June, 1910. 



American Hee Jonrnal 



fact, and if I ever heard any one say 

 that the juice of an occasional dead 

 bee, as well as that of larv:e, worked its 

 waj through the strainer and became 

 a part of the so-called strained honey, 

 I never contradicted the assertion. But 

 the invention of the movable-comb 

 hive, and its general introduction 

 among all intelligent bee-keepers, to- 

 gether with the extractor, has banished 

 the custom of entering the brood-nest 

 for comb honey. 



The many other advantages of the 

 movable comb Mr. Crabill should not 

 overlook. The manner in which Mr, 

 SchoU and others of the comb-honey 

 class of bee-keepers secure honey, does 

 not, in any particular, point to the 

 brimstone period and method of secur- 

 ing comb honey. When it is fully 

 understood it is the cheaper method 

 of securing comb honey, 1 am fully 

 convinced, as it requires less labor 

 upon the part of the bee-keeper; there 

 is no annual putting together of frames, 

 as the same set of frames will last in- 

 definitely, while in the section method 

 new sections must be purchased, put 

 together, provided with starters and 

 section-holders, must be carefully 

 scraped and adjusted to receive the sec- 

 tions. The comb honey received from 

 shallow frames is quite as white as that 

 stored in sections, and it is as free 

 from dark comb, cocoons and pollen 

 as section honey is certain to be, for 

 to put it upon the market in any other 

 shape would sound its death-knell in 

 short order. 



But the great objection to bulk honey 

 is that the combs are pressed together 

 and are covered with honey poured 

 over and around them in the cans or 

 jars it is packed in, which simply de- 

 prives it of its solid, unbroken cap- 

 pings, which are simply ornamental. 

 But when the consumer buys a pound 

 of it he gets 16 ounces, while the sec- 

 tions, I think, are retailed by the piece 

 and fall short from a fractional part 

 of an ounce to several ounces. But 

 isn't extracted honey produced a little 

 cheaper than either section or bulk- 

 comb honey? To me it seems that the 

 time and labor required to extract 

 honey will cost less than the comb 

 taken from the bees with bulk-comb 

 honey, as much time, labor and honey 

 are consumed in replacing the comb 

 taken from the bees with the honey; 

 and, aside from all this, beeswa.x or 

 honey-comb is in no sense a component 

 part of any food, it being wholly indi- 

 gestible. 



Then, to view section-comb honey, 

 bulk-comb honey, and e.xtracted honey 

 from whatever standpoint I may, sec- 

 tion honey is the most ornamental, but 

 the most expensive. Bulk-comb honey 

 ranks second in the matter of cost of 

 production, and extracted the cheapest ; 

 and if any real difference in the quality 

 the latter is the most wholesome; but 

 all three methods are far in advance of 

 the antiquated customs practiced 7."i 

 years ago, and I feel (|uite convinced 

 that Mr. Crabill will see matters in the 

 same light when he conies to note all 

 the facts that have followed the inven- 

 tion and introduction of the movable- 

 comb bee-hive. 



As to the matter of super frames, 

 both Mr. Scholl and Mr. Dadant favor 

 the shallow pattern. It is true the 



bees can warm a shallow super to the 

 temperature necessary to enable them 

 to construct comb, with a much smaller 

 number of bees and warmth than must 

 be had when building comb in a deeper 

 super; but when the combs have once 

 been constructed, I have been able to 

 note but little if any difference in the 

 matter of storing the combs of either 

 deep or shallow supers with honey; 

 and therefore use mostly 2-story hives, 

 and feel quite certain that when the 

 upper story is really required I have 

 less trouble in getting bees to work 

 above the brood-nest. I never put on 

 the upper story until the brood-nest is 

 quite populous, then when a honey-flow 

 is on I put on tlie upper story and raise 

 a frame or two of brood up into the 

 super or upper story. This not only 

 puts the bees to work above, but. with 

 me, it seems to put a quietus on the 

 swarming impulse, and secures more 

 honey. 



The popularity of the different shapes 

 of honey for the market is largely a 

 matter of education. 



Lyons, Kan. 



Numbering the Hives Keeping 

 Record-Books 



BY O. B. METCALFE. 

 (" T/ie AVtc Mexico C/mp,") 



For the past year or so there has 

 been some discussion of numbers for 

 hives, and of the record-book. I think 

 every professional bee-keeper should 

 keep a note-book in which he may jot 

 down, from his experience, things 

 worth remembering, and if he rears 

 his own queens, he should number and 

 keep some record of such colonies as 

 he may desire to use for breeding pur- 

 poses. 



Numbering «// hives and keeping 

 their record as to queen-cells and such 

 details, I do not think practical for a 

 man with as many as a thousand colo- 

 nies, or perhaps less. 



The number! ng-every-hi ve-and-keep- 

 ing-its-record system, as it has been 

 discussed, is supposed to enable the 

 bee-keeper, when his breakfast is swal- 

 lowed, to look at his record-book and 

 see where he should go to work that 

 morning. Such a system would, last 

 spring and summer, have called me 

 every morning to about half a dozen 

 different yards at once, varying in dis- 

 tance from one to 8 miles apart. Not 

 being able to " scatter out " that way, 

 being systematically informed as to 

 just how things were, might have put 

 me in the insane asylum. 



I think I hear Mr. Doolittle say, "I 

 told you so!" for two years ago, when 

 I asked him how I was to control 

 swarming in some 1500 colonies by 

 myself, explaining that experienced 

 help was not to be had in my locality, 

 he advised me to sell all but 500 colo- 

 nies, and no doubt the readers of bee- 

 papers generally would have thought 

 his advice wise. I did not, however, 

 sell any of them, and nearly 75 tons of 

 honey that fall — 20,000 pounds of comb 

 and the balance extracted — showed 

 either wisdom or luck. 



I have always been a true Westerner. 

 I will " make it or lose it." When my 

 partner and I decided to go into the 



bee-business, we carefully read "ABC 

 of Bee-Culture" (something no begin- 

 ner can afford to omit); but after not- 

 ing that it advised beginners not to try 

 more than 20 colonies, we went and 

 bought 300 3-frame nuclei. I knew a 

 drone when I saw it, and had once 

 seen a bee that I felt pretty sure must 

 have been a queen ; my partner had 

 never seen a drone or a queen. 

 That fall we bought 1200 colonies more. 

 My partner and his extracting crew 

 (usually a couple of Mexicans who 

 cannot speak English) take oiT and ex- 

 tract the honey, and to me falls prac- 

 tically all the manipulation. Most of 

 the time I am '" on top," but once last 

 spring they "got me down." That is a 

 common expression out here, but it 

 seldom fits quite so well, for the bees 

 were in great bunches on the tops of 

 the trees, and I on the ground frantically 

 trying to get them back down. This 

 time I pressed my partner, my brother 

 (who was with us a month or so about 

 that time), and a Mexican boy, into the 

 "manipulation," as I term all work 

 with the bees, except the taking off of 

 honey and preparing it for market. 



Well, getting back to my subject, and 

 cutting short a long story that is prob- 

 ably more interesting to me than to 

 others, I will say, at a rough guess, that 

 it would take about one-fourth of each 

 day to make and refer to such a record 

 of our hives as, for example. Dr. Miller 

 keeps of his. I could not possibly spare 

 that time, and yet I believe I am a prac- 

 tical bee-keeper, and that I keep a large 

 number of colonies of bees in a prac- 

 tical way. 



The marking system I use is about as 

 follows : I carry a large crayon of the 

 paraffin kind in my pocket, and with 

 that I check-mark or write on the hives. 

 To attract immediate attention, I use a 

 green weed. When I walk into a yard 

 and see a weed that is beginning to 

 look old, without having been taken off 

 and thrown down, I know I am late 

 there, and I "' get busy," I do not even 

 keep a record of which yard to go to 

 next, and I can generally say to myself, 



"I should have gone to yard , 2 or 3 



days ago." When I get there things 

 have gone a little wrong; I right them 

 as quickly as I can, and go to the next 

 yard. I love the work, and consider 

 that my partner has the hard and dis- 

 agreeable task. 



M.\RKiNC Hives With an Arrow. 



It was my great pleasure, last sum- 

 mer, to have with me in my home Mr. 

 W. H. Laws, of Texas, and among the 

 many valuable hints he gave me, I re- 

 call a marking system which I shall try 

 this season in one yard at least. The 

 plan was to nail, on one side or end of 

 the hive, a wooden arrow about (i inches 

 long, by driving one nail through the 

 center of it. The arrow can be re- 

 volved to indicate different things; for 

 example, if the arrow points up, it in- 

 dicates that all was well at the last 

 visit, both in regard to queen and super- 

 room; if turned Js of a revolution to 

 the left, the colony was preparing to 

 swarm ; '4 to the left, it had swarmed 

 and needed watching to see that the 

 new queen was all right; >2 turn, or 

 pointing down, denotes queenlessness. 

 Turning to the right refers to super- 

 room wliich is needed in the degree in- 



