694 



GLEANINGS IN BKF. nilTURE 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



cape-boarHs. Of course, one end of a super 

 can he raised up slightly, the board shoved 

 in as far as possible, then the super lowered 

 and the board and super shoved along until 

 both are in their proper places; but this is 

 difficult and unpleasant both for the operator 

 and for the bees. A hive-lifter could be 

 used for this purpose, but I have an arrange- 

 ment that is nu)re easily and quickly put in 

 place and used than would be the case w ith a 

 hive-lifter. This is simply an iron lever a 

 foot and a half long, with one end widened 

 out or split into two sharp prongs that can be 

 thrust into the hand-hole of the upper hive; 

 then, back about four inches from the pronged 

 end, is an iron support hinged to the lever, 

 and the lower end of this support is also 

 split into two prongs that can be thrust into 

 the hand-hole of the lower hive. When the 

 end of the lever is depressed, the upper hive 

 is raised. The depression is continued until 

 the lever and its support are parallel, when a 

 wooden pin is thrust through two holes that 

 come opposite each other; thus the levers are 

 held in position, the upper hive being elevated 

 about an inch and a half above the lower 

 hive. That is, the hive is raised that much 

 upon our side, when I go around to the other 

 side and put in a lifter on that side, when the 

 upper hive is held an inch and a half above 

 the lower one, and it is an easy matter to slip 

 in an escape-board and then lower the upper 

 hive into place. In order that the wooden 

 pin may not be dropped or lost it is tied to 

 the end of a string fastened to one of the lev- 

 ers. It is also possible to use these levers 

 when putting queen-excluders in place. 



F'roni the description of the levers and their 

 manipulation, it may seem like a rather slow 

 and tedious operation to put them into use; 

 but actual practice shows it to be the op- 

 posite. If the we.ither is warm and the pro- 

 polis soft, the levers alone can be depended 

 upon to loosen the hive; but if the weather 

 is cool, the hive had better be loosened first 

 with a screwdriver. First, raise the hive a little 

 bit — not quite enough to let out the bees; then 

 drive smoke into this crack, and the bees will 

 be out of the way when the hive is raised. 



After the escape-boards are in place I go over 

 every hive carefully, canfilty, carijfully, to 

 see that there are no cracks that will let bees into 

 the super after the inmates have gone down 

 through the escape. One who has never used es- 

 capes will be surprised how small a crack will 

 let in a bee. The best of any thing that I have 

 ever found to stop up these cracks is soft clay. 

 Pind some stiff clay, just about such as would be 

 used for making bricks; moisten it, stir it, and 

 w^ork It until it is of just about the consistency 

 of putty. Take a hall of this in the hands and 

 go around and examine all the hives, plastering 

 some of the clay putty into everv crack. I never 

 knew the bees to try to dig out the mud, and it 

 soon hardens down as hard as a marble. 



At each one of our apiaries we have a place to 

 sleep and cook, even if it is only a tent, and we 

 can go the day before we are to begin extracting 

 and put a hee-escape under the top super of even- 

 hive. The next morning most of the supers will 

 be free from bees, and we can begin taking jh^ip 



695 



LEVERS FOR LIFPING HIVE 

 The hive .« the lell shows thellever in place. The on 



off and putting the escapes in under the next story. 

 As we begin taking off the honey we also begin 

 warming it up, and, when warm enough, we be- 

 gin extracting. You will notice that there are 

 really four operations: Putting the escapes in 

 place; wheeling the honey irto the honey-house; 

 warming up the honey and then extracting it; 

 and, once the work is begun, it is easy to follow 

 out a sort of routine in the work. 



I wonder if I might be pardoned a few words 

 of comparison with the ordinary method of ex- 

 tracting. The hardest and most disagreeable 

 part of the work is that of getting the bees off the 

 combs. At best it is unpleasant for both the 

 bees and the operator. The weather is almost 

 always hot; and the smoking and brushing, es- 

 pecially the latter, make the bees cross; and be- 

 tween the heat and the stings and the mussy char- 

 acter of the work the poor bee-keeper has any 

 thing but a good time. It is not so bad when 

 honey is coming in; but there is always some 

 of this work to be done at the close of the sea- 

 son, when there is robbing to contend with. The 

 use of the bee-escape cuts out all of these unpleas- 

 ant features. Instead of several men working all 

 day in a sort of mild torment (and sometimes it 



WHtV PUTTING BEE-ESCAPES IN PLACE. 

 > al thetirfil shows ihe h.indle of the lever depressed and the pin in place. 



isn't so very mild) to get the bees off 5000 pounds 

 of honey, one man can put on the bee-escapes in 



I half a day, and really enjoy the work if he uses 



some lifting-arrangement such as I have describ- 

 ed. Don't you see how these two things, plenty 

 of empty combs and the use of bee-escapes, can 

 change the whole aspect of extracted-honey pro- 

 duction.? They do away entirely with the hurly- 

 burly of hurried extracting in hot weather. Not 

 only this, but this plan allows one man to care 

 for several apiaries all alone. It is a very short 



I job to put on empty supers or supers of empty 



combs; and it is not necessary to wait until the 

 very minute they are needed before putting them 

 on the hives. By careful watching, and keeping 

 slightly in advance of the work, it is an easy 

 matter always to have abundant room on the 

 hives, even though there are several apiaries to 

 care for. Then when it comes time for extract- 

 ing there is no special hurry about it; the work 

 at one apiary can be finished up, then taken up 

 at another, and so on, going from one yard to 

 another until the work is all done, no matter if a 

 month or six weeks are consumed in the work. 

 WARMING UP THE HONEY. 



' The first year we warmed up the honey with a 



base-burner hard-coal stove. This gives a 

 \ery even, steady, desirable heat; but it is 

 too expensive, and not very practical, to have 

 a hard-coal stove at each apiary in the woods 

 of Northern Michigan; so, last year, we u^ed 

 a Perfection oil-heater, costing about J.S.OO, 

 capable of burning a gallon of oil in about 

 eight hours, although much less can he burn- 

 ed. This is the first oil-burning stove, using 

 a wick, that I ever saw that could not be 

 made to smoke. It has a cylindrical wick, and 

 just above the wick is a round plate of iron 

 called the "flame-spreader," and the wick 

 is turned up until it strikes this spreader, 

 when it can go no higher, and it won't smoke, 

 and can't be made to do so. 



One end of the honey-house or cellar is 

 partitioned off, making an "oven," as we call 

 it, large enough to hold .SO or 60 supers. We 

 fill this up at night, for instance; light the 

 stove before we go to bed, turning the wick 

 up part way so that the temperature in the 

 upper part of the room will stand at about 100 

 degrees. In the morning we refill the stove, 

 turn it on full blast, and go to extracting, 

 taking the first supers from the top of the 

 room. As some of the piles are lowered, 

 more supers are taken from other piles and 

 added to these, thus bringing more honey up 

 into the heated "zone." As fast as there is 

 vacant room, more supers are brought in; and 

 a sort of routine is followed whereby one al- 

 ways has hot honey to work on while more is 

 heating. 



So far as results are concerned, this plan of 

 heating is satisfactory, but there is one de- 

 cided objection; and that is, the handling of 

 heavy supers of honey in a hot room; and we 

 have in view the adoption, this season, of a 

 different plan that was suggested by Mr. 

 Elias E. Coveyou, of Petoskey, Michigan. 

 Part of the room will ««/ be partitioned off, as 

 before; but, instead, a box, or sort of " well, " 

 will he made below the floor, at one end of 

 the honey-house or cellar, in which to set the 

 stove. Across the honey-house, upon the floor, 

 just above the "well " containing the stove, will 

 be built a box, several inches deep, as wide as the 

 length of a hive, and extending clear across the 

 room. Side by side, along the upper surface of 

 this box, are to be openings nearly as large as the 

 bottom of a hive or super. When the fire is 

 lighted in the stove the heat will rise up into this 

 long box and pass along its entire length; and if 

 the openings were left uncovered it would pass 

 out of them into the room; but over each opening 

 is to be stacked up a pile of supers of honey, per- 

 haps four or five supers high, with a cover on the 

 top of each pile. The heat will rise into these 

 piles of supers, and he retained there, warming 

 up the honey — the upper super becoming the 

 warmest first. As the upper super is taken off to 

 extract, the cover will he placed on top of the 

 next lower, which thus becomes the topmost su- 

 per, and will receive the greatest amount of heat. 

 In this way there will he no lifting and piling 

 about of supers. Once they are stacked up over 

 these openings, they will not be moved till taken 

 away to be extracted, the top one always being 

 the hottest, even though it may be the only one 

 left over the opening. When heating honey m 



