March, 



American Hee Journal 



the bees into a hive of clean, provis- 

 ional combs. 



Production of Honey. 



C. B. Howard produces comb honey 

 principally. As a side-line to the busi- 

 ness nothing was equal to producing 

 extracted honey. He thought the long 

 ideal hive was all right for producing 

 extracted honey. With regular 8 or lo 

 frame hives he vi-as obliged to use 

 queen-excluders between the upper and 

 lower stories. 



C. J. Baldridge uses the Root chafif- 

 hive as made originally by A. I. Root. 

 The frames in the upper story stand 

 crosswise of those in the brood-cham- 

 ber ; his queens show no disposition to 

 occupy the upper story, although no ex- 

 cluder is used on his hives. The first 

 extracting is called and labeled No. 2, 

 and a sample is put up the same as in 

 the other case. The sample is also 

 labeled with the corresponding num- 

 ber. Thus he continues throughout the 

 season. By putting up his honey in 

 square tin cans he knows at any time 

 what his honey crop is, how much he 

 has of each grade, and by his samples 

 he sells his crop. 



The majority of those present were 

 not able to produce extracted honey 

 without excluders. F. Greiner said that 

 his queens would aim to occupy the 

 top-story whenever there was a chance, 

 leaving the lower stories practically 

 empty of brood and generally of honey 

 also. An excluder is necessary with 

 him. Others coincided with him. H. L. 

 Case produces extracted honey in large 

 hives, giving queens free range ; he win- 

 tered his bees in two stories, and brings 

 his bees through the winter immensely 

 strong. 



Chester Olmstead was enthusiastic on 

 this matter of wintering and keeping 

 his bees in two stories. He said the way 

 they came out in the spring made a man 

 smile ; and the amount of honey they 

 stored made him smile again; he pro- 

 duces comb honey over the two sets of 

 brood-combs. 



An objection was raised on the 

 grounds that such a large brood-cham- 

 ber would wear out the queens very 

 fast. To this Mr. Olmstead replied that 

 he requeened every spring, and his 

 queens were equal to the emergency. 



Mr. Case said he would like it if he 

 could wear out a queen in 24 hours, 

 and Mr. Stewart remarked that if he 

 could induce a hen to lay all the eggs 

 she would naturally lay in her lifetime, 

 inside one day, he would be glad, and 

 he would get him another hen. 



Wintering Bees. 



L. F. Wahl spoke on preparing bees 

 for winter. He argued that we must 

 begin in the summer, and he warned 

 against robbing the colonies of their 

 best stores. He showed that some hon- 

 eys were lacking in body. By the use 

 of a certain instrument it is an easy 

 matter to test honey or syrup. 



Next came an address on wintering 

 in the cellar versus outdoors, with ad- 

 ditional specifications of the requisites 

 of a bee-cellar. Some visitors from 

 neighboring counties were particularly 

 interested in the bec-ccllar question, and 

 the speaker went into all the details. 

 The bee-cellar must maintain a tempera- 



ture of 45° F., as nearly as possible, 

 for at this temperature the bees remain 

 in the most quiescent state, and can en- 

 dure the long confinement best. If dur- 

 ing a mid-winter warm spell the cellar 

 becomes too warm, doors and windows 

 are opened nights, and closed up again 

 during the daytime. 



If the cellar is damp, unslackened lime 

 may be used, and calcium chloride has 

 lately been recommended for the same 

 purpose. Mice must be looked after — 

 baited traps should be kept set. Mice 

 not only destroy the combs but irritate 

 the bees. Bees should be disturbed as 

 little as possible. 



Marketing Honey. 



Chas. Rose, on marketing honey, said 

 he wanted to produce full-weight sec- 

 tions. He did not want to send out 

 inferior honey. Such he would keep at 

 home and sell to neighbors as cheap 

 honey. There were always lots of peo- 

 ple who wanted to buy cheap, cheap, 

 cheap ! 



Mr. Stewart remarked here that we 

 should never turn a customer away. Al- 

 ways have honey for sale. 



Mr. Ballard placed great stress upon 

 grading honey honestly, and to have 

 everything connected with honey neat 

 and clean. 



Mr. Greene's experience seemed to 

 show, that it made no difference how 

 the grading was done. He had received 

 no better price for his fancy honey than 

 his neighbor did for the second grade. 

 Some buyers do not seem to be very 

 particular about the matter. 



Reading Bee-Papers. 



Mr. Greene made another address af- 

 ter a recess. He said we ought to be 

 more thorough in reading our bee-pe- 

 riodicals. He had met some bee-keep- 

 ers who pretended to be among the first 

 and best, and yet were very ignorant on 

 what their bee-paper had published on a 

 number of questions of importance- Bee- 

 papers are a necessity ; they are valua- 

 ble — a real bee-keeper reads them with 

 enthusiasm. We grasp a little here and 

 find a little there; thus we keep gaining 

 in knowledge and wisdom. With all our 

 reading we ought to keep pace in think- 

 ing. We must not read our apicultural 

 literature in the way we read our daily 

 papers. I mark and note down all arti- 

 cles that are of special interest to me, 

 and re-read at leisure. Out of the chaos 

 of many ideas we draw and form our 

 own. 



History of Bee-Keepinc. 



W. F. Marks said that whei^lie first 

 kept bees they produced honey in large, 

 heavy, unsightly boxes, and yet the price 

 was 25 cents per pound. Now we pro- 

 duce it in fancy little boxes with a great 

 deal more labor, and no more is pro- 

 duced now than in 1861, still the price 

 we receive is scarcely more than on€- 

 half. Why the difference? Who is to 

 blame? Organization. We ought to be 

 careful whom we take into our bee- 

 keepers' society. This is a good deal 

 like the partnership cow. The one 

 claimed to own the further end of the 

 cow, and he wanted to do the milking, 

 leaving all the responsibilities as to the 

 other end — the feeding of the cow — to 

 his associate partner. The partner 



agreed to that, but found it very un- 

 profitable business. Let us take a les- 

 son! 



Mr. Stewart gave a sort of historical 

 sketch on management of the apiary for 

 comb honey production. He said they 

 used to have a large 12-frame Langs- 

 troth hive, taking a super of 44 sec- 

 tions. They had booming colonies then 

 which often filled 3 or 4 big supers. 

 The 'home-yard was run on the natural- 

 swarming plan, with a modified Heddon 

 plan to prevent second swarms. The 

 out-yard was worked differently, inas- 

 much as swarming was prevented by 

 making new swarms by the nucleus 

 plan. Later the "shook-swarmirg meth- 

 od" was adopted. 



Requeening and Queen-Rearing. 



F. Greiner gave a sort of historical 

 sketch. He had observed that young 

 queens were an advantage, as fewer 

 colonies were lost during winter, and 

 the bees bred up better in the spring, 

 but it was laborious to requeen every 

 year. He was afraid that rearing queens 

 by transferring larvje our bees might 

 degenerate ; be did not think it was on 

 account of the possible injury of the lar- 

 vae, because, if injured, the bees would 

 discover it and remove them ; but be- 

 cause the insect is not treated as a royal 

 member from the beginning. 



The transferring-of-larvK method is 

 one of the easy ways to rear queens, 

 and therefore finds favor with many, he 

 thought. The baby or miniature nu- 

 cleus or mating-hive was used on ac- 

 count of dheapness, but he preferred to 

 use larger frames and more of them, 

 thus having stronger colonies which 

 would take care of themselves, required 

 no fussing and feeding, and were not 

 often robbed out. Four of his mating 

 colonies are united at the close of the 

 queen-rearing season, or about when 

 buckwheat begins to yield honey. They 

 are wintered in the cellar. 



During the honey-flow he practices 

 direct introduction of young queens, by 

 allowing them to run from the comb of 

 the mating hive on the regular-sized 

 brood-comb taken from the midst of the 

 colony destined to receive her. 



Mr. Greiner wanted to know whether 

 this manner of introducing would work 

 during the buckwheat' honey-flow. The 

 answer given was that it was not a safe 

 way. Caging the queen would be safe. 



Mr. Olmstead said he enjoyed noth- 

 ing more than to rear queens by the 

 advanced methods, and he offered as a 

 simplification of transferring young 

 larvae, his simple instrument — a com- 

 mon "pin," with its point pushed into 

 a little wooden handle. 



The next convention (in 1008) will 

 be held in Geneva, N. Y. 



Report of the Chieago-Northwest- 

 ern Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



1 Continued from pavje .SI.) 

 The evening session began with the 

 following question : 



Fai.l Honey for Winter Food. 



"Is fall honey unfit for winter food?" 

 Mr. Taylor — If it is bad for bees, it is. 

 Dr. Miller — What do you mean by fall 

 honev ? 



