62 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



of them, when filled with honey, show a 

 g'limmering- of the sixth. What I mean by 

 five bands is five broad distinct yellow 

 bands, thus making- the bees 5'ellow almost 

 to the tips. We are not the only ones hav- 

 ing straight five-banded queens. There 

 are two or three others who have them, and 

 from whom we got our first stock. We have 

 found these goldens to be good workers, 

 and a very good bee for climates that have 

 a short season, or where there is only one 

 short honey-flow. For localities like our 

 present one, where we have long seasons 

 and several honey-flows, we find that they 

 are not as good as the three-banders, or 

 what we really prefer — the Holy Lands or 

 Cyprians. H. H. H^tje. 



Floresville, Texas, Dec. 20. 



[The facts are as I have stated them. If 

 you have queens that produce workers all 

 with five distinct yellow bands, then I stand 

 corrected . — Ed. ] 



UNFINISHED SECTIONS ; EXTRACTING, AND 

 HOW. 



I see by Gleanings that some besides 

 myself have been puzzled to know what is 

 best to do with unfinished sections. Al- 

 though in some localities little trouble is 

 experienced, yet in places where the whit- 

 est honey is stored in the fore part of the 

 season, and dark honey in the latter part, 

 it is not practical to put dark sealed honey 

 in the supers when the bees are storing 

 white honey, making a "patchy-looking" 

 comb. It is the custom of some bee-keepers 

 to feed the unfinished sections to weak colo- 

 nies in the spring. This, I have found, has 

 its disadvantages. The sections become 

 soiled, and are not suitable for storing the 

 best grades of white honey in, when we 

 need the unfinished sections most to get the 

 bees started to work in the supers; and we 

 can not depend on the bees uncapping all of 

 the cells unless they are badly in need of 

 honey. By uncapping it this difificulty is 

 largely overcome. 



mack's EXTRACTING-FRAMES for UNFIN- 

 ISHED sections. 

 A better way to dispose of the honey in 

 unfinished sections is to make two frames 

 as thick as the section is wide, and wide 

 enough to take in two sections, and leave y% 

 inch to spare, and long enough to take in 

 four sections and leave % inch to spare. 

 Fill the frames with sections, and put them 

 in the extractor. Turn the extractor at 

 half speed; reverse the frames, and give it 



full speed. Reverse again at full speed, 

 and you will have 16 sections in good con- 

 dition for the bees to store white honey in, 

 early in the spring, when it is hard to get 

 bees to make comb, when it is cool, and 

 there are comparatively few bees in the 

 hive; and if the cut with the uncapping- 

 knife is deep, there will be no show of yel- 

 low cappings from the old combs. The 

 work should be done while it is warm, and 

 as soon as the honey-flow is over. If left 

 until spring they will candy, and it doesn't 

 extract the candy. 



Probably the majority of bee-keepers 

 who produce comb honey do not have ex- 

 tractors ; but where one produces much 

 comb honey an extractor is almost indis- 

 pensable. J. M. Mack. 



Nellie, Cal. 



[Many bee-keepers use the old-fashioned 

 eight-section wide frame for holding sec- 

 tions while in the extractor. With the ex- 

 ception that it has projections to hang in 

 the hive rabbet it is essentially the same 

 thing as what you describe. It is true that 

 the only practical way to extract unfinish- 

 ed sections is the one you use. — Ed.] 



report of the ONTARIO INSPECTOR OF 



apiaries ; THE FOLLY OF BUYING AND 



SELLING OLD COMBS. 



During 1901 I visited bee-yards in the 

 counties of Bruce, Grey, Perth, Oxford, 

 Waterloo, Wellington, Wentworth, Halton, 

 Peel, York, Ontario, and Simcoe. I in- 

 spected 77 apiaries, and found foul brood 

 in 29 of them, and dead brood of other kinds 

 in many others. 



Some bee-keepers secured the combs from 

 others who had lost many colonies of bees, 

 and, not knowing that these combs were 

 diseased, brought them home and put them 

 into use and spread the disease in their 

 own apiaries. 



When foul-brood matter dries down it 

 glues itself fast to the lower side and bot- 

 tom of the cells, and there it will remain 

 just as long as the comb lasts, and in old 

 dark combs the stain-mark left in the cells 

 from the disease is not noticed by those who 

 never had any experience with foul brood. 

 It is when the disease becomes widely 

 spread that bee-keepers wake up to the fact 

 that their colonies have foul brood. 



These mistakes which have so often end- 

 ed in big losses from bringing diseased 

 combs into apiaries should be a warning to 

 bee-keepers not to deal much in old combs. 

 No bee-keeper would bring a diseased 

 comb into his apiary if he knew it contain- 

 ed foul brood; and the men who dispose of 

 such combs do not know that they are dis- 

 eased when they deal them off. 



I received many letters from bee-keepers, 

 asking me to visit their localities, and, 

 while inspecting there, to stop with them. 

 I was much pleased with the generous 

 treatment I received from every person, and, 

 in turn, I felt that I was in duty bound to 

 help the people all I could in every possible 



