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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



kodak with mc ; such a photo would 

 have been a real treat for beemen." 



Last year the Gleanings spoke of a 

 certain bee-rock in California, but 

 how far that rock is outmatched by 

 this wonderful bee banyan tree of In- 

 dia, which constitutes, I think, the 

 record of beedoin. 



Shanghai, China. 



(This seems too wonderful to be 

 true, but the responsibility is with 

 the narrator, Mr. Evans.— Editor.) 



A Honey-House 



By the Editor 



CAN you give the plan and de- 

 scription of a small and service- 

 able honey-house, inexpensive 

 and easy to build?— A Reader. 



Very few honey-houses are built, 

 except by specialists in honey pro- 

 duction. Usually some part of an 

 outbuilding is used for this purpose. 

 Many people, after the honey has 

 been removed from the hives, keep it 

 in an attic or in some unoccupied 

 room or in a warm and dry cellar. 

 Specialists who wish to make the 

 handling of honey easy build their 

 honey-house in two stories, in a hill- 

 side, so that both stories may be en- 

 tered on the level like a basement 

 barn. In the upper story the ex- 

 tracting is carried on and the honey 

 tank or honey receptacles, what- 

 ever they are, are located below. So 

 the honey can run by gravity from 

 the extractor directly into the tank 

 which is to receive it. 



A few indispensable requirements 

 should be observed in putting up a 

 honey-house. For a small apiary, a 

 very small building will do. But it 

 should be bee-proof and mouse-proof. 

 If the bees can come in through the 

 joints of the siding or under the 

 shingles of the roof, an experience 

 that the writer had repeatedly in his 

 young days, there is neither peace 

 nor comfort in handling or extract- 

 ing honey. Besides, not only will the 

 bees make visits at unexpected and 

 undesirable hours, but wasps, flies 

 and beemoths will also enter the 

 building and spoil everything in 

 reach. 



Mice coming through cracks in the 

 floor, or about the corners of the 

 wall, are also an unmitigated nui- 

 sance. They will soon gnaw holes in 

 the section cases or in cases of ex- 

 tracting frames and do more damage 

 in one night than moths could do in 

 a whole month of summer. ( If you 

 happen to leave an open pail or a 

 jar to catch the drip of the extrac- 

 tor or of some leaky super of sec- 

 tions, you may find in it an embalmed 

 mouse. So we strongly urge our 

 friend, if he builds a honey-house to 

 make it, at least the lower floor of 

 it, of solid concrete, and to use well- 

 jointed boards in making both the 

 floor and the walls. 



It is not necessary to build a honey- 

 house frost proof. Unless you wish 

 to keep your honey from granulat- 

 ing, in which case it will be best to 

 keep it in a regularly heated room, 

 you will find it advantageous to keep 

 your honey-house, or that part of it 

 in which the empty combs are piled 



over winter, as cold as any outbuild- 

 ing can be kept during the winter 

 months. This, in our so-called tem- 

 perate climate, north of the 35th de- 

 gree and west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, will insure perfect immunity 

 from moths for all your empty combs 

 in spring. 



A very good way, if you wish to be 

 able to work in your honey-house 

 during the winter, to get things ready 

 for spring, is to have one room in it 

 plastered and finished like a room in 

 your home. A small stove will help 

 keep it warm. 



Screens are indispensable on a 

 honey-house. In January, 1916, we 

 gave a photograph of the entrance 

 to the lower story of our own honey- 

 house, with an entry screened on 

 both sides of the door. This entry 

 enables the apiarist to go in and out 

 without fearing the intrusion of rob- 

 ber-bees, who will spend their eager- 

 ness in trying to enter at the screen 

 next to the wall. Similarly, the win- 

 dow screens are arranged to turn the 

 bees out without permitting them to 

 return, by simply extending them a 

 foot or so above each window with 

 a space of a quarter inch between 

 them and the wall. They are cleated 

 on both sides with strips of lath un- 

 der and over the edge of the wire 

 screen. The bees, always ascending 

 when they reach the screen to es- 

 cape, easily find their way out, but 

 when they return they do not have 

 enough powers of reasoning to seek 

 admission at the top edge of the 

 screen. They seek it at the spot 

 where the odor of the honey attracts 

 them. Not only does this release all 

 bees, but, if the window is left open 

 all summer, the flies even will be 

 kept out of the honey-house, and this 

 is quite a convenience. Needless to 

 say that every window in a honey- 

 house should be similarly provided 

 with screen escape. 



If you have a house in use already 

 and it is not quite bee-tight, you can 

 help matters very much by using, on 

 the inside of the wall, sheets of 

 tarred building paper. The odor of 

 the tar is not liked by the bees, and 

 they are usually baffled and discon- 

 certed by this odor, which is so un- 

 like that of their combs. 



An ideal honey-house could be 

 built, in countries where they winter 

 bees in the cellar, by making two 

 stories in a hillside, the rear part of 

 the lower story to be used as a win- 

 ter repository for the bees, the front 

 to be used as a work room. It would 

 be necessary to have a heavy non- 

 conducting wall between these two 

 rooms, so that the bees during their 

 winter sleep would not be disturbed 

 by changes of temperature. 



Our columns are open to useful 

 suggestions on this question. 



Small Apiary Management 



By O. H. L. Wernicke 



NINETEEN SEVENTEEN was 

 not a very good honey year in 

 this section. A cold, backward 

 spring and much rain during white 

 clover honey flow resulted generally 

 in excessive swarming and meager 

 surplus stores. 



As always, there were variations in 

 the results under apparently similar 

 conditions, some colonies producing 

 well while others did little or noth- 

 ing. The same rule holds between 

 apiaries. 



My own little apiary did very well, 

 indeed, yielding an average per col- 

 ony in excess of 150 pounds, two- 

 thirds extracted, one-third section 

 honey. My 1916 average was better 

 than 200 pounds per colony, spring 

 count. Increase by primary swarm, 

 1916, 30 per cent; 1917, none. Winter 

 and spring losses, 1916, none ; 1917, 

 none. As you will correctly infer, 

 these results are unusual and far 

 above the average for this region. It 

 is also to be remembered that small 

 apiaries often make a better aver- 

 age showing than do larger ones. 



Nevertheless, here in Grand Rapids 

 are many small beekeepers who ob- 

 tained big honey yields in 1916, but 

 very little this year, and the larger 

 apiaries in the surrounding country 

 were generally disappointed over the 

 results for 1917. Excessive swarming 

 seems to be a general complaint from 

 this territory this year. 



There has been more than the usual 

 necessity for spring feeding and re- 

 ports of dwindling. I am not a be- 

 liever in much feeding, either in the 

 fall or spring. I can see no advan- 

 tage in leaving scant stores, and then 

 feeding syrup. The extra labor, the 

 risks and difference in quality of food 

 all seem to favor the plan of leaving 

 more than ample stores. Some very 

 good beekeepers say 2S pounds, oth- 

 ers 30 pounds, and occasionally one 

 believes 35 pounds is about the cor- 

 rect amount of winter food stores to 

 leave a colony. Viewing this matter 

 of winter stores broadly, it makes 

 little difference whether we leave 25 

 pounds or 50 pounds, provided the 

 amount is ample. Unconsumed stores 

 are not lost. The excess from one 

 season is invariably represented by 

 a like gain of surplus honey the next. 

 You can only lose it once, i. e., in the 

 first season, and when this one sea- 

 son's excess is spread over many 

 years and credit is given for reduced 

 losses, reduced dwindling, earlier 

 brood-rearing and stronger colonies, 

 the balance, I am convinced, will 

 most frequently be found on the side 

 of leaving excess stores. 



I like the house-apiary plan; that 

 is, if you have a house with ample 

 light, ventilation and working con- 

 veniences. It is a pleasure for me to 

 work with bees indoors. It is far more 

 comfortable than working out of 

 doors and it saves both time and 

 temper during unfavorable weather. 



Except when there is no honey- 

 flow, the bees from hives in process 

 of manipulation go at once to the 

 light and out of the house. That is 

 an advantage. The same rule holds, 

 but to a lesser degree, during periods 

 on no honey-flow. Altogether it is 

 less troublesome and requires less 

 costly equipment and less work than 

 the out-of-doors plan. 



My beeware equipment is com- 

 pletely standardized and consists of 

 unpainted side-wall, eight-frame 

 Langstroth hive-bodies, no-beeway 

 4j4x4J4 sections, No. 2 supers, honey- 



