1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



(55 



either wired or unwired, built down to the 

 bottom bar, by using them in eight-frame 

 hives as second stories. Although I have sev- 

 eral queens more than three years old, and 

 the hives imperfectly shaded, I have had no 

 swarms for several years by tiering them 3j^ 

 stories high. When using 1^ -story hives, 

 bees would frequently swarm before occupy- 

 ing a super, although the hives were properly 

 shaded. J. C. Detvviler. 



W. Washington, Pa., Aug. 6. 



NATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. 

 Object:— To promote and protect the interests of its mem 



bers; to prevent the adulteration of honey. 

 Officers:— E K. Root, President, Medina, O.; R. C. Aikin 



Vice-president, Loveland, Col.; Dr. A. B. Mason, Secre. 



tary, 3512 Monroe St.. Sta. B, Toledo, O.; Eugene Secor, 



General Manager, Forest City, Iowa. 

 Board of Directors:— E. Whitcomb, Friend, Neb.; W. Z 



Hutchinson. Flint, Mich.; A. I. Root, Medina, O.; E. T. 



Abbott, St. Joseph, Mo.; P. H. Elwood, Starkville, N. Y.; 



E. R. Root, Medina, 0.; T. G. Newman, San Francisco, 



Cal.; G. M. Doolittle, Borodino. N. Y.; W. F. Marks, Cha- 



pinville, N. Y.; J. M. Hambaueh, Escondido, Cal.; C. P. 



Dadant, Hamilton, 111.; C. C. Miller, Marengo, III. 

 Fees:— Annual membership fee, .vl.OO. Remittances may ba 



sent here or to General Manager as above. 



Quite a string of letters are coming in, in- 

 quiring about some of the localities I have 

 visited ; and it is evidtnt that some, for finan- 

 cial reasons, and others for health, expect to 

 move into localities which they hope will fa- 

 vor the pocketbook as well as the ailing body. 

 It is almost impossible to give full or satisfac- 

 tory information by letter ; and if our friends 

 will only wait I will try to cover the ground 

 thoroughly, and at the same time give many 

 illustrations. But no one should think of re- 

 moving to some of these good localities with- 

 out first finding whether they are already oc- 

 cupied. I think I can give that information 

 along the line of my travels. 



A MODIFIED PLAN OF RETURNING SWARMS 

 TO THE PARENT STANDS. 



Our neighbor, Vernon Burt, has succeeded 

 as usual in getting a good crop of honey. He 

 returns all the swarms to the parent stand, 

 giving the swarm a hive of empty comb's, 

 then putting the super from the old hive on 

 top of the new one. If the weather is warm, 

 he shakes or brushes all the bees off the 

 combs of the parent hive, and then moves it 

 to another location. Hatching brood will 

 usually come out in time to take care of the 

 young brood. In this way he gives the 

 swarm all the strength it originally possessed ; 

 and by so doing he finds he gets the best 

 working force possible. This plan is a com- 

 bina'ion of the return-swarm plan and of the 

 Stachelhausen brush swarm idea. But he 

 says he is always careful to see there is hatch- 

 ing brood to mike sure that the unsealed 

 brood will not starve. Pie takes the further 

 precaution of brushin? only during hot weath- 

 er. Of course, during; the swarming s.^ason 



there will be no robbing, and no fear need be 

 entertained from that source. 



The Root Co. bought Mr. Burt's entire crop 

 of honey. It was in plain sections, 4x5. 



SHALLOW FRAMES FOR COMB HONEY. 



The tendency among expert bee-keepers is 

 toward a shallower frame than the standard 

 Langstroth. S(.me others prefer the Lang- 

 stroth because it has always given good re- 

 sults. But the other class consider that the 

 frame given us by the father of American bee- 

 keeping is a little too deep. They desire a 

 frame just shallow enough so that there will 

 be no honey, or very little at least, stored in 

 the brood- nest. Said Mr. Vernon Burt, "With 

 my shallow frames I often have no more 

 honey in them than the size of a silver dollar ; 

 and I estimate that, if my colonies had all 

 been in the shallow hive, I should have se- 

 cured 30 lbs. more per colony." This is a 

 strong statement, but Mr. Burt says he is 

 ready to verify it by showing the piles of 

 honey that have come off the shallow frames 

 and the amounts that have come off the deep- 

 er ones. While he does not claim the bees 

 would store any more honey in one hive than 

 in another, if we tnclude both the super and 

 the brood nest, yet he says that, instead of 

 there being from 25 to 30 lbs. of honey left in 

 the brood-nest, which he does not want there, 

 that amount all goes into the supers where he 

 does want it, and where he can command the 

 very best market price obtainable. When I 

 asked Mr. Burt if it was not desirable to have 

 honey in the brood-nest, he said it was not, 

 according to his practice. "I prefer," he 

 said, " to sell my honey, what I do get, at 12 

 and 15 cts., and then buy sviup at 3 or 4 cts.; 

 and I not only make a good trade, but I give 

 the bees a much better feed. While good 

 honey does very well most winters, yet there 

 are occasional ones when the syrup-fed colo- 

 nies come out much better. No, sir," said 

 he, very emphatically, "I do not want any 

 honey in the brood-nest in late summer. I 

 prefer to feed sugar syrup, for then I know 

 my bees have the very best food for winter." 



PRICES ON CALIFORNIA HONEY. 



There seems to be a combination of forces 

 at work in Southern California, probably in- 

 spired by the buyers, to create the impression 

 that there have been 500 or 600 carloads of 

 honey produced in the southern counties. 

 First it was 400, next 500 cars ; and if this 

 rate of exaggeration continues, it will be up 

 to 1000. If there are 200 or 300 in si^rht the 

 Root Co. would like to know where. When I 

 went through the territory I visited some of 

 the largest producers ; and I also secured re- 

 ports from them of other producers. A large 

 portion of the crop had already been secured, 

 and it was then known about how much each 

 man would have. We have taken some little 

 pains to make an investigation. Ventura 

 County, one of the best if not the best, shows 

 up so far, counting up the big producers, only 

 about 245 tons. If we estimate 12 tons to the 

 c^r, that would make only about 20 carloads 



