244 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



basswood-honey harvest, and I had a mind 

 to kill her on account of her unprolificness, 

 but did not, because I wanted to show peo- 

 ple a queen raised in a country on the op- 

 posite end of the globe, and 10,000 miles 

 away. Imagine my surprise, when the 

 basswood harvest came on, when all of the 

 queens from my stock were beginning- to re- 

 trench brood-rearing, to see this queen go 

 to brood-rearing as if it were the fore part 

 of May, and thus continue till nearly every 

 available cell in the brood-chamber was 

 crammed with brood; and at the close of 

 the honey harvest they began to swarm, 

 and kept it up as long as there was a drop 

 of honey to be had in the hive or elsewhere, 

 fully a month after the last swarm from my 

 own queens had issued. I kept putting in 

 frames of honey to keep them from starving, 

 and they kept swarming till they not only 

 used up all the honey they had gathered, 

 but fully 20 lbs. from other colonies, and I 

 had to give them their stores from other 

 CDlonies for wintering. I thought I would 

 try them again the next year, was the rea- 

 son I wintered them, but the next year they 

 proved just as bad, and so I killed the queen 

 and gave them one from my own stock. 

 And this is the way, only to a lesser ex- 

 tent, that the Carniolan and Syrian queens 

 have acted with me, as well as several 

 queens of the Italian race which I have pro- 

 cured from other parties. 



We have talked during the past about the 

 prolificness of queens as being the great 

 object which should be sought after; but I 

 came to the conclusion long ago that pro- 

 lificness in a queen, which could not be 

 controlled, counted for naught — yea, worse 

 than naught. 



If this criticism of Bro. Eastwood, which 

 called out this article, shall set us to think- 

 ing along the right line regarding the pro- 

 lificness of our queens, he will have done 

 the world a great favor, and I shall not 

 have written this in vain. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



RAMBLER'S JOUNCER. 



Extracting Combs without Taking them out of 

 the Super. 



BY J. HAMMOND. 



Mr. Root: — In reading Gleanings for 

 Jan. 1, I noticed Rambler was trying to 

 kill off my new bee-brush with his jouncer. 

 Of course, a fellow doesn't like to see one 

 of his pets knocked out with such an ugly- 

 looking "jouncimal" with forty legs, more 

 or less; and, just see his position in the 

 performance. Surely he must be out of 

 joint entirely; and since when, and where, 

 has he accumulated such enormous wealth 

 that he offers to squander it by offering 

 such large prizes for such simple little 

 queries as how to extract one whole super 

 without removing the frames? Now, I want 

 that fifty dollars, so will you tell him to 

 send it to me right away? I need money. I 



have made only very little since my accident 

 two years ago this spring. Here is the 

 method he covets so much: First, provide a 

 reversible extractor suitable to accommo- 

 date four supers at one time. Place the su- 

 pers in and then uncap. He will have to 

 use tin separators in place of fences to stop 

 the honey from being thrown on to the next 

 section, and work speed accordingly. If 

 he can not see a way to uncap the four su- 

 pers while setting in the extractor, tell him 

 to jounce his head a very little, and then 

 brush it well with one of my bee-brushes, 

 and, perhaps, while doing so he will see so 

 much wire it will inspire him with an idea. 



But, by the way, I am giving him too 

 much and too good measure for the price. 

 I am giving four where one is the bargain. 

 Well, tell Jouncer he can have the first one 

 for the price offered, and I will throw in 

 the other three for fifty dollars more; and 

 if he offers enough of a prize I will give 

 him a method on an entirely different prin- 

 ciple that will almost jounce the wind out 

 of him. I am not a good hand at keeping 

 secrets, so I will give it to you to keep for 

 me; and if Rambler will promise not to let 

 his great big jumping, jarring, splashing, 

 jouncing jouncimal molest my little pet any 

 more, and you can jounce some of his spare 

 wealth out of his pockets, we will let him 

 peep in through the glass in the tank while 

 the method is in operation. Here is the 

 method: Provide a strong tank with a lid 

 to open and shut with a rubber joint, to 

 make it air-tight. Insert suitable valves 

 where needed, also connect a powerful air- 

 pump. Place inside, inverted, 100 supers, 

 more or less, and just pump the honey out 

 by suction through the cappings without 

 removing; then if you can jounce 40 or 50 

 millions out of Rambler we will share the 

 swag. 



Buena Vista, O., Jan. 22. 



[I hardly know whether to take you seri- 

 ously or as joking when you speak about 

 extracting the combs without taking them 

 out of the super. However that may be, I 

 once entertained the idea that it could be 

 done very feasibly; but if you will stop and 

 think a minute you will see at once why 

 tin separators between the combs would 

 not be practicable. The first difficulty is 

 in the matter of uncapping the combs. The 

 next is in getting the honey out. We will 

 put our supers, having tin separators be- 

 tween each pair of combs, into a mammoth 

 honey- extractor. We will turn the reel 

 vigorously. The honey will now fly out, 

 and strike the tins. Except for uncapping 

 this is all very simple. After the honey is 

 all out of one side of the combs in the su- 

 pers we will turn the supers the other side 

 to. Remembfer that one side of the tin sep- 

 arators will be covered over with honey 

 perhaps an eighth of an inch thick that has 

 not yet run down. We will turn the ex- 

 tractor and get it under good motion. 

 Now, don't you see that the honey that 

 clings to the surface of the tins wiWfly back 



