Feb. 22, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



115 



A bee-keeper can get much more out of an extractor in 

 this year of 1900 than he could IS or 20 ycar.s af^o. Tlu' 

 machines are better made and less cumbersome in their 

 work. The next 20 years will probably .see as g-reat im- 

 provements. It would perhaps be considered a backward 

 movement to say that the future extractor will be improvt-d 

 along the lines of the 2-frame principle ; still it must be re- 

 membered that many an old and rejected principle has been 

 the best one all along. The future extractor will be en- 

 tirely automatic as to reversal of frames and the motive 

 power. 



While operating- an extractor the person should temper 

 his strength to the strength of the extractor — a verj' strong 

 and careless person will sometimes reverse this tempering, 

 and the result is a broken machine. 



In order to get the most out of an extractor it really 

 seems as necessary for it to be of the reversing order, for 

 many times while extracting new and fragile combs it is 

 necessary to reverse before the honey is all thrown from 

 one side ; the weight of a comb against the wire-cloth of the 

 basket will so indent into it that it will break the comb to 

 pieces unless the reversals are made often and the motion 

 is moderate. 



In order to get the most out of an extractor some bee- 

 keepers extract quite an amount of larva; with the honey, 

 but here is a case where the operator would better be con- 

 tent with a little less. Old Grimes learned a lesson manj- 

 years ago that cured him of this trick. There was quite an 

 amount of said larv;e in all stages of development in the 

 strainer, and we all know that they never look very nice, 

 and we prefer that our customers should not see them ; but 

 there came a city lady who was being shown the mysteries 

 of the bee-business ; everything was new and very interest- 

 ing to her until she came to the strainer with che white 

 larva' in it, and the honey running over them. Then and 

 there, from the remarks she made, she forgot all the rest 

 she had seen, and only remembered " those worms," as she 

 termed them, and thereafter she never would allow a drop 

 of liquid honey to pass her lips — she knew just how it was 

 extracted. Altho but a very little of our honey had been in 

 contact with the larva;, it made no difference, it was all 

 alike to her. 



If much larva; is thrown out with the honey it will in- 

 jure the flavor. A good waj' to overcome the larva; trouble 

 is to return to the hive all combs having unsealed brood. 

 It may be a little trouble and a delay in the extracting of 

 that comb, but it pays. Another way out of the woods is to 

 use the queen-excluding honej'-board ; all honey stored 

 above it is sure to be free from larv;e, and for that reason it 

 is used quite extensively in our apiaries. 



A honey-tank is almost a necessary adjunct to a honej'- 

 house and an extractor, because there are many localities 

 where the honey is always of such consistency, and the bee- 

 keeper so careful to extract nothing but ripe honey, that it 

 can be safely run from the extractor to the barrel. Where 

 barrels are used that hold from two to three hundred 

 pounds, the tank can be very well dispenst with, but even 

 then it is better to allow the honey to remain in some large 

 vessel until the little specks of comb rise to the surface, 

 then the honey will all be perfectly clear. When honey is 

 put into smaller packages, holding from one pound to 60, 

 the tank is a necessity, for the honey that is put up for 

 table use should be free from all of those little specks. 

 Nice, clean honey adds to the reputation of the bee-keeper. 



Where a tank is used a very good size is a capacity for 

 a ton of honey, or about four feet in diameter and two feet 

 deep. We place this in our basement, but when used in the 

 out-apiaries it is placed outside the building, and has a 

 wire-cloth cover to it. The air has free access to the sur- 

 face, and any thin portion that rises to the top. is soon 

 evaporated. A two-inch faucet should be used for drawing 

 off the honey, and it is a very good idea to fix the gate so 

 as to insert a padlock, and then there will be no danger that 

 the gate will be elevated in our absence. Spilled honey 

 makes the earth sweet, but it has the opposite effect upon 

 the temper of the bee-keeper. 



Hives, Queens, and Honey-Flow. 



BY HENRY BIDWKLI,. 



THE three greatest drawbacks to successful bee-culture 

 in America are, small hives, forced swarms, and de- 

 ficiencies in the flow of honey during the spring, sum- 

 mer and fall of each year. 



A hive ought to be large enough for a queen to have 

 brood-combs sufficient to enable her to lay all the eggs she 



possibly can, so that her worker progeny will be numerous 

 enough to gather all the hotiey possible during the yield of 

 nectar. 



The queen ought to be developt sufficiently so she can 

 readily lay 4,000 to 5,000 eggs a day — the more the better— 

 and the honey-flowers should follow in succession from 

 early spring until late in the fall. A perfect knowledge of 

 the flora within a mile of his apiary ought to be one of the 

 first lessons to learn by a beginner in the bee-busine.ss. 



We can all get one-hundred dollar queens by increasing 

 the size and capacity of our hives, queens and tiower fields, 

 when the day of cheap queens will be in the past. One hive 

 with a tjushel of worker-bees capable of gathering 100 

 pounds of honey in a honey-flow is worth more than 10 colo- 

 nies, each with a hat full of bees only gathering enough to 

 feed the brood. I cannot remember a season in the past .iO 

 years when there was not suitable weather for the bees to 

 gather surplus from good honey-producing- plants, with 

 large hives and plenty of honey-gatherers. Providence is 

 not to blame for our short-comings, because you can take a 

 dollar queen to-day and in 10 j'ears make it worth SlOO, by 

 careful and constant development ; or j'ou can reverse the 

 process. But remember, it is easier and faster going down 

 hill than up ; and if you want to keep clear of foul brood, 

 you would better let forced queens alone. 



A queen capable of laying 1,000 to 2,000 eggs a day will 

 find an ordinary 8-frame hive of sufficient capacitj' ; but if 

 she can do better than that, she needs a 10-frame hive ; and 

 if her capacity is 5,000 eggs a day, a double 10-frame hive 

 is necessary for her to reproduce herself. You must expand 

 the brood-nest if you wish to increase her capacity ; and 

 while she is doing her best is just the time to rear as good 

 or better daug-hters if she is not already fully developt. 



I think a queen lays a better egg in a natural cell when 

 she wishes to reproduce herself than ordinary worker-eggs ; 

 and a good, strong, healthy queen is better in her prime 

 than an old, weak and feeble one. I prefer to rear my 

 young queens under the most favorable conditions for the 

 full and perfect development of her .greatest vitality and 

 prolificness, and only allow the best and strongest colonies 

 for that purpose. I also wait until they swarm out natur- 

 ally, knowing it is one of their natural, God-given instincts 

 to do so, and prosper better for it. I then hive the new 

 swarm and place it on the old stand, and divide the old col- 

 ony into as many parts as there are sealed queens, putting 

 the combs into empty hives on one side, and placing each 

 new part on the top of a strong colony, then give each a 

 quart of the bees from the new swarm, leaving them until 

 the 3'oung queens begin to lay, then substitute them with 

 those underneath, removing them to a new place. 



If you wish to grow flowers for honey alone, plant bor- 

 age — one peck of seed to the acre, sowed broadcast early in 

 the spring, if the land is clean, or drill it in and hoe or cul- 

 tivate if the land is foul. It begins to bloom about the first 

 of June, and increases as the season advances until frost. 

 The honey is of good quality, amber in color, and as the 

 flowers hang down the honey is not washt out by the rain 

 or dew, but as the seed falls to the ground as fast as it 

 ripens, and is quickly devoured by the birds and fowls, it 

 requires great care to gather it. 



The best farm crop for bee-pasturage here is alfalfa. 

 Sow a peck to a half bushel of seed to the acre early in the 

 spring, or just before the fall rains, on good, deep land 

 where it can remain permanently. This begins to bloom 

 about the middle of May, continuing about one month, but 

 if a portion of the field is cut previously it comes on and 

 blooms after the first, second, and third crops, continuing 

 the bloom all summer and fall. Alfalfa is destined to be the 

 principal honey-producing plant in the United States. 



Sedgwick Co., Kan.' 



Shallow vs. FuU-Stopy Supers for Extracted 

 Honey. 



BY C. P. D.\DANT. 



IAM thiakiu^ of ruttning-my bees for extracted honey, to save time 

 and to better control swarminf^r. I use 10-frame Lang-stroth hives. 

 "Would you advise the use of half-story or full-story supers? You 

 know what the *' Draper barn " is. "Would you use this hive with 

 ordinary Langstroth hive-bodies for supers? 



We have, at different times, in the columns of the 

 American Bee Journal, stated our preference for half-story 

 or shallow supers, and the reason for this preference. But 

 it seems necessary, in a periodical publication, to come back 

 to the same subject quite often, especially if it is of impor- 

 tance. The answer to questions like the above concerns 



