1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



441 



in hive construction and liandlin^, nor will 

 they wonder when I assure them Vhat I have 

 given long hours of thought to it, and that I 

 ao not feel that I have in any wise an ived 

 at a solution. Of one thing I am convinced 

 — it will be wisdom, witli such conditions, to 

 use a shallow super in preference to a deep 

 one, as it will be so much easier for the bees 

 to make and keep it warm. 



The hive of my choice, then, is the divisible 

 hive built up by divisions called "dovetailed 

 supers for extracted honey." It is 5 % inches 

 deep, with Hoffman extracting-frames of S'-s 

 inches depth. I have adopted the eight- 

 frame size. 



As I have already said, the problem of 

 night temperature is always with me, so the 

 cover-board I adopted was dictated principal- 

 ly by this consideration, the idea being to re- 

 tain the heat. At present I am using an oil- 

 cloth quilt, and above that a super cover on 

 which is nailed a strip of 's-inch wood all 

 round the edge. The cover proper rests on 

 this strip, the idea being to have an air-space 

 between the two covers and so prevent radi- 

 ation. Last of all, the cap form of cover was 

 chosen, the side pieces being 1 -=4 inches deep, 

 so that there would be kept out the strong 

 winds that are common here, especially in 

 the winter and spring months, and also wa- 

 ter from the rains during the same seasons. 

 Frankly, I am not at all satisfied that I have 

 done the best possible with the cover prob- 

 lem in this climate, and am almost of the 

 opinion that it would pay to have a cap that 

 will protect the junction of the two divisions. 

 I shall probably experiment in 1909 along 

 that line, using side pieces about 8 inches 

 deep. 



In the matter of bottom-boards I followed 

 Dr. Miller, and so use a P4 -inch rim on three 

 sides. The entrance is closed by an entrance- 

 block on which two sizes of apertures are 

 cut. F^or feeding I use a tin tray that fits 

 snugly in the board, as recommended by Mr. 

 Hand in his interesting series of articles. 

 Feeding by this system is very expeditious, 

 and I certainly prefer it to giving the syrup 

 from above. 



To he continued. 



EXTRACTED-HONEY PRODUCTION. 



How to Take Care of the Honey as it Runs 

 from the Extractor; How to Prevent it 

 from Running over on the Floor. 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



Carl H. Hanson, p. 14:i9, Dec. 1, 1908, tells 

 of his method of handling honey from the ex- 

 tractor. This article reminded me of our 

 honey-house in Charlevoix Co. A frame 

 dweilinghouse 18X26 feet was bought. The 

 partitions were removed and the ceiling 

 raised until the room was about 9 feet high. 

 The windows were removed on both sides, 

 and (i-ft. shop windows substituted and cov- 

 ered with v\ ire screen on the outside. Board 

 shutters for each window were made to fit 

 on the inside to keep out the storm. The 



whole interior of the building was covered 

 with tarred paper to prevent robber bees 

 fnnn getting in. 



At one end of the building toward the bee- 

 yard, a 3-ft. door was placed a little to one 

 side of the middle of the end-wall. At one 

 side of the door at the front of the building 

 a space of flooring 4x7 ft. was removed, and 

 the soil dug out to the desired depth. We 

 used this pit for handling the honey in a man- 

 ner similar to that described by Mr. Hanson, 

 only our honey ran from the extractor into a 

 strainer-tank with a gate near the bottom. 

 From this gate it ran into 60-pound cans, 

 which cans, one by one, were set on a Cove- 

 you automatic scale that weighed the honey, 

 shut off the gate when the can was full, and 

 rang an electric bell until some one removed 

 the full can and put an empty one in its 

 place. 



I bought a yard of bees 25 years ago, which 

 was fitted up for extracted-honey production. 

 Before this I had always run for comb hon- 

 ey; and when I bought this yard I worked 

 the colonies in the same way that they had 

 been worked before for extracted honey by 

 another party. During extracting, the hon- 

 ey was run from the extractor into tin sap- 

 buckets and allowed to stand over night. In 

 the morning it was skimmed with a large 

 spoon, and then emptied into a 600-pound 

 tank which had a gate near the bottom. 

 There were two of these tanks. The follow- 

 ing morning the honey in the tank was skim- 

 med and drawn out into 60-pound cans. The 

 buckets were used one season, but at the 

 end of this time we concluded that the honey 

 had been handled more than necessary. For 

 a good many years after that we emptied the 

 honey from the pails directly into the large 

 tank and allowed it to stand overnight, then 

 skimmed it and ran it into cans. This saved 

 one handling, and we found the honey was 

 equal in every respect to that which had 

 been handled twice by means of the sap- 

 buckets. 



Since that time our honey has been han- 

 dled as previously explained, but put into 

 the cans as fast as extracted. This does 

 away with a good deal of the labor. I agree 

 with Mr. Hanson that pails for handling the 

 honey from the extractor are not very satis- 

 factory; but I presume that four-fifths of the 

 extracted honey is still handled in that way. 



The editor says that the trouble with run- 

 ning the honey direct into a pail from the ex- 

 tractor is that one is likely to forget and let 

 it run over and waste. There is not a bit of 

 danger here, Mr. Editor, as I have told in 

 Gleanings before. Allow the extractor to 

 fill with honey until the revolving baskets 

 begin to swim in the lonty. Then set the 

 pail under the gate, lift the handle of the 

 gate and hold it up until the [laii is full. With 

 the large gates now put on extractors, and 

 with wai m honey, a pail will tiJi in alout 

 one-foui';h of a minute. Now < iiiply tl.e [ail 

 into the tank, leaving it turnt d upside down 

 to drain until the extracti^r neeils emptying 

 again. We have be< n all through the trou- 

 b;es which folhw wl.en the c xtractor is run 



