336 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



October 



SHORT CUTS TO BIG PRODUCTION 



Some Time-and-Labor-Saving Methods of a Well-Known Beekeeper 



CONSERVATION is the watch- 

 word of the time. To save time 

 and labor is the first essential 

 to success in honey production, as in 

 other agricultural pursuits. Labor is 

 scarce and high, in fact is the most 

 expensive thing which the producer 

 has to buy. Hutchinson consistently 

 preached the keeping of more bees. 

 The elimination of unnecessary op- 

 erations is the one thing which will 

 make it possible for the individual 

 beekeeper to keep more bees without 

 increasing his labor. 



N. E. France is one of the best 

 known among American beekeepers. 

 He has served as State Bee Inspec- 

 tor for Wisconsin for twenty years. 

 The first man to be given State-wide 

 authority in the control of bee dis- 

 eases, he has continued to serve un- 

 til the present time. His position of 

 General Manager for the National 

 for many years brought him promi- 

 nently before the beekeeping world. 

 It is not our purpose at this time to 



THE BEE-ESCAPE.S ARE UULluULD TO 

 HASTEN THE EXIT OF THE BEES 



discuss the public work of N. E. 

 France, which has so often received 

 attention from the beekeeping press. 

 A man so long associated with the 

 industry has unusual opportunities 

 for observing the best methods of 

 production, and accordingly our staflf 

 correspondent was sent to Platteville 

 to visit the France apiaries in the 

 interest of our readers, for practical 

 methods of production. 



All through southern Wisconsin 

 one sees big piles of 10-gallon milk 

 cans at every railroad station, for 

 Wisconsin is a great dairy country. 

 The first thing that attracted atten- 

 tion at the France home apiary was 

 a lot of these big cans full of honey. 

 As fast as the honey is extracted at- 

 the outyard it is drawn into the 



milk cans, which hold 115 pounds, 

 net. They are easily handled, con- 

 sidering the weight, are tight when 

 covered, yet the honey is easily 

 poured out on reaching home. Since 

 these cans are so well suited to the 

 purpose and are everywhere avail- 

 able, it is surprising that they have 

 not come into general use for hauling 

 extracted honey from the outyards. 



At the home yard there is a heat- 

 ing tank where all honey is heated 

 before being placed in the cans or 

 bottles in which it goes to market. 

 If it is thoroughly heated, before it 

 begins to granulate, it will remain 

 liquid all winter. When the writer 

 remembers how much labor he has 

 expended in liquefying granulated 

 honey for bottling in winter he feels 

 that this one operation alone must be 

 a big time saver in the France opera- 

 tions. When the extracting is fin- 

 ished, the honey is turned from the 

 milk cans into the tanks in which it 

 is heated and then is placed in cans 

 or pails of the various sizes which 

 the trade requires. Mr. France says 

 that, even though it does not go to 

 market until spring, there is no trou- 

 ble from its candying, and that he 

 seldom has to bother to reheat a can. 

 When one sells his crop in the 

 wholesale market it is as well to let 

 it candy, since there is no gain, and 

 there is less danger from leakage in 

 shipping if the honey has granulated. 

 The final consumer, however, nearly 

 always requires his honey in a liquid 

 state, and the producer who sells di- 

 rect to the trade must send it out 

 ready for the table. 



The floor of the honey house at 

 the honey yard is on a level with the 

 floor of the truck, so that the cans 

 can be rolled in without heavy lift- 

 ing. A light block and tackle lift 



the big cans up to the tanks in which 

 the honey is stored, so that there is 

 a minimum of lifting. 



At each of the outyards there is a 

 permanent honey house with cellar 

 for wintering the bees beneath. The 

 extracting is done at the yards and a 

 pipe from the extractor carries it 

 into a tank in the basement below. 

 This avoids the necessity of handling 

 the honey by drawing it from the ex- 

 tractor or the use of a honey pump 

 to carry it to a settling tank. The 

 principal objection to the honey 

 pump seems to be that so much air 

 is pumped into the honey that it 

 granulates almost immediately. 



An ingenious method of straining 

 the honey is in use. Enameled wire 

 cloth, such as can be purchased at 

 any hardware store, is rolled into a 

 cylinder about the size of a stove- 

 pipe, and closed at one end. It is 

 made high enough to reach to the 

 top of the tank, and the honey 

 pumped into it. The honey, of course, 

 runs through and out all around, so 

 there is little difficulty from clog- 

 ging, as is the case with a strainer 

 opening only at the bottom. Our pic- 

 ture shows one of the France settling 

 tanks with a board across the top, on 

 which the strainer was rested for the 

 picture. The honey is strained 

 through a cloth while hot, before 

 placing in cans for market. The 

 first straining from the extractor, 

 followed by settling, leaves but little 

 to be removed by the final straining. 

 If the honey is strained in this way, 

 it runs through the cloth much more 

 rapidly than is possible where it is 

 put through the fine strainer while 

 cold at the time of extracting. 



Everything about the place seems 

 planned with an eye to saving time. 

 Even the bee escapes are doctored to 



OXE OF THE FRANCE OUTVARns 



