418 



American Hee Journal 



December, rjt3. 



that this great yield should be gath- 

 ered without swarming; that supers 

 should be needed in October, and that 

 95 percent of all this honey should 

 come from plants that had never given 

 me surplus before; these have been 

 what Dick Swiveler called "staggerers." 

 Newman, 111. 



The Value of Exhibits 



BY J. M. KILLI.\N. 



ATTACHED is a picture of a bee 

 and honey exhibit that I made 

 at our county fair. You will no- 

 tice that we had an old " bee- 

 gum," also a box-hive and a 

 straw skep ; together with several 

 modern hives. The intention of the 

 exhibit was to show the evolution of 

 the bee hive from the straw hive on 

 down to an up-to-date hive. 



I had never seen a hive made of 

 straw, but from photographs and de- 

 scription's of them. I cut some rye 

 when it was beginning to get ripe and 

 allowed it to cure. Then I twisted 

 and formed a continuous rope of straw 

 and shaped it as you see in the photo- 

 graph. It was the object of much curi- 

 osity at the fair, and hundreds of peo- 

 ple asked questions about it. Only a 

 few of the older ones had ever seen 

 one. We had quite a display of honey, 

 both comb and extracted, also bees- 

 wax and "chunk honey." 



But the part of the exhibit that 

 caught the crowd, was the observatory 

 hive of live bees, working on a nice 

 frame of wired foundation. The queen 

 was the admiration of all who saw her. 

 A display of this kind does not pay so 

 far as the premiums given by the fair 

 are concerned, but as an advertise- 

 ment of your honey, nothing can com- 

 pare with it. My honey is all sold 

 near my ihome ; in fact, most of it in 

 my owri town ; so you see I met and 

 talked with the people who buy and 

 eat my honey; and they like to see and 

 get acquainted with the man who pro- 

 duces it. 



And, say! you have the finest oppor- 

 tunity to explain away that old canard 

 about manufactured comb honey, and 

 you have no idea how many people 

 believe it, and how much harm it has 

 done the bee-industry. It takes con- 

 siderable self control to be pleasant 

 and talk kindly to one of those fellows 

 who tells you that he /;)io7cs it can be 

 manufactured, for he has bought it, 

 and the grocer told him it was manu- 

 factured honey, etc. But I always ex- 

 plain to him the reason why it cannot 

 be manufactured, get him to pay me a 

 visit and see the bees at work if pos- 

 sible, and after you have convinced 

 him that it is a mistake, he is always 

 ready to correct others that he may 

 meet. 



I have been producing chunk honey 

 for eight years, and selling it for 20 

 cents a pound. 

 Rockport, Ind. 



JM.KILUAN5 

 EXHIBIT • — 



Exhibit of J. M. Killiax. at Rockport, Ixd. 



Dr. Miller*s 



Answers^ 



Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal or direct to 



Dr. C. C. Miller. Marengo, III. 



He does not answer bee-keeping Questions by mail. 



Transferring and Feeding 



1. When is the best time to harvest honey 

 from the bees ? 



2. When is the best time to transfer bees 

 from a tree or box-hive ? 



3. When is the best time to feed the bees? 



4. I had one colony and lost it by feeding 

 them only sugar water. Other bees robbed 

 them and they starved. What is the best 

 feed, and how and when shall I feed them ? 



Texas. 



Answers.— I. If it is comb honey, the 

 sooner it is taken after it is sealed the bet- 

 ter, because the whiter the sealing the bet- 

 ter it will sell, and it becomes darkened by 

 being left on the hive. If it is extracted 

 honey, you can take it as soon as it is sealed, 

 or you can leave it on the hive until the bees 

 are done storing. But if you care for your 

 future market. don'iextractunripe unsealed 

 honey. 



2. If you want to transfer the bees with 

 little or no regard for honey, there is prob- 

 ably no better time than in fiuit-bloom. If 

 you want to get as much honey as possible, 

 do it at the close of the honey harvest. 



3. The best thing is never to feed them, 

 but let them gather their own stores. But if 

 the season is a failure, as it is some years in 

 most places, then you must feed. The best 

 time for that is just as soon as you know 

 they will need feeding for winter; say in 



August or .September. October does very 

 well, however, and even if you haven't fed 

 until December, better feed then than to 

 let the bees starve. 



4. The best thing is to give them combs of 

 sealed honey, but it isn't likely you have 

 them. The next best is a syrup of granu- 

 lated sugar, probably just what you did feed 

 them, only there was probably something 

 wrong about the way you fed that started 

 robbing. Of course. I cannot tell what it 

 was that was wrong; possibly you may have 

 spilled some of the feed, or done something 

 else that was a bit careless. Be careful not 

 to leave any cracks open that will let bees 

 in from the outside. If there is danger of 

 robbing, it is well to give feed in the evening 

 after bees have stopped flying, and to give 

 no more at a time thanthey will clean up by 

 morning. For fall feeding nothing is better 

 than a Miller feeder. If you feed early, 

 equal parts of sugar and water will be all 

 right; but if you do not feed until after the 

 middle of October, then you can have 5 

 parts of sugar (either by weight or measure 

 2 parts of water. 



Evidently you have no bee-book of instruc- 

 tion, and it will be big money in your pocket 

 if you get a good one. say such a one as 

 Dadant's Langstroth. 



30 house"! for lewis BEEWARE 



Send for Annual Catalog which will tell 

 you who is your nearest Distributer. 

 G. B. Lewis Company. \Vatertown, Wis. 



;;^ 



