. The American bee keeper. Bee culture; Honey. 1895. THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 211. (From the American Bee Journal.) BEES BUILDING ILL-SHAPEfir OOMBS, ETC. BY (4. M. DOOLITTLE, A correspondent writes me this : " I have a colony of bees which built nice, thinly-drawn, beautiful combs in the middle sections of the supers, while the outside sections contained some of the heaviest and most ill-shapen combs I ever saw. Can you tell me why this is so ? Please answer through the American Bee Journal, as I take that ; Something of this kind has been spoken of before in our bee-papers, a
. The American bee keeper. Bee culture; Honey. 1895. THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 211. (From the American Bee Journal.) BEES BUILDING ILL-SHAPEfir OOMBS, ETC. BY (4. M. DOOLITTLE, A correspondent writes me this : " I have a colony of bees which built nice, thinly-drawn, beautiful combs in the middle sections of the supers, while the outside sections contained some of the heaviest and most ill-shapen combs I ever saw. Can you tell me why this is so ? Please answer through the American Bee Journal, as I take that ; Something of this kind has been spoken of before in our bee-papers, and some seem to think that such a state of affairs comes about by the changes in the weather, the thicker combs being built while the weather was cool, and the thinner when the weather was warm. Others account for it in a similar but somcAvhat differ- ent way, which is that as the thin combs were built in the center, there- fore this shows that there is greater heat over the center of the cluster of bees than elsewhere, as would be nat- ural, while the heat not being so great on the outside, made the wax less pli- able, hence the thicker and irregular combs. But I do not agree with either of these, for, as far as my know- ledge goes, bees do not attempt to work wax unless the temperature is right for the successful working of the same, and bees are capable of making a right temperature just when and where they please, as I have often proven with my self-registering ther- mometer. A small cluster of bees can easily keep a temperature of from 93° to 95° during a cold, frosty night, as many night experiments testify, and that is plenty warm enough for wax- making. From past experience I should ac- count for the state of affairs spoken of by the correspondent, as being the loss of the queen in that particular hive, and especially as he does not speak of noticing any other colonies building such peculiar comb. If cold had been the cause of the trouble, all of the colonies would ha
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbeeculture, bookyear1
