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40th YEAR, 



CHICAGO, ILL, FEBRUARY 1, 1900, 



No, 5. 



Apiary of Mr. Tofield Lehman. 



BY THE EDITOR. 



THE picture shown herewith is a part of the home apiary 

 of 46 colonies, belonging to Tofield L,ehman, of Fay- 

 ette Co., Iowa. The crop of honey in 1899 from them 

 was 2,000 pounds, which, he says, was a poor year. 



In the picture Mr. Lehman is standing by the side of 

 the honey-extractor, and the girl in front of the extracting- 

 house is his 14-year-old sister. 



The hives in the apiary are 6 feet apart in the rows, and 

 the rows 16 feet apart. 



He has kept bees for 7 years, and has been successful 

 with them all that time. 



One of his neighbors askt him how much honey a good 

 colony of bees could store in one day during a 

 good honey-flow. Mr. L. told him that some of 

 his best colonies stored in one day 14 pounds 

 each, during the basswood flow the past season. 

 He could hardly believe it. Mr. L. weighed the 

 colonies early in the morning before any of the 

 bees left the hive, and then weighed them again 

 in the evening when all had stopt flying. Some 

 of the best colonies were then 14 pounds heavier 

 than in the morning. 



In 1896 Mr. Lehman sold $22.50 worth of 

 fine honey from a single colony. It produced 

 150 pounds which brought IS cents per pound 

 that year. 



We have had some of the extracted honey 

 produced by Mr. Lehman, and it was some of 

 the finest we have ever seen — very thick in 

 body, and of a rich flavor. If all who produce 

 extracted honey would be as careful to put out 

 as well-ripened an article, there would be less 

 complaint against honey in the extracted form. 

 Last fall we purchast fifteen or twenty barrels 

 of honey from Wisconsin, and lately we have 

 had to reliquefy it, and transfer to 60-pound 

 cans, because of the honey fermenting and 

 really bursting out the heads of the barrels. 

 Undoubtedly this honey was extracted before 

 the bees had ripened it. No one who has had 

 the experience with extracted honey in barrels 

 that we have had would ever favor using bar- 

 rels for holding honey. Of course, Mr. Lehman 

 uses cans, tho it is not so necessary in his case 

 as in that of some others who are not careful to 

 put out only well-ripened extracted honey. We 

 hope the time will soon come when wooden bar- 

 rels will be used no more for shipping honey. 



Producing- and Marlceting' Honey — Shall it be 



Comb or Extracted? — Analysis of the 



Subject. 



BY R. C. .\IKIN. 



THE production of extracted honey will surely increase. ' 

 Comb is consumed principally as a luxury, and so long as 

 it sells at retail for 10 to 25 cents while other sweets, as 

 sugar, sell at about half the average of the comb, it will not 

 be other than a luxury. Other reasons why it is a luxury, is 

 the greater skill required to produce it, making the cost 

 greater, and the difficulty of keeping it indefinitely without 

 greatly deteriorating. AH these things help to increase the 

 cost of comb honey over extracted, making it a luxury. 



Should the production of honey continue to increase as 

 it has in the past, it must of necessity become a product of 

 no mean proportions, and largely produced it must be 

 largely marketed. I can well remember in the New West, 

 and in war times, when almost any kind of sugars were a 

 luxury, sorghum molasses was the staple sweet. Granu- 

 lated sugar is now as common as was sorghum in those 

 days, and so will most likely be the change in regard to the 

 use of honey. 



Comparing the cost of production of comb and extracted 



Apiary of Mr. Tofield Lehman, of Fayette Co., Iowa. 



