1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



363 



had been varnished. The finest comb imag- 

 inable, taken from the side and put into or 

 near the center of the hive at such a time, 

 will soon have this appearance from the heat 

 of the cluster of bees. The cause is the 

 same as in the case of section honey. Shall 

 we, then, as is recommended in tne other 

 case, without further ceremony, proceed to 

 lynch all the best queens in the apiary? 

 Why it is that old experienced bee-keepers 

 cling to the fallacious idea that the queen is 

 the cause of all this mischief they complain 

 of seems strange to me. It is true, how- 

 ever, that we are inclined to hold on to old 

 ideas and practices, often, without being 

 able to cjive a single reason for so doing. 

 " It's so if mother says so, whether it's so or 

 not." 



If I could feel that I had been the means of 

 dissipating this bugaboo from the minds of 

 bee-keepers I should feel satisfied, even if I 

 never accomplish any thing more in the way 

 of improved bee-keeping. 



A few years ago, after having made the 

 experiment above described, and reading 

 the advice given through the American Bee 

 Journal, to pinch such a queen's head and 

 requeen the colony, this matter was dis- 

 cussed, and I earnestly requested those who 

 had such queens, instead of pinching their 

 heads, to mail all such Italian queens to me. 

 I'd pay for them, as I wished to stock my 

 apiary with just such bees. I've yet to re- 

 ceive the first invoice. This case reported 

 from New Zealand — that of a hot dry season 

 and a populous colony — supports my conten- 

 tion that it's not the queen at all. 



Evanston, 111. 



[This is a very important subject, and we 

 should be glad to get a series of short re- 

 sponses from bee-keepers everywhere bear- 

 ing on Mr. Whitney's theory as to the cause 

 of greasy sections. If he is right, it is folly 

 to kill an otherwise good queen simply be- 

 cause her bees, under certain conditions, 

 have produced greasy-looking sections. — 

 Ed.1 



HONEY-EXTRACTORS. 



Some Experience with Different Styles 

 and Makes. 



BY R. V. COX. 



On page 275, May 1, Mr. Virgil Sires asks 

 why there can not be more articles from the 

 large honey-producers describing equip- 

 ment, etc. I nave had, perhaps, more ex- 

 perience with honey-extractors than many, 

 for I have run a two-frame Novice, a three- 

 frame Stanley, a four-frame Cowan, an eight- 

 frame Cowan, and a four-frame Root auto- 

 matic extractor. I usually extract before the 

 honey is fully capped, and often before it is 

 capped at all. The honey runs through a 

 tin pipe into tin-lined tanks to ripen. All of 

 my Duildings are non-portable. 



In regard to extractors I will say that the 

 two-frame Novice was all right for the pur- 



pose for which it was built; namely, for ex- 

 tracting combs in a very small yard, or for 

 extracting partly filled sections. For these 

 last I have two frames made that will just fit 

 the baskets with cross-pieces to hold differ- 

 ent rows of sections. If there is need of hur- 

 rying this work there could be four such 

 frames, so that two of them could be loaded 

 by some one else while the other two were 

 in the extractor. 



The three-frame Stanley stood the hardest 

 usage of any extractor I ever ran; but it was 

 not provided with gears to enable one to 

 speed up the reel, and it was, therefore, a 

 man-killer if one expected to get all the hon- 

 ey out of the combs. 



For a machine run by hand, the four-frame 

 Cowan suited me the best. By putting the 

 brake on with the left hand, and holding 

 back on the crank with the right, I could 

 slow down the reel very quickly, and then, 

 as the crank was going down, I could let go 

 of the brake-handle and catch a basket and 

 reverse all the baskets at a higher reel speed 

 than is possible with the automatic extractor. 

 However, I should not want to put my hands 

 down into the reel at such a speed if the ma- 

 chine were driven by power. 



The eight-frame automatic extractor was 

 too heavy to do much extracting by hand. 

 This was one of the first large power-driven 

 machines sent out, and the pulley was made 

 to take a ly2-inch belt. This narrow belt 

 was so light that it took too long to speed up 

 the reel, and I always had to help it along by 

 hand. Moreover, it took too long to slow the 

 reel down again. On this account I could 

 extract thin warm honey just as rapidly with 

 the four-frame machine using hand power. 

 The eight-frame extractor run by an engine, 

 when once speeded up, would dry the combs 

 of honey a little the best of any that I ever 

 owned. I found by trial that it would get 

 from a few ounces to two pounds of honey 

 out of a set of combs which had already been 

 extracted once by hand. I do not know that 

 all this honey would be lost if the combs were 

 put back on the hives, but, at the same time, 

 I would rather have it in the tanks. 



The four-frame automatic is almost as good 

 as the Cowan to run by hand; and if run by 

 power it is my choice of an extractor. Witn 

 the extractor full of combs, I can put one 

 hand on the belt-tightener and the other on 

 the brake, and speed up the reel, use the 

 brake until the baskets are reversed, speed 

 the reel again, and then stop it in less than 

 a minute. Usually I do not work as fast as 

 this, for I let the reel run for a time at full 

 speed to dry the combs of honey. The four- 

 frame extractor will dry the cells almost as 

 well as the eight-frame; and if a larger pul- 

 ley were used on the engine, I think it would 

 do fully as well. 



If a four-frame extractor did not do my 

 work fast enough I would have another four- 

 frame on the opposite side of the engine so 

 that I could let one of them run while I was 

 changing the combs, etc., in the other. Then 

 if any thing happened to one extractor I 

 could run the otner one; and if the engine 



