Jan. 25, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



139 



ties, judging from the report of my own colonies this year. 

 The best colony I had this year produced 139 pounds of comb 

 honey. I had a doublc-hivc colony which produced i(U 

 pounds of comb honey. The best for extracted was liyyi- 

 Now, you see the comb honey is away ahead. It must be llie 

 locality; I don't know what else. I have never yet produced 

 twice as much extracted honey from one colony as comb. 

 There has been many a time that I have produced more ex- 

 tracted than comb, but very seldom. 



Mr. Meredith — Perhaps it might be that the man that is 

 running for comb honey might be able, with his manipulation, 

 to produce more comb honey than extracted; but at the same 

 time a man like Mr. France could double the amount of 

 extracted over comb. 



Mr. France — I would plead for the rest of the country 

 not tcr be as my own State. Many of the bee-keepers in 

 Wisconsin, when they have hold of the extractor handle they 

 don't know when to stop. They extract too late. 



Mr. Wilcox — There arc some bee-keepers that can have 

 all of the honey put into the supers so that the bees scarcely 

 have any to go into winter quarters with. That's in the 

 management. 



Mr. Moore — There is a whole lot of this that enters into 

 the comparative production of comb or extracted honey. The 

 bees, of course, fill the comb all new. If you make them 

 build the large frames out of which we take extracted honey 

 of new — if, as in my brother's case, you have thousands or 

 tens of thousands of empty combs which simply have to be 

 filled with the liquid honey by the bees, yoii might get a great 

 deal more extracted honey than comb honey. 



Mr. Longsdon — The parties had the combs all stacked 

 away — nice, clean combs, and the test was given fair and 

 square in favor of the extracted business. 



Dr. Miller — You may go over this ground for ten years 

 and you will come out where you went in. There is the 

 same man, and he says I got three times as much one year, 

 and then he tried it again another year and he says it was a 

 mistake, he got only two and one-tenth that year. If the 

 same man in the same place finds that one year doesn't give 

 him the same results as the other, you may change your man 

 and change your place and you will have a different result 

 again. When a young man comes to me and says. What shall 

 I do? What is the ratio? The only answer is. Try it and 

 see. You have to try it for your own place, and your own 

 management, and you may thrash this over until after bed- 

 time and you won't be any nearer to a solution. 



Mr. Baldridge — Mr. France says he had three times as 

 much one year and the ne.xt year two and one-tenth. Now, 

 perhaps the third year with more experience he won't get that 

 proportion. 



Mr. France — I would say that these things vary accord- j 

 ing to the season and management, and we may thrash this 

 over and over and you will find that that is the experience of 

 every man. 



Mr. Clarke — As regards the extracting yards, especially in 

 Wisconsin, a few years ago we heard of a great loss of bees. 

 Wasn't it a fact that 90 per cent of these losses came from 

 where they extracted? 



Mr. France — I would put it at that per cent. Quite a por- 

 tion of them were. There were a great many places where 

 the bees worked late in the fall, and there was something 

 gathered from the marshes and it caused diarrhea, and the 

 bees died. 



Mr. Clarke — I think it was about five or six years ago. 

 I know it was a general discussion that the extracted was 

 paying down to the ordinary time, but that everything had 

 fallen off, and that they had bees they co'ildn't and wouldn't 

 feed. That is the year that we had low-priced honey, and 

 it seemed the extracted part of it came mostly from the ex- 

 tracting yards. 



Mr. France — It is largely so, and I was disappointed 

 this year when I got back from the National Convention in 

 going over the State. I put the question: "In what condition 

 are your bees for winter?" And they said: "They are work- 

 ing nicely." I said : "Have you opened the hives really to 

 know?" No, they had not, and to their surprise what they 

 thought was wintering supplies had been used up. I can't 

 account for it. If they own a horse or cow they will feed 

 it up to go through winter, but they let their bees starve. 



Mr. Abbott — Down in Missouri I can produce a little 

 over twice as much extracted as comb. I buy it with my 

 money ! 



RETURNING SWARMS AND CUTTING QUEEN-CELLS. 



"In case the queen is taken from a swarm and the swarm 

 returned to the parent colony, would the colony be likely to 

 swarm soon again, providing all queen-cells but one are cut 

 out?" 



Mr. Hutchinson — No. 



Mr. Whitney— I should say yes, because I had some colo- 

 nies swarming three or four times. 



Dr. Miller — Did you cut out all but one? 



Mr. Whitney — I returned the queen, but cut out every 

 queen-cell. 



Dr. Miller — That wasn't the question. 



Mr. Whitney — I have had that occur as stated in the 

 question, but not frequently. It did occur, 



Mr. Wilcox — I am inclined to think they would. If you 

 cut out all but one they will build more queen-cells if condi- 

 tions are favorable. 



"shook" SWARMING AND COMB HONEY. 



"Can shook or artificial swarming be successfully carried 

 on while producing comb honey in several out yards?" 



Mr. Smith — You can successfully shake your swarms, but 

 it will cut your honey crop short. You haven't the same 

 amount of bees to work in the sections when you divide a 

 colony. 



Mr. York — According to Mr. Sinith the "shook" swarm- 

 ing is successful whether the honey crop is or not! 



REPORTING THE HONEY CROP. 



"There is no honey exchange or 'trust' of bee-keepers 

 to protect me on the price or I'aliic of my honey, then why 

 should I give the amount of honey I produce to the public, 

 for the benefit of the tradesman?" 



Mr. Starkey — I would like to answer that by saying that 

 he would be compelled to do it for lack of time to peddle it 

 out himself. He can get his price for the honey if he will 

 go to the consumers and give it to them in the quantity that 

 they want, but that takes time and labor. 



Mr. York — Why should he publish the total amount? 



Dr. Miller — I think possibly the question may refer to 

 this : It is a common thing each year for some of the large 

 dealers to send out questions to those who produce honey in 

 quantities, and find out how much honey they have. Asking 

 them what is the crop in their region. Why should I give 

 this advantage to these large buyers? 



Mr. Starkey — He should do it only for ignorance of his 

 own interest, because if he has a large crop — at least to give 

 them this knowledge would have a tendency to lower the mar- 

 ket price of this honey. If he informs the honey dealers that 

 there is a large crop they will be less inclined to bid high. 

 He would do it only through ignorance. 



Mr. Whitney — This question brings to mind the report 

 I saw from the Rockford convention in northern Illinois, 

 That report gave information to dealers that the Northwest 

 here was flooded with honey, and that it could be bought 

 at 10 cents a pound without any trouble at all ; that people 

 were rushing about to give it away. It apparently came 

 from the report of that convention. It occurred to me that 

 bee-keepers were very unwise to publish the amount of honey 

 they had; that they were too anxious to get rid of it. I 

 havn't tried to dispose of any honey, yet I have sold it, nearly 

 all. I wouldn't give a dealer a report of the amount of 

 honey I had on hand if he should ask me. 



Mr. Longsdon— Mr. Whitney'is getting down to where 

 the originator of that question wanted to get and he men- 

 tioned the Rockford convention. Prior to that convention, 

 in our little town, surrounding us honey was selling cheap, 

 selling for 10 cents a pound for comb honey, extracted for 8, 

 and there was considerable of it being disposed of at those 

 prices after that Rockford convention. They read those re- 

 ports, and the little country papers copied them. I had parties 

 come to me and tell me that we were robbing them, that 

 honey ought to sell for .s cents a pound; people went crazy 

 over the low price of honey. Therefore that question was 

 asked to get at whether or not we, as bee-keepers, are pro- 

 tected by some kind of a deal or trust — whether it wouldn't 

 be just as advisable to keep to ourselves these tremendous 

 amounts of honey which are generally multiplied by four or 

 five, and be selfish for our own interests, 



Mr. Wilco.x — I was just going to remark that there are 

 two sides to every question. I do when I am asked, and I 

 am asked every year, and I am asking others every year. 

 I want to know, and you want to know, everybody wants 



