February, 1910. 



American Hee Journal 



Case of white honey from native flowers— 

 ist. The Golden Apiary. 2d. B. !•'. Bartliolo- 

 mew; 3d. K. W. Van De Mark. 



Case of amber honey from native flowers— 

 1st. Geary & Geary; 2d. B. V. Bartholomew; 

 3d. F. W. Van De Marls. 



Extracted honey— ist. The Golden Apiary; 

 2d. B. F, Bartholomew; .3d. Geary & Geary. 



Samples of extracted honey in not less 

 than one-pound bottles— 1st. K. W. Van De 

 Mark; 2d, Geary & Geary; 3d. B. F. Bartholo- 

 mew. 



Candied extracted honey— 1st, Geary & 

 Geary; 2d. B. F. Bartholomew; 3d, F. W. 

 Van De Mark. 



Samples of candied honey from different 

 flowers — ist, Geary & Geary; 2d, F. W. Van 

 De Mark. 



Beeswax— 1st. The Golden Apiary; 2d. B. 

 F. Bartholomew; 3d. V. W. Van De Mark. 



Designs in honey— ist, B. F. Bartholomew; 

 2d. The Golden Apiary; 3d. Geo. H. Coiilson. 



Designs in beeswax — 1st, B. F. Bartholo- 

 mew; 2d, F. W. Van DeMark; 3d. The Gold- 

 en .-Vpiary. 



Sealed comb for table use— 1st. F. W. Van 

 He Mark; 2d. B. F. Bartholomew; 3d. Geary 

 vV Geary. 



Sealed comb for extracting— ist. Geary & 

 Geary; 2d. B. F. Bartholomew; 3d. The 

 Golden Apiary. 



Apiarian appliances— 1st. F. W. Van De 

 Mark; 2d. The Golden Apiary. 



One fr^ie of dark Italian bees in observa- 

 tory hive, and aueen— 1st. Geary & Geary; 

 jd. Mrs. J. T. Wallace: id. Geo. H. Coulson. 



One frame of golden Italian bees in obser- 

 vatory hive, and queen— 1st, Geo. ,H. Coul- 

 son; 2d. F. W. Van De Mark. 



One frame of black or native bees in ob- 

 servatory hive, and queen— ist. Mrs. J. T. 

 Wallace; 2d, F. W. Van DeMark; 3d. Geo. 

 H. Coulson. 



Separators in Section Honey? 



IIV G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



"Mr. Doolittle. won't you give us an article 

 in the American Bee Journal relative to the 

 use of separators in the production of comb 

 honey for market? Shall we use them, or 

 shall we not?" 



Thus writes a correspondent who 

 evidently is anxious, as all should be, 

 to place their section honey on the 

 markets of the United States in /he 

 most markt'tabh' shape. 



In replying, I wish to say that the 

 answer to this question depends quite 

 a little upon what would be the answer 

 received were the question, " What are 

 the markets of the United States?" put 

 to our correspondent or the readers of 

 the American Bee Journal. To the one 

 who would answer this question by 



saying, " 1 sell a!/ of my section honey 

 in the local or home market," my reply 

 would be, that it mattered very little 

 whetlier separators were used or not, 

 for, in such a case, any person having 

 a fair, average ability as an apiarist, 

 could succeed without separators in 

 producing section honey that would 

 please, as in the home market, absolute 

 regularity or straightness of combs is 

 not necessary. While having the nice 

 white capped sides of comb honey all 

 straight and even as a board, is pleas- 

 ing to the eye of prospective customers 

 whether in the local market or other- 

 wise, yet where honey is not cased, this 

 pleasing-to-the-eye part would not be 

 of sufficient value, in my opinion, to 

 pay any one who had a quantity of 

 supers and fixtures adapted to the pro- 

 duction of section honey without sep- 

 arators, in casting them aside that they 

 might adopt a system requiring the use 

 of separators. 



But, supposing the answer to the 

 question, " What are the markets of 

 the United States?" proves to be "a 

 village or distant city market," or one 

 which requires the casing of our pro- 

 duct. And this is the answer any api- 

 arist who in any way believes that in 

 time he may become a specialist in the 

 bee-keeping branch of agriculture, is 

 sure to give sooner or later. With such 

 an answer, a radical change from the 

 non-separatored plan is sure to come, 

 for the reason that not one in ten of 

 the section-honey producers of the 

 United States have an average ability 

 of high order enough to produce sec- 

 tion honey that can be promiscuously 

 cased, without there being more or less 

 sections, the combs in which are so 

 wavy or bulging that when placed in 

 the case, some parts of their sealed sur- 

 face will come in contact with their 

 fellow sections, this causing the honey 

 to leak and run down into the bottom 

 of the case, if not through the case. 

 Thus, on the arrival of such honey to 

 the village or city to which it was 

 shipped, it is in almost any other than 

 a marketable shape. After one or two 

 such experiences, any bee-keeper who 

 has an "eye " to his calling, concludes 



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tliat he has sufficient reasons for cast- 

 ing aside all of his supers that will not 

 allow of separators being used, and 

 going to the expense of providing him- 

 self with suitable material so that the 

 comb honey in no section used shall 

 be built otherwise than between sep- 

 arators. 



So far I have been considering the 

 matter from the standpoint of the one 

 who has from 20 to 500 colonies with 

 hives and fixtures therefor, on the plan 

 of non-separatored section honey. But 

 allow me to say further, any one be- 

 ginning in apiculture cannot make any 

 mistake if he starts out with fixtures 

 adapted to the production of comb 

 honey with separators, as such honey 

 is equally as salable in the local or 

 home market, as it is in any spot or 

 place in the world, say nothing about 

 the United Stales. The production of 

 unseparatored honey in marketable 

 shape requires some things over which 

 the apiarist has no absolute control. 



Suppose the honey-flow is on and the 

 bees have commenced to work in all 

 parts of the super (as they must if we 

 are to have reasonably decent combs 

 in the sections for market), and at the 

 end of these two days after starting, 

 cool to cold weather comes on, the 

 bees draw in the cluster until it may 

 not occupy more than half of the 

 super, when, if such weather holds on 

 for 3 or 4 days, as is often the case, 

 those sections clustered upon will be- 

 come "fat," while those outside will be 

 "lean." The weather now turns warm 

 and then hot. so that the cluster again 

 takes in all the sections in the super, 

 or at first, when we have of necessity 

 the fat ones with their cells lengthened 

 out into the lean ones along the edges, 

 where the bees left off clustering dur- 

 ing the cool spell till these fat ones are 

 nearly, if not quite, twice as thick as to 

 combs of honey as are the others. This 

 will entirely exclude them from being 

 cased in any way, except by taking 

 their places in the case in the identical 

 position they occupied in the super, 

 which it is not possible for tliem to do 

 unless the super and the shipping-case 

 are of equal dimensions in every way. 



Then, to have anything like satis- 

 factory results with unseparatored su- 

 pers, all colonies supered must be 

 strong enough to enter and fill any one 

 super at once ; otherwise we have the 

 same state of affairs as in the before- 

 mentioned case, for should there be 

 only bees enough to start work vigor- 

 ously in the center of the super, each 

 section, as we go farther and farther 

 toward the outside of the super, will 

 have one fat side and one lean side, 

 this becoming more and more promi- 

 nent as the sides, each way, are drawn 

 the nearer to. 



Again, there must be almost a 

 "downpour" of nectar to secure good 

 results, and that continued till the 

 whole of the super is finished. With a 

 light or an intermittent flow, many of 

 the sections will be capped down a part 

 of the way, and, on a "spurt" of honey 

 coming, the uncapped cells just below 

 will be lengthened out, some project- 

 ing into their neighbor sections, this 

 way and that, until the "faces" of the 

 combs will have become so uneven that 

 casing them will be entirely out of the 

 question. 



