June 21, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE pURNAL. 



387 



pollen to the orchard from any variety, the seed from the 

 fruit of this orchard will bring forth nothing but Baldwins. 

 If your orchard contains a number of different kinds of 

 apples, the seed bring a blending of the different fruits, or 

 a seedling different from any in the orchard, and in all 

 probability superior to any of them. 



If you were to plant a single Baldwin tree on an island, 

 so far isolated that the bees could not reach it, it might 

 still bring forth fruit, but the seed from this fruit would be 

 sterile and utterly incapable of reproduction. So you see 

 that without the aid of bees, the tree on the island was in- 

 capable of reproducing itself, and when the tree had aged 

 and died, the island was without fruit. So it would be with 

 the world — remove the pollenizers of the blossoms, and 

 when the present standing of fruits had past away there 

 would be none to replace them. 



You may isolate a single Baldwin tree so far from any 

 other tree that the bees can not carry pollen from one to 

 the other ; so that it will be fertilized by its own bloom, and 

 the seed from this tree will bring forth a Baldwin— one that 

 is slightly inferior to the parent tree. If this in turn is 

 allowed to be fertilized from its own pollen there will be a 

 still lower order of the Baldwins. This work of retrogres- 

 sion might be carried on until the once fine apple had de- 

 generated back step by step to the origin of the apple, 

 which, by our best authorities, is said to be the common 

 wild rose. All our fruits have had their origin equally low, 

 so that the bee, in bringing them up to the present high 

 standard, has doubly earned its title, "busy bee." And as 

 the natural inclination of the bee is to zeal and untiring in- 

 dustry in its work, we may expect that thru its efforts the 

 progress of our fruits will be ever onward and upward to a 

 still higher perfection. Venango Co., Pa. 



No. 1.— EXTRACTED HONEY PRODUCTION. 



A Neap Apppoach to Control of Swapming-- 

 Cause of Poor Wintering- Discust — 

 Shallow-Hive Uses. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



IN the preceding articles on comb-honey production, the 

 matter of building up the colonies before the honey-flow 

 was fully discust. As the management is the same for 

 either comb or extracted, so far as the general spring work 

 is concerned, up to about the opening of the flow, we need 

 not repeat that here. 



As in comb-honey production strong colonies are a 

 necessity to best results, so in extracted, tho not so impera- 

 tive. Almost invariably when extracted honey is produced 

 there is much ready comb in the extracting-super, and 

 where bait-combs are a great help in comb-honey supers, 

 the greater quantity used in extracting-supers is propor- 

 tionately beneficial. Where a comb-honey colony will 

 scarcely take hold in a super at all, the colony with combs 

 for extracting will go at once into the extra. The surplus 

 strength of the colony being drawn to the super-combs, 

 and finding storage-room, the brood-chamber is left largely 

 to the queen, and the congested condition so favorable to 

 swarming is materially decreast, and with it swarming 

 decreases. So very much more easy is it to control the 

 swarming thus, that we may make it almost a qualified 

 success. 



There is one thing to keep in mind, and that is, that 

 when extracted honey is produced the very thing that so 

 largely stops swarming — z. ^., plenty of brood-room below 

 and storage-room above — leaves the colony with a host of 

 bees in the fall and a limited amount of stores. I have pro- 

 duced both comb and extracted honey for many years, 

 using like hives many times for both, and in the same api- 

 ary, and after starving hundreds of colonies of bees because 

 of the shortage of stores in the extracted stock, I now un- 

 hesitatingly declare in favor of larger hives being used 

 when extracting than for comb. 



I say I have starved hundreds of colonies of bees. Some 

 of them were simply and purely starved outright because 

 there was no honey left for food. Many, however, were, 

 more properly, stinted to their death, and to my financial 

 loss. I will tell you how it comes about : 



A comb-honey colony building comb in sections will 

 fill the brood-combs very full of honey, and in so doing 

 crowd brooding to the minimum. Not every comb-honey 

 colony will do this, but the greater part do, so much so that 

 it becomes a settled rule. Much honey — minimum amount 



of brood and normal colony to consume the stores — leaves 

 the bees in shape for fair wintering. A feature of the 

 heavy, close-packt stores is that the cluster can not get far 

 from the honey, so feed and winter better. 



With those for extracted honey the conditions are 

 almost the reverse. Much store-comb, and often extracted, 

 stores very largely going to the super, a brood-chamber well 

 filled with brood, pollen abundant, and little honey. The 

 hive is " hefted " for stores, or guest at, the greater weight 

 of bees, brood and pollen making the owner think them 

 sufficient to winter all right. In reality the stores are 

 scanty ; instead of thick, well-stockt combs they are thin 

 and lank, are scattered in outside combs or distant parts of 

 the hive, and out of reach except in mild weather, and the 

 colony starves. We find some honey in the hive, and say 

 they could not have starved, yet that is often just what 

 happened. 



Suppose the colony survives the winter and gets to the 

 spring with scanty stores, the limited supply in sight causes 

 them to curtail breeding, and they fail to grow in strength 

 and prosperity as they should, are weak all spring, and 

 never get to be a prosperous and profitable colony, and 

 simply for lack of a few pounds of honey. It is ever so 

 much better that the colony must move honey to have 

 breeding-room, than to have to be hunting every corner of 

 the hive to get what little there is scattered about. I tell 

 you the truth in these comparisons, truth that has been 

 burned into my memory by a very large experience and at 

 much cost of wealth. When my extracted-honey colonies 

 would not winter equally with comb-honey stock, and that 

 in the same yard, same hives, same stock, everything the 

 same save the difference herein described, I was forced to 

 find the cause, and I found it. 



Now I give my extracted-honey stock from 1/S to 1/3 

 more brood-chamber room, and, many times, more than 

 this, and the wintering is equal, or perhaps a little in favor 

 of the extracted stock, because they go into winter with a 

 great abundance of bees, and the wintering is especially 

 noticeable in colonies having unusually large hives. I have 

 just been examining about 100 colonies run for comb honey, 

 and about ISO run for extracted. Some of the latter were 

 wintered on 12 to 18 Langstroth frame capacity combs, 

 having just about twice the stores the smaller hives had. 

 They had all the breeding-room wanted in the fall ; the 

 hives were two-story, and the bees workt upward in winter, 

 and always had stores above them. I must tell you that 

 some of those 2-story colonies are not equaled in the amount 

 of bees, brood and stores by a single one of the smaller 

 hives, and I have been borrowing stores from the big ones 

 to help weaker ones. 



Brethren, these ideas are worth looking after. Early 

 and later yielding of nectar help to overcome some of the 

 evil effects of this short-stores-and-small-hive matter, but 

 if you are not blest with the early and late flow, better look 

 into this question. 



Now, since it is so important to have the larger hive for 

 the extracted stock, there comes in a very nice arrangement 

 by which we may go far toward the full control of swarm- 

 ing. The presence of great abundance of store-comb in 

 the super drawing the storage work there and easing the 

 brood-nest pressure, does do away with much swarming, 

 because the queen has much laying-room. If there can be 

 plenty of empty comb between the brood and the e?itra7ice, it 

 decreases the swarming about as much as the store-comb 

 does in the super, hence the two together reach well nigh 

 the goal— non-swarming— if the two can be brought to bear 

 in the proper season. To make very clear just how it works 

 when applied to the best advantage, I will tell just howl 

 have made the application in many cases : 



I am running two out-apiaries that are in American 

 hives. Some of these hives have been modified or changed 

 from the deep suspended frame to a shallow standing frame. 

 (The matter of hanging or standing, self-spacing or to be 

 spaced, shallow or deep frames, has nothing to do with the 

 principle, tho some of these features have to do with a suc- 

 cessful, easy and expedient application.) Two of the shal- 

 low chambers equal one of the full depth, being the same 

 except in depth. One of the full depth, or two of the half- 

 depth, equal about the same as a 10 Ivangstroth frame hive 

 capacity. 



Suppose I winter and spring a colony in two sections of 

 shallow frame hives. There is no trouble until about the 

 June flow, then they want to swarm. Just before they get 

 the swarming-fever, I take away both the sections contain- 

 ing the colony, place on the stand (bottom-board) a single 

 section or set" of frames con\.a.\mng dry brood-combs ; place 

 on this the section of the original hive containing the least 



