84 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIE"W 



may be done at a profit, but there are 

 others that may be done ?i\. s. greater 

 profit, and it is more profitable, in the 

 ag^gregate, if we use our time in doing 

 those things that are the more profit- 

 able. To illustrate: If a man has a 

 single apiary of 100 colonies, and is 

 able to keep the honey extracted so 

 that there is no loss for lack of stor- 

 age room, he maj' secure 100 pounds of 

 honey per colony. Not to extract 

 promptly in this case would be neglect. 

 Let us suppose that another man has 

 six apiaries of 100 colonies each, and 

 he is so busy giving stories of empty 

 comb during one of these "honey show- 

 ers" that he rteglects (?) to extract 

 from some colonies that ^iiay need it. 

 This is what might be called "profit- 

 able neglect." The man with the six 

 apiaries may lose 25 pounds per colon^^ 

 from his "neglect," but he gets 45,000 

 pounds of honey, while the man who 

 has not "neglected" his bees gets only 

 10,000. Seethe point? The man with 

 a few colonies does well to make the 

 most of them, but the man who has the 

 ability, inclination, and capital, to 

 keep more bees, drawing the line care- 

 fully between proper and improper 

 neglect, will make more money. 



I see that my good friend takes it for 

 granted that I will not use queen ex- 

 cluders. In the December Review I 

 asked the question, in a parenthesis, 

 if Is/wuld use them. That is, I wanted 

 my subscribers to say which plan I 

 better follow. I expected then that I 

 should use them, but I was not abso- 

 lutely />t»Ji7/z'^, and I am very glad to 

 get Mr. Chapman's views. However, 

 some men, notably, Mr. Townsend, 

 have made a success of producing ex- 

 tracted honey without them, but the 

 management was different from that 

 followed by Mr. Chapman. I expect 

 to use them, and to practice tiering 

 up, to a certain extent, substantially 

 as described by Mr. Chapman; but I 

 must say, that, to me, the raising uji 

 of brood seems to be another case of 



something that may be profitable, bat I 

 think thetim'^ might be mot'e profitably 

 spent. I must admit that my experi- 

 ence is limited on this point, as com- 

 pared with that of my good friend 

 Chapman, but I have never seen the 

 least dilificulty whatever in getting bees 

 started to storing honey in extracting 

 supers of drawn combs, providing 

 honey was being brought in. In the 

 verj' same mail that brought me Mr. 

 Chapman's article, came a letter from 

 Mr. Walter Harmer, of Manistee, 

 Michigan. Let me quote one para- 

 graph: "On the 16th da}' of last June, 

 at 10:30 a. m , I unloaded and liberated 

 20 strong colonies of bees at an out- 

 apiary 13 m'les from home. The white 

 clover was abundant, so much so that 

 it was almost impossible to walkabout 

 after releasing the bees, without step- 

 ping on them. I put on supers filled 

 with empty combs; and just before 

 hitching up my team to start for home, 

 I examined these supers, and found 

 the bees alreadj' storing hoiiey in 

 them.'''' Mr. E. D. Townsend came 

 home with me from the Michigan con- 

 vention, and, in talking over this point, 

 he told me of two men who had in 

 mind the moving of their bees to a 

 locality where willow herb was in 

 bloom, but, before moving the whole 

 apiary, thought it would be well to 

 first move one colony, and note the 

 results. Towards noon they reached 

 the location, and released the bees, 

 putting on an upper story of empty 

 combs, the same as Mr. Harmer did. 

 In the afternoon before starting for 

 home one of the men thought he would 

 go ont and take a look at the combs in 

 the super. To his surprise they con- 

 tained several pounds of nectar. He ac- 

 cused tne other man of putting in combs 

 that had contained some honey, but his 

 partner was positive that he did not. 

 They hitched up and drove post haste, 

 and, it seems to me Mr. Townsend 

 said they worked all night getting 

 their bees ready to move the next day, 



