146 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



March, 1918 



hives and supers, he can change his comb 

 honey supers to extracted bodies very 

 easily. Take out the inside fixtures of the 

 supers (section-holders, separators, etc.) pack 

 them away for future reference, or better 

 still, use for kindling wood. Then take two 

 supers (just the outside rims) remove the 

 tins, fasten supers on top of each other and 

 you have a good extracted body. In fasten- 

 ing them together you can use cement coated 

 nails, hive staples, or a piece of sheet iron 

 bent around the corners and fastened with 

 screws. I used four hive staples. Have a 

 man, that you know will do good work, put 

 them together, and have him plane off all 

 unevenness so they will fit together tight. 

 If you are intending to stay in the extracted- 

 honey business you had better plane a little 

 from the bottom of the super so that the 

 extracted frames will come down just even 

 with the bottom of the super. This will 

 give the right bee-space between the 

 two sets of combs. 



Now you can see that a comb-honey pro- 

 ducer will have half as many extracted-hon- 

 ey bodies as he has comb-honey supers. Most 

 of the comb-honey men here in Colorado 

 have three and four supers to the hive, so 

 that will give them about two extracted- 

 honey bodies to the hive, and, if they extract 

 as often as they should, that will be a plenty. 



The frames, wires and full sheets of foun- 

 dation for the extracted-bodies will cost a 

 little more than it would to fill the supers 

 with sections and full sheets of foundation. 

 But remember the next year you will not 

 have this expense, as you will have all your 

 combs for extracting. 



Many comb-honey producers have some 

 supers filled with sections and foundation 

 that were not used last year, and they think 

 if they change to extracted-honey production 

 they will lose those. If they will look 

 around, they can sell them to beekeepers that 

 will continue to run for comb honey. Still 

 you can better afford to burn them than use 

 them. 



Counting a pound of extracted honey 

 worth the same as a section of comb honey, 

 the cans will not cost as much in proportion 

 to the value of honey shipped as comb honey 

 shipping cases would. 



The cost of the extracting outfit or ma- 

 chinery will vary a great deal. I know some 

 extracted-honey producers that do all the 

 extracting for 500 to 1,000 colonies with the 

 two-frame extractor, run by hand, and the 

 cost of such an outfit would be from $50 to 

 $75. But some producers have several hun- 

 dred dollars invested in their extracting ma- 

 chinery. The actual cost of our extracting 

 outfit last year did not exceed $50. I think 

 a power extractor is the cheapest to buy, 

 and will pay for itself in one season. Help 

 that can be depended upon around the bees 

 is hard to get; but a gas engine does not 

 mind if a bee stings it once in a while. 



I do not think the cost of changing the 

 equipment for running 500 colonies for comb 

 ioney to extracted equipment would be 



more than $200.00, exclusive of the extract- 

 ing machinery. When one takes into con- 

 sideration that the expense will be for the 

 first year only, it is very small. The next 

 year you have all your extracting combs 

 and machinery, so your expense will be a 

 great deal less than if running for comb 

 honey. Eobt. E. Foster. 



Boulder, Col. 



* * * 



Owing to new conditions in the marketing 

 and relative prices of comb and extracted 

 honey, this question will no doubt be of con- 

 siderable interest at the present time. The 

 arguments set forth at the convention held 

 by the Jefferson and St. Lawrence County 

 Beekeepers' Societies held at Watertown, 

 N. y., will hold good not only in the United 

 States, but Canada, and will be of general 

 interest. 



Geo. B. Howe, of Black River, N. Y., open- 

 ed the question by stating that the selection 

 of comb- or extracted-honey production 

 should in part be decided by the condition 

 of the bees. If colonies are strong and in 

 fine shape, they may be used to advantage 

 for comb honey when it would be unvv^ise to 

 run the weaker for that purpose; and that, 

 once engaged in the production of comb 

 honey, there is a fascination about it that 

 is difficult to overcome. He did not ad- 

 vise radical changes from the production or" 

 one to the other. He felt sure that in New 

 York State there would be thousands of 

 colonies starve to death during the present 

 winter. 



Charles P. Stewart, of Johnstown, N. Y., 

 one of the efficient inspectors of that state, 

 thought that one should be slow in making- 

 radical changes, saying that the man who 

 is equipped for either had better stay by 

 what he is engaged in. If beekeepers make 

 a rvish in the direction of producing one kind 

 of honey, the price of that article will like- 

 ly be depressed and the other enhanced. 



D. E. Hardy, of Burrs' Mills, N. Y., who 

 has tried (and usually with success) quite a 

 variety of things, including beekeeping, ber- 

 ry growing, photography and politics, stated 

 that beekeepers should get ready for the 

 coming season now. He strongly emphasized 

 the fact that procrastination is the thief 

 of time and that this is particularly true of 

 beekeeping. 



The consensus of opinion at this conven- 

 tion was that it is not advisable under pres- 

 ent conditions to rush into extracted-honey 

 production. It is not an easy matter to face 

 the season running for extracted honey with- 

 out drawn combs; in fact, the bees could 

 produce almost as much comb honey in sec- 

 tions as they could extracted honey if they 

 had to draw out foundation. Again, the 

 swarming impulse would be much greater 

 when the bees had to draw out sheets of 

 comb foundation in the supers instead of 

 having combs. And again, if many beekeep- 

 ers were to change from comb- to extracted- 

 honey production, a good present market 

 for comb honey might be lost. Several 



