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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Avo. 



©rii O^y.^' AS'IAKV, 



''ULY Gth. — Wc have to-day liuislied taking- 

 s' out 2 barrels of very choice clover honey ; 

 tlie yield has been so slow, that the combs are 

 capped trom top to l)ottom in both stories of 

 our very strong coionies. The Queens reared 

 last season from the imported stock, are almost 

 without exception, the mothers of powerful col- 

 onies, tilling 20 L. frames, so full that it really 

 seems as ii they could use another story. 

 "W'ith the gradual yield as we have it now, it 

 would be nothing strange if some stocks could 

 I'uruish new comos almost as fast as the honey 

 is gathered, and we were stung so badly yes- 

 tertlay, that we confess to having thought 

 seriously of box honey, but then came the 

 query, how are you going to get even comb 

 honey away from them':' To get 2 or ;J00 lbs. of 

 liouey away from the bees tliat stored it, must 

 he a laborious operation in any case it seems 

 to us, and we really know of no better way 

 than to have it stored in frames, and to get 

 the bees otf these frames, would be just equiv- 

 alent to getting them ott' as we do now. Sup- 

 pose for instance, you have taken from a hive 

 20 combs of nice sealed honey weighing o lbs. 

 each, making 100 lbs. of com)) honey that \Till 

 sell for $oO.OU. When we have got thus far, it 

 would be very much the easier way for us to 

 get this to market, to extract it and put it in a 

 l)arrel ; in this case we should get but J^lo.OO, 

 l)ut we would have the combs that would be 

 tilled again perhaps just as full in a week or 

 ten days. Another point comes iu; if a bee- 

 keeper keeps increasing his stock of surplus 

 combs each year, he will soon have more than 

 he can well use, for unless bees can have some 

 comb building to do, they do not seem to work 

 with the most desirable activity. Now in the 

 above estimate our combs would net us 7oc. 

 each or better, for 100 lbs. of comb honey as it 

 is usually sold would not yield 100 lbs. of ex- 

 tracted — perhaps from 75 to 1)0. Perhaps we 

 had better admit, that comb honey is of abet- 

 ter flavor than the extracted, as it is usually 

 sold, and the reason is, that scarcely any bee- 

 keeper will allow the combs to become capped 

 over as is the case with box honey. The honey 

 that we have just been extracting, is capped 

 over well enough, but Mrs. N. has had such a 

 task extracting, even with the help of an as- 

 sistant, that she entreats us not to let the bees 

 get ahead agasin, as they liave this time. With 

 a season liKe the present, if we were sure of 

 double the price for comb honey, we do not 

 know but it would pay best, but when the sud- 

 den rush of linden came, we should I'ely on 

 the E.xlractor. 



AVc are more than ever convinced of the su- 

 ])eriority of strong stocks for honey ; while our 

 weak ones gather no more than they consume, 

 our heavy ones make a good surplus, and our 

 ■powevfuX colonies with their immense force of 

 workers get honey every day, and almost be- 

 fore we know it, have their entire 20 combs 

 tilled up solid. Giving a weak colony brood 

 from others, it i^ee^tiis to us, hardly answers the 

 same purpose. Tiie colonies that were strong 

 last fall, were strong this spring, and kept get- 

 ting stronger with every montli, until they 

 now send out, iLahnost seems, bushels of bees. 



Jul^l \)(h — 'j'liree ))arrels and part of another 



of the very llnest clover honey it has ever been 

 our lot to extract. The yield has been so grad- 

 ual, that we should get very little were it not 

 for our powcTful colonies ; without great care, 

 such as keeping quilts over exposed combs, we 

 should have robbing all the time. 



About the most profitable "machinery" we 

 have ever tried, is a couple of boys about a 

 dozen years old. One, belonging to a neigh- 

 l)or, has taken a sudden and intense interest in 

 bees, and whenever a hive is opened nothing 

 will deter him from seeing all there is to be 

 seen of the curious doings insidt:-. We have 

 just been over the hives once, and he has ta- 

 ken nearly every comb as fast as we have sha- 

 ken antl brushed the bees otf, and carried them 

 into the bee house ; he also carries a bunch of 

 the asparagus tops, and by the time the 

 combs are handed to Mrs. N., scarcely a bee is 

 to be found lurking on them. Master Ernest 

 has become (juite expert with a shingle, in 

 keeping out robber bees, besides assisting his 

 mamma. It seems rather hard to strike down 

 a bee, yet when we reason that if no bee is al- 

 lowed to get home with a load oi stolen sweets, 

 ro])bing very soon ceases of itself. At such a 

 time as this, the two storj^ hives are very in- 

 convenient ; (we have got over the idea that a 

 single 10 comb hive might answer ; tor some 

 of our colonies have almost 10 entire combs of 

 brood, and these very ones, are the ones that 

 get honey "when there ain't any.") The only 

 way we get along is to carry ail the combs 

 from the upper story into the house, whether 

 they ail need extracting, or not ; then they 

 must be left there until the lower story is all 

 done, and the combs returned to it. About 

 this time both upper and lower stories are a 

 perfect mass of bees, and to get one on the toj) 

 of the other without crushing a bee, is consid- 

 erably like closing up a hive of tight tittiug 

 frames, only still worse. If we first lifted the 

 top story off and set it down, as we diil two 

 years ago, they would now g-^-t to robbing 

 "awful." With the Standard hive, there is no 

 pulling it to pieces at all ; we simply commenoc 

 at one ii\\i\, and put the coml)s back as fast as 

 emptied, and when about half way through, we 

 spread the quilt down close over the finished 

 end, and turn up the other end of it, and a rob- 

 ber is confronted at every point by bees not 

 too much demoralized to defend their stores. 

 The Standard hive is now falling behind some 

 of tlie two story hives, on account of their 

 croolved Queen being unable to deposit eggs as 

 fast as some of the others. There have been 

 fortunately no attempts at swarming, since the 

 one from the suspended colony, but upper sto- 

 ries were all that prevented it. Another 

 trouble with the upper stories; the bees will 

 persist in building combs between the upper 

 and lower story, no matter what the distance 

 may be ; with the Standard hive of course this 

 is all avoided. 



This disposition gave us the idea of a novel 

 honey box, all of glass and tin, made especially 

 to suit the peculiarities of the Italians. When 

 we get them nicely tilled we v.'ill tell you more 

 about them. 



July Hth — I'asswood is doing a little better, 

 but it is still far from being a fair yield ; about 

 ten days will l^e required at the present rate to 

 hi! 20 combs, when the comlis are already 



