bees are more or less engaged in wax secretion. Thus the other colony gains much more rapidly in honey, first, because more bees are storing; second, because less food is consumed. This is undoubtedly the reason why extracted-honey can be secured in far greater abundance than can comb-honey.