iDOti 



ttuEANlNGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



841 



COMB OK EXTRACTED HONEY, WHICH? 



"Which had I better produce, comb or ex- 

 tracted honey?" 



'•Are you tired of comb-honey production, 

 Mr. Smith? " 



"Not if it pays as well as does the extract- 

 ed But from what I have been told, it would 

 seem that the extracted should pay better. I 

 read only yesterday in one of my old bee pa- 

 pers that extracted honey could be produced 

 more cheaply than comb honey. The writer 

 said there was a saving of 20 lbs. of honey 

 which was required to build 1 lb. of comb in 

 which to store the honey sold in the sections, 

 and that, where the honey was extracted, 

 combs once built could be used as long as 

 the apiarist lived, barring accidents." 



"Did you believe him?" 



"I could not contradict, for I did not 

 know enough to. He said Huber, who lived 

 a century or more ago, experimented till he 

 found that it took from 20 to 35 lbs. of honey 

 (this to be eaten by the bees) before wax 

 enough to produce a pound of comb could be 

 secreted. Did you never hear of this?" 



"Yes. This was a stock argument when 

 the extractor was first known. But bee- 

 keepers of this time believe that it does not 

 require nearly that much. In conducting his 

 experiments, Huber confined the bees to the 

 hive, which put them in an abnormal state, 

 so that their struggle for liberty made them 

 use very much of the honey Huber thought 

 was used to produce wax. When bees are 

 very active, and especially when they are 

 uneasy under confinement, they use large 

 quantities of honey to support tne necessary 

 vitality which is required all the while to 

 take the place of that used up in the struggle 

 to get out, very much on the principle that 

 a man who is doing hard muscular labor re- 

 quires much more food than does the one 

 who sits at his desk all day." 



"He said nothing about that; but he fig- 

 ured that extracted honey had the advantage 

 because of the time taken to build the como, 

 when the comb- builders could just as well be 

 in the field gathering nectar. Then he said 

 further, that, since it takes about 1 lb. of 

 wax to hold 25 lbs. of honey, if the yield in 

 newly built combs in sections was 25 lbs., if 

 I furnished the combs I would secure 50 lbs. 

 of extracted, plus that gathered by the comb- 

 builders, when they were not held in the hive 

 for the production of wax and the building or 

 shaping the same into comb. I have been 

 thinking this over during the night; and it 

 seems to me that, if he is anywhere near 

 right, from 60 to 65 lbs. of extracted honey 

 could be produced from the same colony of 



bees as easily as could 25 lbs. of comb honey. 

 What do you say? " 



"It seems to me he was mixed just a little, 

 although I do not know that I just under- 

 stand that argument from beginning to end. 

 He mentioned things which 1 never neard in 

 an argument of that kind before. I am free 

 to admit that it takes about 1 lb. of wax, 

 when built into comb, to hold 25 pounds of 

 honey; but I am not free to admit that the 

 pound of wax costs 25 lbs. of honey to pro- 

 duce; nor am I willing to admit that there 

 would be more gatherers where no combs 

 were being built than would be the case 

 where the bees were filling the section from 

 starters; for it is a rare thmg that the comb- 

 builders go into the fields as laborers. It is 

 possible to cause the bees which are general- 

 ly occupied in comb-building to go into the 

 field as gatherers by throwing the colony in- 

 to an abnormal condition; but otherwise they 

 would not gather stores whether they were 

 building comb or not. You can very easily 

 prove this for yourself by changing queens 

 in a colony of black or hybrid bees about 

 four weeks before the honey harvest, giving 

 the colony a queen of the yellow race. Note 

 the time the first yellow bees from the new 

 queen begin to emerge from their cells; and 

 twelve days later, when the harvest is at its 

 height, take a look at the entrance of the 

 hive during the forenoon, and you will see 

 only black bees going out after and coming 

 in with their loads of nectar. Now take a 

 look in the sections, where comb-building is 

 going on rapidly, and you will find nearly 

 all the bees there at work, pulling away at 

 the cells and septum to the combs of the yel- 

 low race; and if you wait till the sixteenth 

 day you will find the same at the entrance, 

 while there will be scarcely a black bee in 

 the sections. This proves conclusively that 

 the writer had no ground for arguing that 

 'the comb- builders could just as well be in 

 the field gathering,' for the field- bees rarely 

 build comb under normal circumstances." 



"But, after all, don't ^ou think that more 

 extracted honey can be produced than sec- 

 tion?" 



"Yes. From all of my past experience I 

 should say that, on an average, one-half more 

 extracted honey can be produced from a giv- 

 en number of colonies than section. That 

 is, if a given number of colonies would pro- 

 duce 50 pounds of section honey during a 

 certain harvest, those same colonies would 



f[ive a surplus of 75 pounds of good thorough- 

 y ripened extracted honey. The reason I do 

 not produce extracted honey for market is 

 that, when it comes to the disposing of the 

 two articles, I can sell nearly double the 

 number of sections with the same labor tv^at 

 it takes to sell half as much extracted, and 

 always secure a half more in price for the 

 section honey, while during many seasons 

 the section honey brings nearly double the 

 price. 1 know that some claim to get as 

 much for their extracted as for comb, in 

 their home market, but I can not do this; and 

 when it comes to sending the two to a dis- 

 tant market, all know that extracted brings 



