November, 1919 



gtjEantngs in bee culture 



tion the essential thing needed to secure a 

 crop was to have the colonies ready when 

 the crop opened, not when it closed, and tho 

 this sounds obvious there is much wisdom in 

 it. Let us apply it to Alexander's methods 

 and to our conditions. 



Whereas for a clover honey flow the main 

 essential is to hold the colony together for 

 the short time till the clover begins to yield, 

 with a late flow there is plenty of time for 

 the two halves of the original colony to 

 grow to full strength in readiness for the 

 best results in the supers. Therefore, the 

 "Alexander plan" of increase will give 

 maximum yields, where for a clover flow the 

 two halves would merely build up on the 

 honey flow and come to strength just as it 

 closed. Furthermore, in the case of a clover 

 flow, followed by a gap or dearth, emerging 

 brood may become consumers instead of pro- 

 ducers; and a week or two of queenlessness 

 (to control swarming) may actually add to 

 the ultimate honey crop, where in a locality 

 with a late flow we need every egg that can 

 be laid, for the early brood will constitute 

 the gatherers of our crop. 



We plan, therefore, to start the bees 

 breeding as early as possible, to make early 

 increase on the Alexander plan, and if neces- 

 sary to feed to stimulate continuous brood- 

 raising. By this means the ' ' increase ' ' 

 themselves make a substantial contribution 

 to the crop before the season closes. 

 Our Honey Allowed to Granulate. 



Our honey, except on the rare occasions 

 when we get a clover flow, is thick and 

 rich, of amber color and pronounced flavor, 

 and finds a very ready sale in our immediate 

 neighborhood. We plan to allow it to granu- 

 late before sale if possible, partly to con- 

 vince incredulous people that the granula- 

 tion is not a sign of adulteration, and partly 

 to stimulate the demand for granulated hon- 

 ey. It. is well known that all the large bot- 

 lers are obliged to heat their honej^ to satis- 



fy the demands of the retailers for liijuid 

 honey, and consequently those who ae(]uire 

 a taste for granulated honey are obliged to 

 rely on the local producer and return again 

 and again. An exception to the above is, of 

 course, furnished by Root's "Honeyspred, " 

 which is excellent, but which suffers from 

 the fact that people are slow to find out that 

 it really is nothing more than pure gianu- 

 lated honey. 



Hives Used in Manitoba. 



Hive sizes are of course a well-worn topic, 

 and much depends upon the purpose for 

 which the hive is used. For extracted hon- 

 ey, the ten-frame Langstroth is perhaps the 

 most popular; but some use the Jumbo or 

 the Dadant, while one very successful win- 

 terer of bees in the country uses the old 

 Jones hive — a square hive of large capacity 

 — which he brought up from Ontario some 

 years ago. The photo shows a 10-frame 

 Langstroth beside an 8-frame Jumbo. The 

 latter was made by fixing a shallow super 

 to a standard 8-frame body and then using 

 Jumbo frames. The 8-frame hive always 

 gave us such good results in wintering that 

 we thought this experiment might show the 

 same results, and by uniting the depth of a 

 Jumbo frame with the compactness of the 

 8-frame hive, enough honey might be always 

 present to act as a "balance wheel" to en- 

 sure steady breeding in spring. 



Device for Draining Extractor. 



The picture of the interior of the honey- 

 house shows one feature that might be of 

 general interest. The extractor is screwed 

 to a heavy platform the top of which is 

 hinged so that after each extracting it can 

 be tilted forward, as shown, to drain it. 

 Without this arrangement there used to be 

 some honey that would granulate in the ex- 

 tractor after each extracting, and have to 

 be cleared out at the end of the season. 



Sturgeon Creek, Man. 



ALONG the SACRAMENTO RIVER 



Honey from Parsnips and Celery by 

 the Carload in California. Ho-w 

 Foul Brood Has Been Eliminated 



By E. R. Root 



OUTSIDE of 

 a few small 

 localities in 

 the United 

 States, honey in 

 carload lots from 

 ordinary garden 

 plants would 

 seem almost like 

 a myth; and I 



confess when I heard about the large quan- 

 tities of celery and parsnip honey that were 

 secured in the Sacramento Valley I myself 

 thought there must be some mistake, and 

 that the bees were getting honey from some- 

 thing else. 



Truck Gardens Along the Sacramento, 

 Just before leaving California, toward the 

 latter part of June, I had the pleasure of 

 taking a trip with H. Gear of Walnut Grove, 



C a 1 . , w h o h a s 

 some 500 colo- 

 nies scattered in 

 lots of 150 in a 

 place. Together 

 we traveled thru 

 a portion of the 

 Sacramento 

 River Valley, or 

 that part of it 

 that runs from San Francisco to Sacra- 

 mento. For miles and miles up and down 

 the river we saw some of the finest garden 

 country in the world. This old river, like 

 many other streams running thru soft soil, 

 has a fashion of overflowing its banks and 

 making new channels; so we see on each 

 side high embankments, the purpose of 

 which is to protect the truck farming during 

 high water in the spring. There are all kinds 



