BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
On the other hand, foundation for surplus (**731**) must be made as light as the finest machine can make it, to avoid what is called the "fish-bone," a central rib found in the honey-comb that has been built on too heavy foundation. There is no "fish-bone," if the proper grade has been used, and even an expert in comb-honey hesitates in deciding whether the base is natural or artificial.
**6SS**. At the present day, nearly every section (**721**) of comb-honey that is sold, has been built on such foundation. The daintiest and most fastidious ladies can have no objection to it, and on visiting a well-managed foundation shop, they declare that the tender sheets are "nice enough to eat."
**6S9.** To prepare the wax sheets, use soft wood boards 3% of an ineh thick, bathed in tepid water. They are wiped with a sponge, and dipped in melted wax, two or three times. The lower part of the board is then dipped in cold water, when it is turned bottom side up, and the other end is treated in the same manner. After the board has been put in water
Fig. 146.
FOUNDATION IN SECTIONS.
to cool for a little while, it is taken out; its edges are trimmed with a sharp knife, and the two sheets of wax are peeled off. If the sheets are intended for heavy foundation, twice, as many dips are necessary. The wax should be liquid but not hot. If it is too hot, the sheets will crack. To secure rapid work, you must have a room arranged purposely for the dippers, with a zinc or tin floor to eaten the drips of water and wax.
**690**. The sheet wax, after a few days' cooling in a dry cellar, is tempered, in the moulding tank with warm water, and run through the rollers. The latter are lubricated with starch, or soapsuds. When soapsuds are used, it is very important that the sheets be pressed so tightly in the rollers, asto come out dry. This also makes a better print. The foundation, as fast as it comes from the roilers, is laid upon a hard wood block\(-\)a dozen sheets or more, at a time. A wooden pattern is laid over them, and they are trimmed to the proper size, by a knife made for the purpose, whose blade has been wet with soapsnds. The projecting edges are trimmed off, and the damaged sheets are melted over for future use.
For the thin grades of foundation, the narrower the sheets are, the thinner the foundation can be made. A wide sheet spreads the rollers by springing the shafts to a certain extent, and is heavier.
**691**. The manufacture of foundation, which at first seemed likely to be undertaken by every Apiarist, has become an industry of itself, owing to the greater skill and speed acquired by those who make it daily. It might be compared to eigar making. Any Apiarist can make wax into sheets and run it through rollers and any farmer can raise tobacco and roll its leaves into cigars, but, to the uninitiated, a neat sheet of foundation is as difficult to make as an elegant cigar. Improved and expensive machinery is used in most factories for quick and perfeet work.
**692**. Well-made foundation will keep for years, in a dry place. It should never be handled when cold; and when too much softened by heat, should be cooled in a cellar, a few hours before it is handled.
When it is cold, it becomes so brittle, after a few days of exposure, that the least handling will eraek it. We have seen hundreds of pounds which had been handled roughly in cold weather, fall to pieces when taken out of the box. The jarring of the boxes had cracked the foundation imperceptibly, so that the sheets appeared perfect, but as soon as they were touched, they fell into numerous pieces. Too much heat has a contrary effect. It makes the foundation too malleable. The temperature of the blood is the proper degree at which the bees can best manipulate it and that is also the best tem
perature to handle it when fastening it in the frames, though some degrees lower will not be injurious.
The best grade of foundation for brood or extracting eombs is that which measures about six square feet to the pound; that for sections, ten to twelve feet.
On this latter grade, the comb is not so readily built, for the bees have to add their own wax to it.
**693**. The foundation is fastened in the sections by different machines, the most simple of which is the Parker Fastener, sold by all dealers in bee-implements.
In his "Management of Bees" Mr. Doolittle describes his method as follows:
"Tnrn your section top side down, hold a hot iron close to the box, and after holding the starter immediately above and touching the iron, draw the iron out quickly and press the starter gently on to the wood, when it is a fixture.
The daintiest implement we have seen anywhere for fasteners foundation in sections, while at the same time folding the one piece section, is the small press invented by Frank Rauchfuss, the energetic manager of the Colorado Honey Producers' Association, at Denver. Thousands of sections are prepared daily, by praetical apiarists, with this instrument. It is the most complete thing of its kind yet devised.
To fasten the foundation on a flat top-bar, some use the roller (fig. 149) invented by the late Mr. Hambaugh. However, at the present day, the frames are usually made with grooves and wedge under the top bar. This makes the insertion of foundation a very simple matter (fig. 69).
**694.** In brood-frames, it may be fastened with or without wires. The wire used is malleable timed wire, No. 30. A shallow frame needs no wires at all, but in brood-combs, --to insure safety and prevent warping--it is as well to use two or three horizontal wires as in fig. 150.
This method of horizontal-wiring was first given us by Mr. Vandervort, to whom the world is also indebted for the spur for imbedding the wire in the foundation (fig. 151). The excessive wiring resorted to by some is worse than useless.
Dr. C. C. Miller uses light wooden splints perpendicularly in the frame, instead of wires to support the foundation. The bottom bar of his frame is made in two equal pieces so as to pinch or hold the foundation between them. The splints are dipped into a shallow tin pan containing hot beeswax until they are saturated with wax and while hot they are pressed upon the surface of the sheet of foundation so that they may be perpendicular when the frame is hung in the live.
These splints about 1-16 of an inch square do not seem to be at all in the way when the combs are built upon them and they make an absolutely solid support for the foundation.
**695.** As comb-foundation is generally bought in long strips, it may be well to give directions to cut it into pieces of the right size for sections. This may be done with almost any sharp knife. Have a pattern of the size of the pieces wanted, made of hard wood. Take six or eight sheets at one time, arranged in an even pile. Lay your pattern on them, holding it down firmly; dip your knife in strong soap-suds, and if the wax.is at the proper temperature, you will cut the eight pieces at one stroke of the knife. If the sheets have a tendency to \(slip\) from under the pattern, you may nail eleats on three sides of it, to _creams_ the pile as in a box.
**696.** Are there a right and a wrong way, to suspend foundation in the frames? Or, in other words, should two of the six sides of the cell be perpendicular or horizontal? Huber, and Cheshire after him, call our attention to the fact, that the bees always build their combs, with two sides of the cells perpendicular. Mr. Cheshire explains, at length, the adaptation and advantages of this natural facet, and its bearing on the strength of the comb.
From his explanations, it results that foundation suspended thus : _i. e.,_ with two perpendicular sides, would be properly fastenei, while if suspended thus : _i. e.,_ with two horizontal sides, it would be improperly fastened.
Most of the naehines that are made turn out foundationsheets, which are to be hung horizontally, when the cells are in the proper position. But in the cutting of section foundation, the sheets are often made so that they must hang the other way. Yet there seems to be no bad result when this is done and the bees accept the foundation, no matter how the cells are turned. It is not always best however to give comb foundation in full sheets to natural swarms, for two reasons. The first is that advanced by W. Z. Hutchinson, in his book "Advanced Bee-Culture" and which has been mentioned in "Natural Swarming" (**125**). The other is that when a heavy swarm is lived on full sheets of comb foundation, the great weight of the bees, connected with the unusual heat of the temperature at that time, sometimes causes the sheets to say, and drone combs may be the result, wherever the sheets are slightly stretched. If the foundation is given to artificial divisions or to weak colonies to be drawn, such results are not to be feared. If a natural swarm for some reason is likely to be unable to promptly fill its hive with combs, the apiarist will be astonished to see how much of a help full sheets of comb foundation will be. Secondary swarms will always profit by its use, as they are not powerful enough to cause either of the inconveniences above mentioned.
It is well, however, to place foundation in the correct position, whenever practicable, especially with the light grades for sections, which are more in danger of stretching under ordinary circumstances.
**697**. It is astonishing, as well as pleasing, to see how quickly a swarm will build its combs, when foundation is used. The enthusiasm, with which it is used by bee-keepers, is only exceeded by that of the bees, "in being lived on it." This invention certainly deserves to rank next to those of the _movable-frames_ (**2S2**) and of the _honey-extractor_ (**749**).
## Chapter XVI.
Pasturage and Overstocking.
_Pasturage._
**69S.** The quantity of nectar yielded by different flowers varies considerably; some give' so little, that a bee has to visit hundreds to fill her saek, while the corolla of others overflows with it.
In the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope, there is a blossom, the \(Protea\)_melifera_, which probably surpasses all others in the abundance of its nectar. Indeed, so abundant is it, that it is said, the natives gather it by dipping it from the flowers, with spoons. Mr. De Planta, in a lengthy and seientific article published in the _Revue Internationale d' \(\_\)1picture,_ gives an account of his analysis of some samples of this honey, which he had received through the "Moravian United Brothers." He reports it to have the seent and the taste of ripe bananas, and considers it very sweet and good.
**699**. The same plants yield nectar in different quantities in different countries. The Caucasian Comfrey, from which the bees reap a rich harvest in some parts of Europe, is of little account here.
**700**. Every bee-keeper should carefully acquaint himself with the honey-resources of his own neighborhood. We will mention particularly some of the most important plants from which bees draw their supplies. Since Dizerzon's discovery of the use which may be made of flour (**267**), early blossoms producing pollen _only,_ are not so important. All the varieties of willow abound in both pollen and honey, and their early blossoming gives them a special value.
"First the gray willow's glossy pearls they steal,
Or rob the hazel of its golden meal,
397While the gay crocus and the violet blue, Yield to their flexible trunks ambrosial dew.'' --Evans.
The sugar-maple (_tcer saccharius_) yields a large supply of delicious honey, and its blossoms, hanging in graeefn! fringes, will be alive with bees.
In some sections, the wild strawberry is a valuable help to the bees, as it blossoms very early, and they work eageriy on it.
Of the fruit trees, the aprietot, peach, plum, eherry and pear, are great favorites; but none furnishes so much honey as the apple.
The dandelion, whose blossoms furnish pollen and honey, when the yield from the fruit trees is nearly over, is worthy of rank among honey-producing plants.
The tuip tree (_Liriodendron_) is one of the greatest honey-producing trees in the world. As its blossoms expand in succession, new swarms will sometimes fill their lives from this source alone. The honey, though dark, is of a good flavor. This tree often attains a height of over one hundred feet, and its rich foliage, with its large blossoms of minpled green and yellow, make it a most beautiful sight.
The common lowest (Fig. 153), is a very desirable tree for the vicinity of an apiary, yielding much honey when it is peculiarly needed by the bees.
The wild cherry blooms about the same time.
**701**. Of all the sources from which bees derive their supplies, white elver (Fig. 154), is usually the most important. It yields large quantities of very pure white honey, and wherever it abounds, the bee will find a rich harvest. In most parts of this country it seems to be the ehief reliance of the apiary. Blossoming at a season of the year when the weather is usually both dry and hot, and the bees gathering its honey after the sun has dried off the dew, it is ready to be sealed over almost at once.
It is at the blossoming of this important plant that the main crop of honey usually begins, and that the bees propagate in the greatest number.
Fig. 153.
Locusr nlosos.
(From the American Dee Journal.)The flowers of red clover (fig. 15) also produce a large quantity of nectar; unfortunately its corollas are usually too deep for the tongue of our bees.
Yet sometimes, in Summer, they can reach the nectar, either because its corollas are shorter on account of dryness, or because they are more copiously filled.
Attempts have been made to select, for breeding, bees with longer tongues, in order to secure the honey of the red clover
blosson at all times. The Italian bee seems to be in advance of other races, in this respect, and so-called "red-elover queens" have been bred and offered for sale. The attempt is praiseworthy, but we must not lose sight of the fact that traits of this kind are very slow to become fixed and we should beware of too much enthusiasm. Very fugitive progress will probably be made for a long time, before anything fixed is secured.
Bee-keepers may ascertain for themselves the comparative length of tongue of their bees, by the help of a very simple device (Fig. 155). A smooth glass surface moistened with thin honey is covered with a screen placed in a slanting position and graduated. The bees which reach the farthest on the glass may be selected for breeding, provided they are equally profieient in other respects.
yields white honey of a strong flavor, and, as it blossoms when both the swarms and parent-colonies are usually populous, the weather settled, and other bee-forage scarce, its value to the bee-keeper is great.
"Here their delicious task, the fervent bees In swarming millions tend: around, athwart, Through the soft air the busy nations dy, Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube, Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul." --Thomson.
This majestic tree, adorned with beautiful clusters of fragrant blossoms, is well worth attention as an ornamental shade-tree. By adorning our villages and country residences with a fair allowance of tulip, linden, and such other trees as are not only beautiful to the eye, but attractive to bees, the honey-resources of the country might, in process of time, be greatly increased. In many districts, loeust and basswood plantations would be valuable for their timber alone.
We have also a variety of clover imported from Sweden, which grows as tall as the red clover, bears many blossoms on a stalk, in size resembling the white, and, while it answers admirably for bees, is preferred by cattle to almost any other kind of grass. It is known by the name of Alsike or Swedish clover (Fig. 159).
The objection made to this clover is that its stem is so light that it falls to the ground. This is remedied by sowing it with timothy. The latter helps it to stand. It is as good for honey as white clover.
**701**. The raspberry furnishes a must delicious honey. In flavor it is superior to that from the white clover. The sides of the roads, the borders of the fields, and the pastures of much of the "hill-country" of New England, and of the great Northwest, from Wisconsin to Alaska, abound with the wild red raspberry. When it is in blossom, bees hold even the white clover in light esteem. Its drooping blossoms protect the honey from moisture, and they can work upon it when the weather is so wet that they can obtain nothing
If cut early to be used as forage, it blooms later than white clover and till frost. It is a biennial.
The yellow or official sweet clover is an annual and yields considerable honey also. (Fig. 162.)
Fig. 161.
swett clover.
Melliotus Alba.
(From Vilmorin-Andrieux, Paris.)
The different varieties of smart-weeds (_Persicaria_), golden-rod, buckwheat, asters, iron-weed, Spanish-needles in low lands and marshy places, give a very abundant honey-crop in the latter part of the Summer. They form the bulk of what is called the "Fall crop" in this latitude.
In California the Sage, in Texas the Horse-mint, in Florida the Mangrove, form the main honey-harvests of those countries.
In the irrigated portions of the arid West, the Alfalfa (Fig. 156) is grown profusely, usually giving three crops of hay and at each blooming an abundance of the most delicious white honey. Alfalfa honey is a staple on the market.
**706**. We here present a list of the flowers known as being visited by the bees for their nectar or for their pollen. We have grouped them in Families, and we give engravings of some of their most prominent types, in order to help the Apiarist in his investigation. But our list is far from being complete.
**Fig. 163.**
**Persicaria, commonly called "heartsease."**
(From Forty Years Among the Bees.)
_Composite:-_Dandelion, Thistle, Chamomile, Sunflower, Ox-eye Daisy, Goldenrod (Fig. 164), Coreopsis, Lettuee, Chicory, Boneset, Iron-weed, Indian Plantain, Fire-weed, Aster (figures 165, 166), Burr-Marigold, Spanish Needles,Coneflower, Star Thistle, Thoroughwort, Butterweed, Sneezewort, Blue Bottle, Ragweed, several varieties of Eehinops, one of which, the Spherocephalus, was introduced here by Mr. Chapman. The Eehinops vitro (smaller in size) (Fig. 167), is cultivated in Europe on account of its beautiful blue heads.
Figure 169: JUAS TRE.
(From L'Apicoltore.)
* [14] Seuna, Milk veteh, Yellow-Wood, Mesquit-tree of Texas, C'leome intergrifolia and pungens (Fig. 170).
* [15]_Labiatae_ :- (from _Labium_, a lip). Ground Ivy, Sage, Mint, Horehound, Catinp, Motherwort, Horse-Mint, Basil, Ilyssop,
Bergamot, Marjoram, Thyme, Melissa, Dead Nettle, Brunella, Pennyroyal.
_Resaceae_ :- (from _Labium_, a lip). Ground Ivy, Sage, Mint, Horehound, Catinp, Motherwort, Horse-Mint, Basil, Ilyssop,
Bergamot, Marjoram, Thyme, Melissa, Dead Nettle, Brunella, Penny, P Apple, Pear, Quince, Hawthorne, Blaekberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Juneberry, Cinquefoil, Bowmansroot, Queen of the Prairie, Meadow Sweet, Pyracantha.
_Polygonaceae:-_Buekwheat, Lady Thumb, Rhubarb, Sorrel, and a variety of Knot-weeds or Persiearias (Fig. 171).
_Borraginaceae_:-Borage (Fig. 143). Viper-bugloss, Comfrey, Phaeelia, Virginia Lungwort, Hound's tongue, Gromwell, False Gromwell.
_Serophulariaceae_:-Serophularia nodosa (Simpson's honey plant), Veronieas, Yellow Jessamine of the South, whose honey is poisonous.-- (Dr. J. P. H. Brown.)
_alcogeniaadace_:-The common Milk-weed (Fig. 173), or Sikkweed, Aselepias cornuti, is much frequented by bees, but these visits are often fatal to them. All the grains of pollen of the Silkweed, in each another, are collected in a compact mass, enclosed in a sack; these sacks are united in pairs (_a_. Fig. 176) by a kind of thread, terminated by a small, viscous gland. These threads \(a\), sacs of pollen in stick to the feet. (_b_. Fig. 176) and "often pairs; \(b\), the same attached to a bee's foot. (From "A B C of Bee-Culture.")
In some parts "if Ohio and Western Illinois, a variety of the common kind, the _Asclepias Sullicanti_, does not present to bees these difficulties to the same degree. We have seen bees gathering honey freely on four or five different varieties which grow in our neighborhood, and especially on the Tube
_Ericaceae_ :-This family, on the Old Continent, includes the numerous varieties of Heath, on which bees reap a large
**Fig. 180.**
**larvest of inferior honey, so thick that it is impossible to extract it. Blueberry, Sour Wood, Laurel, Clethra ainifolia,**
**Fig. 181.**
**Fig. 182.**
**illly of the valley.**
**solomon's seal.**
**('wberry, Huckleberry, Whortleberry, Gaultheria proeumbens, or Creeping wintergreen,** - which is indicated, by some
Grape-vine, Polanisia, Button weed, Mignonette, or Reseda (Fig. 183), Teasel, Skunk cabbage, Waterleaf, Hemp, Touehne-not, Amaranth, Crowfoot, St. Johnswort, and among the trees: Willow, Poplar, which have their sexual organs on different trees; Oak, Walnut, Hickory, Beech, Birch, Alder,
Elm, Hazelnut, Maple, whose organs of reproduction are separated, although on the same tree.
Horse ehestnut, Persimmon, Gunn-tree, Dogwood, Buttonbush, Cijpress, Liquidambar, Linden.
We should mention also, Ailanthus glandulosus (Varnish tree of China), a large, ornamental tree, which gives an abundance of honey so bad in taste, as to compel the beekeepers who have some in their neighborhood to extract it as soon as it is gathered, that it may not injure the quality of their crop.
Bees also visit some of the plants of the grass family, such as corn and sorghum. A plant of this family, the Setaria, or bristly fortail grass, is known in France under the name of _accroche-abeilles,_ (bee-cateher). Its curved hairs grasp the bees' legs, and the poor insects, unable to free themselves, are soon exhausted, and die.
Strange to say, the prineipal crop of honey in a country may be harvested from a flower which yields nothing in other countries. The white clover, so well known in the Mississippi valley as the very best melliferous plant, yields nothing in Switzerland. The alfalfa, mentioned as the principal crop of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, is not a 'honey producer in Illinois. Some plants also attract the bees continuously, by their fragrance, which yield little or no nectar.
The Eryngium giganteum is one of these. Mr. Bertrand tested its yield by marking with flour bees that were working upon it. The same bee was seen to work about the same buneh of these flowers, for five consecutive hours, without any apparent result. He nicknamed this plant "the honey-bee's bar-room" because the more they **sip,** the drier they are.
As a rule it is not advisable to plant for honey anything that has not value otherwise either as forage, ornament or shade. For this very reason, however, there are foreign forage plants which would be desirable everywhere. We will name among these the 'Crimson Clover and the Sainfoin or esparceet, of which we give engravings, figs. 1\({}^{\circ}\)\(\pm\) and 1\({}^{\circ}\)\(\pm\). The Sainfoin (healthy hay) is a very desirable forage plant.
## Overstockin\({}^{ii}\).
our country not in danger of being overstocked with bees.
**707**. If the opinions, entertained by some, as to the danger of overstocking were correct, bee-keeping in this country would always have been an insignificant pursuit.
It is difficult to repress a smile when the owner of a few hives, in a district where hundreds might be made to prosper, gravely imputes his ill-success to the faet, that too many bees are kept in his vicinity. If, in the Spring, a colony of boun is prosperous and healthy, it will gather abundant stores, in a favorable season, even if many equally strong are in its immediate vicinity; while, if it is feeble, it will be of little or no value, even if it is in "a land flowing with milk and honey," and there is not another colony within a dozen miles of it.
As the great Napoleon gained many of his victories by having an overwhelming force at the right place, in the right time, so the bee-keeper must have strong colonies, when numbers can be turned to the best aeconnt. If they become strong only when they can do nothing but consume what little honey has been previously gathered, he is like a farmer who suffers his crops to rot on the ground, and then hires a set of idlers to eat him out of house and home.