July, 191 1. 



207 



American ^Bae Journal 



which proved equally good with the 

 best of those reared from swarming 

 cells. 



It is now fully agreed by all, that 

 queens reared under this superseding 

 impulse are equally good with those 

 from natural swarming, and the above 

 is only taking advantage of such a col- 

 ony to get a more numerous queen off- 

 spring than the bees would otherwise 

 mature. If there are not enough cells 

 started by the bees to furnish what 

 queens are desired, the cell-cup plan 

 can be used to good advantage here. 

 In other words, imitation embryo 

 queen-cells are made out of beeswax, 

 into which royal jelly is placed, when a 

 larva from our best breeding queen is 

 transferred to this royal jelly, when 

 from 12 to 20 of these prepared cells 

 are given to this colony that is about 

 to supersede its queen, when the bees 

 will perfect them, or at least most of 

 them, just as they would one of the 

 grafted cells spoken of before. And by 

 giving a batch of these prepared cell- 

 cups twice a week, we can often secure 

 from .500 to lOiiO fine queens from this 

 superseding colony before their queen 

 fails entirely. 



Why I have dwelt this long on this 

 superseding matter is that even the 

 novice can rear good queens where 

 such a colony is found. And where 

 such a colony can be had early in the 

 season or late in the fall, the bees will do 

 good work, while a colony made 

 queenless will often produce only in- 

 ferior queens in the hands of the most 

 skilled queen-breeder. 



Now, if such a colony can not be 

 found we can rear good queens with 

 strong colonies at any time there are 

 plenty of young bees and brood in any 

 hive. It has been known for some 

 years that where a part of the brood in 

 any colony has the queen shut from it 

 by using the queen-e.xcluding metal to 

 partition off part of the hive, or by put- 

 ting it over a strong colony, and an 

 upper story containing this brood set 

 on top of this e.xcluder, the bees going 

 and coming through the queen-ex- 

 cluder will work on the same plan 

 they do when superseding a queen. 

 In this way, hundreds if not thousands 

 of bee-keepers rear their queens by the 

 cell-cup plan, as given above, without 

 being obliged to wait for supersedure 

 of queens, swarming of colonies, or 

 anything else. 



The thing to look after is that there 

 are plenty of nurse-bees and brood for 

 them to nurse in the part not having 

 the queen, and that they be fed abun- 

 dantly at any time, or times, when nec- 

 tar is not coming in from the fields. 

 But there is one item that should not 

 be overlooked in this matter, which is 

 the tendency with some to use too old 

 larvae. Mr. Cowan has shown that 

 there is no practical difference in the 

 food given all larv» till they reach 2 

 days old, the only difference being 

 that a larva in a queen-cell built by a 

 superseding colony is fed more abun- 

 dantly. But as any larva under favor- 

 able circumstances, and less than 2 

 days old, has far more food supplied to 

 it than it can consume, this extra 

 abundance fed to the one in the queen- 

 cell has no bearing on the subject. But 

 after 2 days old there is a tendency to 

 scrimp on the food, and so it is well to 



choose a larva under 2 days old rather 

 than over. 



And it is no hard matter to know the 

 ages of larvae. Take a nice, clean comb 

 and give it to the colony having your 

 best breeding queen, putting the same 

 in the center of the brood-nest. In 

 from 72 to 76 hours the first eggs laid 

 in this comb will have hatched. Look 

 at these larvae now, and again every 12 

 hours until they are 2 days old, when it 

 can be told almost to a certainty ever 

 afterward how a larva 36 hours old 

 looks, at which time it is in a proper 

 condition to transfer. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Fastening the Honey-Extractor 

 and How to Use It 



BY G. C. GREINEK. 



Does every producer of extracted 

 honey know that securely fastening the 

 honey-e.xtractor is of great importance 

 if we wish to do the most work with 

 the least labor ? The swinging motion 

 of the extractor, as it follows the un- 



HONEY-EXTRACTOR FASTENED KOR UsE. 



even load of the comb-baskets, greatly 

 reduces the efficiency of the centrifugal 

 force by which the honey is thrown out 

 of the combs. The effect is somewhat 

 similar to punching or cutting iron on 

 a soft-wood block — it requires heavier 

 blows, and more of them, to produce 

 the same effect, than it would if a solid 

 anvil were used as a foundation. The 

 same principle applies to the work of a 

 poorly and a substantially fastened ex- 

 tractor. The better ami stronger its 

 anchorage to counteract this swinging 

 motion, the less speed and fewer revo- 

 lutions are required to accomplish a 

 certain object. To think that a few 

 screws or a little nailing down on any 

 haphazard store-box will answer, is a 

 mistake. 



It requires, in the first place, a sound, 

 solid flfjor; if it is springy and does 

 not hold the extractor firmly in its 

 place, braces from above may be neces- 

 sary. The building I used as an e.x- 

 tracting room before I had my present 

 honey-house built, had that kind of a 

 floor, and I had to resort to braces 

 fastened to the upper floor. This did 

 very well to keep the extractor from 



swinging, but it never was very satis- 

 factory — the braces were always more 

 or less in the way when moving about. 



Then a solidly built stand or bench is 

 the next requirement to give the ex- 

 tractor the desired stability, and when 

 this is thoroughly fastened to a solid 

 floor, we can dispense with the braces 

 from above, and have an extractor that 

 is practically immovable, and will do 

 the best work with the least labor. 



After trying dift'erent ways of fasten- 

 ing the extractor, which always proved 

 more or less faulty, because I never had 

 the gumption to do it as it should be 

 done, I have now a stand that "stands" 

 where it is placed, and no amount of 

 cranking will disturb it. 



The accompanying drawing gives the 

 idea. It consists of a hexagonal, cell- 

 shaped box made of l!s-inch lumber, 

 which is covered by a circular top 

 about 3 inches larger than the extrac- 

 tor. This gives a l>^-inch projection 

 all around to receive the screws of the 

 extractor foot-braces. The box has 

 cleats lj4xl>^ inches on two opposite 

 sides, which are nailed edgewise to the 

 lower edge and fastened to the floor by 

 two 2-inch screws each. In addition to 

 these the opposite corners, which are 

 not reached by the cleats, have iron 

 hooks similar to those of the extractor, 

 which are also screwed to the floor. 

 Thus every corner of the box is an- 

 chored, and the whole stand forms a 

 foundation, which is, for all intents, 

 and purposes, as solid as a block of 

 concrete. 



The extractor is so placed on the 

 stand that the honey-gate is in the cen- 

 ter of a cleatless side, where a circular 

 notch is cut out of the top to accom- 

 modate the pail when the honey is 

 drawn from the e.xtractor. 



The height of the stand is determined 

 by the pail we intend to use. It should 

 not be any higher than is strictly nec- 

 essary, for every inch added to height 

 makes it just so much more unhandy to 

 lift the combs back and forth. 



The foregoing may answer as a solu- 

 tion of the first part of the above head- 

 ing; it is a problem easily solved. Not 

 so the second part — how to use it. 



We all know that there is a great 

 difference in honey. Some is thick, 

 some thin, some is new or just made, 

 and some is l»ft on the hive until late 

 in the season. Then there is a great 

 difference in the temperature of the 

 honey, as well as of the atmosphere, 

 and who knows but that the different 

 sources from which honey is made has 

 some bearing on the subject .■" A\\ these 

 different conditions require different 

 management of the extractor to obtain 

 satisfactory results. 



During all my extracting operations 

 I have been groping in the dark. I 

 never knew just what speed to apply, 

 nor how long to run the e.xtractor to 

 throw all the hcjiiey out of the combs. 

 By closely watching the extractor, and 

 examining the combs, I was led to 

 adopt a certain amount of speed and 

 number of revolutions, which I thought 

 would be sullicient to give me, reason- 

 ably, all that there was in it. Now 

 conies a little experience that knocks 

 all my philosophy into slivers. 



At one time last summer, when I was 

 extracting my first honey, I had the 

 comb-baskets full of empty combs, just 



