1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1051 



It would appear that our bee-keeping cousins 

 of the Pacific are probably the most extensive of 

 any in the world. They are apparently up to 

 date, using modern appliances, such as power 

 honey-extractors and the like. 



Dr. E. F. Phillips, of the Bureau of Entomol- 

 ogy> Washington, D. C, has recently made a 

 tour of these islands. We asked him to furnish 

 us some articles for Gleanings. This he has 

 promised to do, and we hope to have them ready 

 to present some time this fall. 



CHALON FOWLS, OF OBERLIN, OHIO; HIS POWER- 

 DRIVEN EXTRACTOR, ETC. 



Our readers will remember Mr. Chalon Fowls, 

 of Oberlin, Ohio, as one who does quite an ex- 

 tensive business in bottling extracted honey. He 

 furnishes the local trade in his vicinity for miles 

 around with extracted honey put up in tumblers 

 and bottles. He is always careful to have thick 

 well-ripened honey, mainly of his own produc- 

 tion; heats it, and, while hot, bottles it, and then 

 guarantees to take it off the grocer's hands if any 

 of the bottles show any indications of candying. 

 He makes it a business to go around and inspect 

 his goods; and if in any case there are any that 

 show signs of granulating he takes these away 

 and exchanges them for fresh goods. In this 

 way he has developed a fine trade — so large, in 

 fact, that most years he is compelled to buy hon- 

 ey to supply the demand. 



Mr. Fowls' family consists of himself and 

 wife, two grown-up daughters, and a son eighteen 

 years of age. Among them they take care of his 

 business very nicely. They run a series of ex- 

 tracting-outyards in connection with the home 

 yard. Like W. Z. Hutchinson, they have a re- 

 serve of combs, pile on the supers during the 

 honey-flow, and at the close remove them after 

 getting the bees out with the bee-escape. 



Formerly he has been extracting at each of the 

 outyards after the flow, having a two-frame ex- 

 tractor which he hauled around. But this year 

 he purchased a four-frame power-driven extractor 

 with a gasoline-engine, and his two girls are now 

 doing all of his extracting at home. He and his 

 son go to the outyards with a wagon, take off 

 the filled supers that are above the bee-escape, 

 load up, and drive home. The two girls in the 

 mean time are extracting the shallow combs (for 

 that is what Mr. Fowls uses) as fast as he brings 

 them. With the power extractor they can do all 

 the work. They start the engine and then com- 

 mence uncapping. Two of them uncap most of 

 the time, while one of them puts in the filled 

 combs and removes the empty one and starts the 

 extractor. 



At the time we visited Mr. Fowls the weather 

 was quite cool. Honey was very thick, and yet 

 the extractor was throwing it out of the combs 

 comparatively clean, for the engine does not tire 

 out, and through the medium of the slipping belt 

 the reel starts very gradually, so that the bulk of 

 the honey is thrown out before the reel reaches 

 its maximum speed. Then it makes a perfect 

 whirr, and the honey, warm or cold, is bound to 

 come out. The combs are next reversed, when 

 the operation is repeated. 



Mr. Fowls said to us that he had heard a good 

 deal about the cleaner and more effective work 



done by power extractors; and from his prelim- 

 inary tests he was almost prepared to believe that 

 the extra amount of honey he saved by the more 

 thorough extracting would pay for the extractor 

 in a short time. This, of course, did not take 

 account of the saving of labor, which is another 

 item. 



Ordinarily, producers extract honey as fast as 

 the supers come off the hives, because the combs, 

 being warm from the heat of the bees, extract 

 easier and cleaner; but when one uses power to 

 drive an extractor he can drive the reel so much 

 more rapidly that he can surpass hand work. At 

 all events, if one puts a bee-escape on a pile of 

 supers at night, and it should be at all cool, the 

 combs will be chilled before the next morning. 

 It is an awful job to take the extracting-combs 

 without a bee-escape, extract immediately, and 

 put back the empty combs. The bees are smash- 

 ed, and the operator, if it happens to be during 

 the robbing season, must be armed with a bee- 

 proof suit from head to foot, with trousers tucked 

 in boots. There is more or less annoyance from 

 colonies all stirred up, and at the end of the ex-, 

 tracting the whole yard will be in an uproar. If 

 the extracting is done during a heavy honey- 

 flow there will be no robbers, but the work of 

 the colonies will be more or less interrupted. 



This plan requires fewer combs; for one who 

 extracts after the honey-flow, at his leisure, must 

 have a large supply of combs as well as storage 

 room for them after the season is over. 



Mr. Fowls has made quite a success of bee- 

 keeping if we may judge by external evidence. 

 He is what we might call a bee-keeping specialist, 

 for he has no other business. Twenty-five years 

 ago, when he began to keep bees, he bought a 

 modest home on the outskirts of Oberlin, a col- 

 lege town, and lived in the old building until he 

 accumulated enough money to build himself a 

 fine house. It is a modern structure with hard- 

 wood finish inside, and well appointed in every 

 detail. He has given his two girls a college ed- 

 ucation, and they in the mean time have worked 

 with their father during their summer vacations. 

 The son is only eighteen, but appears to be well 

 able to hold up his end of the job in extracting. 

 All together, we felt that Mr. Fowls, having ac- 

 complished what he has, should be congratulat- 

 ed. Any father ought to be proud of girls who 

 are not afraid of work nor too nice to go out into 

 the extracting-house and get themselves messed 

 up with honey; and when it comes to uncapping, 

 we venture to say they will hold their own with 

 any two men we have ever seen. 



One of them, before we realized what she was 

 doing, picked up a can of honey, weighing not 

 less than 60 lbs., and carried it from one build- 

 ing to another. We remonstrated, telling her 

 that she ought not to do that. "Oh, my!" she 

 remarked, smiling, "I am used to that." Her 

 father told me he had protested time and again, 

 but it did not do any good. 



We hope to present soon a picture^of Mr. Fowls 

 and his interesting family. Any bee-keeper 

 who can give his children a college education, 

 build a fine home, and at the same time educate 

 the general public to the value of honey as a 

 food, for miles and miles around, is to be con- 

 gratulated. Some time we hope to introduce 

 this family more formally to our readers. 



