1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



3/9 



>A\ORO 



RAMBLE 201. 



Honey Yield of Cuba ; Cuban Honeypackages ; Extracting ; Hive=bottoms ; Blacks Preferred in Cuba 



Help, Price of. 



BY RAMBLER. 



So far as I can learn, no one has kept a 

 record of the colony yield for one or more 

 seasons in Cuba. I think it is not nearly 

 as much as in California. For instance, 

 Mr. Wilder, of California, secured an aver- 

 ag-e of 240 lbs. per colony from an apiary 

 of 100 colonies during- the past year; and in 

 the last Gleanings Mr. Raze reports a 

 yield of 380 lbs. averag-e from 50 colonies. 

 I know of one bee-keeper here who has had 

 an exceptionally good jdeld (so considered 

 by his neighboring- bee-keepers). Though 

 the season is not quite closed he can rea- 

 sonably' forecast the result, and his averag^e 

 yield will not go above 160 lbs. per colony, 

 600 in two apiaries. 



Cuban honey is all put into barrels and 

 tierces, mostly in the latter, holding 100 

 gallons, and called boco3'es. The barrel, 

 or tierce, is gauged bj' the dealer, and it 

 goes by the gallon, the dealer paying for 

 the tierce. Price of 50-gallon barrel, $3.00; 

 bocoy, $6.00, or at the rate of 6 cts. per gal- 



SOMERFORDS 800-GALLON TANK. 



Ion. This helps the bee-keeper out a little 

 better than the practice in the States, where 

 the price of the package is lost to the pre - 

 ducer. It is a rank injustice, and the Cu- 

 ban plan should be adopted. 



Mr. Somerford uses the ten-frame L. hive, 

 and works exclusively for extracted honey. 

 I find the majority of bee-keepers here run 

 their honey directly from the extractor to the 

 barrel, not taking much care about bits of; 

 comb and bees that may get in. 



This plan is adopted at Mr. S.'s home 

 apiary. When I first entered his extract- 

 ing - cabin his men were at work slinging 

 honey. The extractor is securely anchored 

 to a stone and cement foundation. There 

 is drop enough for a futile strainer (futile 

 means one that will take out the largest 

 bits of comb, etc.), and below this the bar- 

 rel. I told Mr. S. that his house looked 

 like a cider-mill. You see that big barrel 

 was suggestive. It smelled like a cider- 

 mill, and, to all intents and purposes, was 



no better than one. 

 But I can make a better re- 

 port about an out-apiary a few 

 kilometers further along on the 

 calzada. Here he had gotten 

 down to business, and made an 

 800-gallon galvanized-irontank,. 

 held to shape by a wooden 

 frame; another, of about the 

 same size, is doing duty in an- 

 other out-apiary. One novel 

 feature of these large tanks is 

 the absence of a gate or faucet 

 for drawing off the honey. 

 Gates sometimes have a way of 

 getting open and losing a large 

 amount of honey. Mr. S. places 

 the barrel or bocoy next the 

 tank, and uses an ordinary 

 pump for transferring the hon- 

 ey. The honey can be left a 

 long time in the tank, for, like 

 California sage honey, it does 

 not granulate. Or if any Cu- 

 ban honey does granulate it 

 has a mushy consistency. 



