840 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov 



obliged to contract to such an extent that much of 

 the brood perished, while all of the colonies ceased 

 breeding pretty much entirely. This weather con- 

 tinued to a greater or less extent together with 

 much rain till June 12th, at which time the pros- 

 pect of a honey crop was nearly ruined; for all 

 know that it is the bees which hatch from the eggs 

 laid by the queen about 37 days before the honey 

 harvest, which procure the crop, if we are to have 

 any. As our basswood (which is our main honey 

 crop) blooms about July 10th, it will be seen that 

 this almost entire absence of brood from May 20th 

 to June 12th took away the bees which should have 

 been the gatherers of our honey, so that, no mat- 

 ter how good the weather might have been during 

 basswood, it would be impossible to secure a full 

 crop. June 12th there came better weather, and 

 the bees (which by this time were broodless, and 

 many of them nearly honeyless) went to the fields 

 to work with a will. The rainy weather had 

 brought on the white clover so that there was a 

 greater show of bloom than we usually have; and 

 could it have come off dry at this time we might 

 have obtained more than usual from this source; 

 but as the weather still continued wet, little more 

 was obtained than enough to feed the brood, which 

 now multiplied very rapidly. The early spring 

 brought out the basswood bloom earlier than usual, 

 so that the flowers on the earliest trees opened on 

 the 4th of July, but the bees did not seem to notice 

 them much if any till nearly a week later. They 

 now began to gather honey quite rapidly; in fact, 

 they came in as heavily loaded as I have ever seen 

 them, dropping short of the hive, and tumbling 

 about in every direction, as they always do when 

 getting honey very fast; but when it came to their 

 storing it in the hives and sections, very slow work 

 indeed was made, owing to the fewness of the la- 

 borers, and also to the thinness of the nectar, this 

 last being caused by its raining nearly every day at 

 some period during each 2-1 hours. The basswood 

 bloom lasted for about three weeks, at the end of 

 which time teasel gave a little honey for a week or 

 so, when the honey season from flowers was over 

 for 1889, for of late years we get no honey from 

 buckwheat or fall bloom. 



I now took off all of the sections, and found that 

 the bees did not have half enough honey in the 

 brood-apartment of the hive to winter them; for, 

 owing to the slow way honey had come in, brooding 

 had been kept up to a much greater extent than 

 usual during July. 1 saw nothing ahead but feed- 

 ing for winter, till about the 28th of August, when 

 the bees appeared to be at work on something, 

 enough to keep them from robbing, the yield in- 

 creasing, till on September 1st they again dropped 

 about the hives nearly as much as they did during 

 basswood bloom. An investigation of the matter 

 proved that this honey came from the leaves of the 

 oak, elm, and hickory trees, growing in a large 

 piece of woods about V/ 2 miles distant, this being 

 the first honey-dew honey ever obtained by my 

 bees during the period of 20 years which I have 

 kept bees. From this source, which lasted for 

 about 12 days, the bees filled up their hives so that 

 they had enough to winter on; and although I have 

 some fears regarding how they will come out next 

 spring, I have concluded to let them chance it, 

 rather than go through the work of extracting, and 

 feeding high-priced sugar. 



After my sales of bees and queens in early 



spring, I found \ had 26 colonies left to begin the 

 season with, and from these I obtained an increase 

 of 18 colonies, which, with 4 colonies made by 

 doubling up nuclei, gives me 48 to go into winter 

 with. Besides the increase, I obtained 651 lbs. of 

 comb honey and 103 pounds of extracted, or 754 in 

 all, from the 26 colonies in the spring. This gives 

 an average of 29 pounds to each colony, which is 

 the lightest yield I ever obtained, if my memory 

 serves me right. The comb honey I have shipped 

 on commission, which is being sold at 17 cts. per 

 pound. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Oct. 21, 1889. 



I suppose we are not to understand, friend 

 D., that 754 pounds was your sole income 

 for the season's work. Quite likely your 

 sale of bees and queens amounted to a good 

 deal more than that sum. I presume we 

 are to understand that the 26 colonies you 

 mention were worked solely for honey, and 

 did not furnish bees and queens to fill or- 

 ders during the summer time. If so, then 

 you certainly have had an exceedingly poor 

 season ; and, by the way, while I recom- 

 mend selling bees and queens where the op- 

 portunity offers, as well as honey and wax, 

 I feel pretty certain also that a traffic in 

 bees and queens is pretty sure to interfere 

 more or less with the best results in the 

 way of honey. Where one has a large apia- 

 ry or out-apiaries, however, very likely it 

 would not pay him to fuss with the bee and 

 queen trade at all, on the principle that it is 

 better to do one thing well than to try to do 

 too many things. 



HONEY-EXTBACTOES. 



THEIR CONSTRUCTION ; THE REVERSIBLE EX- 

 TRACTORS IN PARTICULAR. 



.TpTAVING tried nearly all kinds of extractors, 

 ^1^1 from the most primitive two-comb up to an 

 JkI eight-comb reversible, I think my experience 

 "*■**• might be of some value to anyone contem- 

 plating the purchase or manufacture of anew 

 machine. My first extractor consisted of two tin 

 boxes, each the length of my hive, 4 in. deeper and 

 4 in. wider, fastened to a wooden frame about 18 in. 

 apart, with an axle in the center between the two 

 cans, and a crank on top. Each can had a piece of 

 coarse wire cloth, the size of the frame across the 

 center of the can lengthwise, to keep the comb 

 from the outside, and a screw cap on the bottom to 

 let the honey out. I drew off the honey into milk- 

 pans, and poured it through a cheese-cloth strainer 

 into a barrel. Yes, and 1 believe 1 had more en- 

 thusiasm when running that thing, and extracting 

 200 or 300 pounds per day, than I have now with the 

 best kind of an outfit, and extracting 2000 or 3000 

 lbs. per day. 



I next tried a Novice. As most of you know its 

 good and bad qualities, I will not mention them. 



The next was a four-comb reversible. I found 

 this a great improvement over the non-reversible, 

 not only in saving time, but in saving combs; for 

 with the former the comb sometimes presses into 

 the wire cloth when you extract the first side; and, 

 if tender, will often pull out of the frame when you 

 pull it loose; but with the latter, the centrifugal 

 force pulls evenly on the whole comb until it comes 

 loose, and combs are very seldom broken. 



