214 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Mar. 24. 1904. 



at it 60 they can not get burred and glued so the.v have i o be broken 

 to get the first one out. Jlut 1 head off the trouble hy using tvm dum- 

 mies or followers with tlie Hoffman, one on either side. It is simply a 

 nuisance, the way the factories send out hives, the S's have too much 

 room for the follower, and the lO's too little; Root would grunt and 

 fume no little to get one of his flimsy followers out of a 10-frame hive 

 after it has lieen there a year unmolested; and out, it would be only 

 kindling. Use two dummies and 9 frames in the 10-frame hive. 





Contributed Articles 





No. 3.— Comb or Extracted Honey— Which? 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



I HOPE the reader may not become tired of my discussion 

 of the above subject ; I aim tog-ive all the points in my 



thoughts in as few words as possible. 



In my experience, the production of comb honey is more 

 expensive than that of extracted honey, that is, there is more 

 labor required for the same result. Probably many begin- 

 ners will be astonished at this statement, for surely extracting 

 is a work that is entirely avoided when producing comb honey. 

 But if we are well fixed for either work, I believe that I can 

 show clearly that there is economy of labor in extracting. 

 When you produce comb honey you have a fresh lot of sec- 

 tions to prepare every season. They must be put together, 

 the foundation must be inserted in them before the crop. 

 They must be put on at the right time, neither too early nor 

 too late, for the bees will soil them if they are put on too 

 early, and they will swarm more than ever if they are put 

 on too late. 



In order to avoid what is called " travel-stains " on the 

 honey — made by the bees traveling back and forth over the 

 sealed sections — they must be removed as quickly as possi- 

 ble when fully sealed. The practical comb-honey producer 

 watches his bees daily, and is ever ready to take off sections 

 and put on more. He is tied down to his bees. With this 

 care on his hands, it is almost impossible for one person to 

 care for more than one or two apiaries, if they are large. 



When the crop is over, the sections must be scraped, 

 sorted or graded, and put away in shipping-cases. 



As there is more swarming than with the production of 

 extracted honey, there is more labor on that score and more 

 watching necessary. With the production of extracted 

 honey, after the first year or two, when you have fully sup- 

 plied your bees with the needed extracting frames, you have 

 those extracting frames and supers all ready, at the end of 

 the season, for the next crop. At the beginning of the new 

 crop, or a little before, you place the supers on the hives — 

 one, two, three supers to the colony as the case may require. 

 After that only an occasional visit is needed, until the crop 

 is over, to add more supers if any of the hives get crowded. 

 The crop over, you extract all at one time, and two or three 

 days will suflice for an entire apiary of 100 colonies. 



It is true that at this time you need help, but this help 

 does not have to be skilled help, though persons who are 

 accustomed to the work do better than novices. But we 

 have never yet seen the hired man who could not do his 

 share when extracting honey unless he was so afraid of the 

 bees that one sting would drive him away. The lack of 

 adequate help was one of the main reasons of our abandon- 

 ing the production of comb honey. We had a thousand 

 things to do at that time, and never could spare more than 

 one man till the harvest is over. Too many irons in the 

 fire ! But by the help of a large stock of extracting combs, 

 we have never needed to let the irons burn while attending 

 to other things. 



There is an additional work, however, in the production 

 of the extracted honey, if one wishes to reach the top price, 

 and that is, putting it up in small packages. Cans, jars, 

 bottles, pails, and wooden or paper packages help the sale. 

 But the price at which the honey sells when put up in these 

 different retail packages is increased to such an extent that 

 we may well spend our time in preparing it in this way. 

 The intrinsic price of extracted honey is much less than 

 that of comb honey, and that is one of the objections 

 against its production, of which I will speak later. But 

 when we put it up in these small packages we decrease this 

 different in price, and that of course may be credited to the 

 labor which has been employed in putting it up. 



The time of honey-sales — October to January — is the 

 least busy of the bee-keeper's year, and he is often glad to 

 increase his income by preparing his crop for retail in this 

 manner. We have never neglected this side of the business 

 of honey-production, and if any of our readers has a surplus 

 of extracted honey which gives him some concern for its 

 disposal at renumerative prices, let him try our method of 

 putting it up in small packages, and drumming it at home 

 among his acquaintances and in the groceries of his neigh- 

 borhood. Too many of our apiarists send their honey crops, 

 whether large or small, to the great centers, where they glut 

 the market and are afterwards redistributed among the 

 very same consumers to whom these apiarists might have 

 sold the product in the first place, with much better results. 



Another objection which we have to comb-honey produc- 

 tion, that does not apply to extracted honey, is the necessity 

 of keeping many combs that are partly filled, from one sea- 

 son to another. In a location where good crops are the rule 

 and poor crops the exception, these combs are always a 

 small percentage of the entire amount. Usually the same 

 sections do not stay over more than one season. But in a 

 secondary location, such as we inhabit, it is sometimes nec- 

 essary to keep your stock of unfinished combs and sections 

 over two or three years. They then become so stale and 

 shopworn that they are unfit to be used, and must be de- 

 stroyed. This is an item we do not find in the production 

 of extracted honey. If we put the supers on the hives and 

 they are not filled, we remove them in the fall and put them 

 away again, none the worse for wear, and a little more 

 propolis on the joints. We have here more large cornfields, 

 wheat and oatfields, and timothy meadows, than anything 

 else. Large dairies, with their accompanying pastures full 

 of white clover, are the exception. So seasons like the one 

 just past are, with us, rare. 



When we produced comb honey we found that we had 

 often a large percent of our sections that were unsalable, 

 owing to being too much soiled by long usage. The reader 

 will understand that I insist on the greater need of being in 

 a good location when we want to run for comb honey. Cali- 

 fornia, Colorado, and some parts of the North, where both 

 basswood and clover abound, are the Eldorado of the comb- 

 honey producer. The Californian especially has either 

 much honey or none, and his crop is always sure when he 

 has plenty of rain. So he knows for certain whether to 

 put out a large number of sections for the new crop. 



Hancock Co., 111. 



[ Our Bee-KeeDiw§ Sisters ] 



Conducted by Emma M- Wilson, Marengo, 111. 



Sppingr Feeding — Pollen Substitutes, Etc. 



Our bees have wintered well ; all seem strong, and there 

 seems to be plenty of sealed stores. 



1. How early would you begin to feed when the bees 

 have sealed honey ? 



2. We read that rye-ilour is the best substitute for pol- 

 len, but in case none can be had what would you feed? 

 How would Graham or buckwheat flour do ? 



3. Does sugar syrup ever cause foul brood ? 



4. Does syrup become tin-poisoned when fed in tin 

 pans? (Miss) Ann F.Kelly. 



Hickory Co., Mo. 



1. If the bees have plenty of honey it is a question 

 whether it is advisable to feed at all ; but if you do, don't 

 begin before bees fly freely. 



2. Graham will do, and probably buckwheat. We have 

 had good success with corn and oats ground together. 



3. No. 



4. I think not. 



The Primitive Hive vs. the Modern. 



When seen at a little distance, or when viewed in a 

 picture, an apiary looks alarmingly like a graveyard ; espe- 

 cially is this the case when the apiary is situated among 

 trees, reminding the observer of willows and yews. This 

 resemblance, however, of a hive to a tombstone, seems to 



