FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 629 



any colony which may fail, or supply any colony which may have a 

 poor grade queen. 



Whenever a comb that carries a good cell can be exchanged, we do so, 

 otherwise a cutoff cell is slightly pinched between the combs just above 

 some brood, or pinned on with a small stick or toothpick. A little caution 

 should be exercised at the time the queens are killed to see that there 

 are no cells left that might hatch before cell cutting time. In other 

 words, cut all cells as well as kill queens so that all of the cells will be 

 of the same age. We also see that there is no unsealed brood in the hive 

 at cell cutting time, as cells might be started and swarm when the 

 grafted cell hatches. 



After thoroughly going over a yard in this way a man could not earn 

 his board hiving swarms. I have not handled swarms enough of late to 

 keep in practice. Have been asked how it will work in the production 

 of comb honey to kill the queens in this way. Why not? There are as 

 many bees for the harvest as there would have been, had the old queen 

 remained in the hive, since it takes twenty-one days to rear a worker 

 besides the brood is not there to require feeding for a part of this time, 

 and, by the time the fall flow is on, the young queen has gotten acquainted 

 with all of the levers of egg laying and the colony goes into winter quar- 

 ters with a hive full of young bees. Nothing else hindering, that means 

 good wintering, and, good wintering means a good crop. 



After the combs get a good start of honey in them, I try to go over my 

 yards and change the empties to the middle, and those with honey in 

 them to the outside of the supers; this makes uniform combs at extract- 

 ing time. At this round all of the brood nests are examined for queen 

 or eggs and marked accordingly. 



A little about extract and extracting machinery and I am done. When 

 the honey is ripe and ready to extract I load my outfit of tanks and four- 

 frame automatic extractor — Root's make — steam capping knife, and suffi- 

 cient five-gallon cans to hold the day's work (about one ton). As the 

 yards are six or eight miles out, it is well toward ten o'clock before we 

 get there. Team off, and turned to the pasture, the machinery is gotten 

 inside the building, and, in less than five minutes, all is set ready to run. 

 Honey is rushed into the honey house until noon, when fifty to sixty 

 supers of nine frames in ten-frame supers are in the house. The fire is 

 started under the cap knife boiler, and, while we eat our dinners, the 

 capping knife is getting hot. If it is too cold and the honey is too thick 

 to strain well, a two-wick oil stove is set under the extractor. 



At five o'clock we are ready to start home, and, while the man gets the 

 team, I rush the empty supers back on the hives. The five-gallon ca.ns 

 having been washed off, carried out and loaded as fast as they are filled. 

 The position of the machinery in all of the houses is the same. First, to 

 the right of the door, in the corner of the room, is the extractor, mounted 

 on a low bench. A two by four about twelve feet long is shoved under a 

 block nailed at the end wall of the house, and sprung down over the back 

 of the extractor and locked under a block nailed to the side wall. This 

 holds the extractor solid and is all the fastening needed. Five seconds 

 will have it ready for use. 



