Aug. 30, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNALv 



551 



New Apiarian Inventions— Are They Needed ? 



BY JOHN H. MARTIN. 

 (Rend at the. laxt meetiny of the (California State V.onvitntiim..) 



EVERY bee-keeper recog-nizes that in order to get tlie 

 most profit out of the bees, the business must be con- 

 ducted upon a large scale. We have examples in many 

 portions of the country where the owner of many apiaries, 

 and at least a thousand colonies of bees, are the ones that 

 are deriving the greatest profit from them, and the profit is 

 increast according as they adopt short cuts in the labor, 

 and where hired help is dispenst with as far as possible. 



While working our bees for extracted honey, our pres- 

 ent method of removing each frame separately and brush- 

 ing the bees therefrom, and stirring them up to a high state 

 of anger, may be clast as a primitive and roundabout way 

 of management. 



I will outline some work that is being done along this 

 line with some degrees of success. In the first place, a 

 shallow super is required. If the cover is quietly removed 

 from such a super, and a cloth saturated with a solution of 

 carbolic acid is spread over it, the bees, having a dislike to 

 the odor, will soon leave the super, and it can be removed. 

 Or a shallow super that is fitted with close-end frames that 

 can be held firmly in place can be rid of the bees by a pecu- 

 liar method of shaking. 



The Porter bee-escape has been recommended by some 

 bee-keepers, but it is too slow in its operation, and on that 

 account should be discarded for this particular purpose. 



Then, when the exigencies of the time demand, we will 

 have a machine for uncapping the honey. I have gone so 

 far with some experiments in this line that I am quite sure 

 that a machine can be constructed that will uncap six or 

 eight combs in just a few seconds ; or, in other words, you 

 touch the button and the machine will do the rest. 



When a bee-keeper can uncap a number of combs as 

 quickly as he can one side of one comb, there is a distinct 

 gain in time, and a consequent reduction in the cost of pro- 

 duction. 



An ordinary two-frame honey-extractor will, when the 

 combs are well filled with honey, enable us to extract ten 

 pounds at one operation ; and to double this amount the 

 four-frame extractor has been introduced; but now we need 

 in a large apiary, and to follow the lightning uncapping 

 machine, an extractor that will enable us to extract 100 

 pounds at one operation, and nearly as rapidly as one man 

 can extract ten pounds with a small machine. The labor 

 then would in a great measure be with the care of the 

 honey, getting it into cans and to market. 



I also certainly expect that the automobile will play an 

 important part in honey production. There is no bee-keeper 

 who feels safe to drive a span of horses near a bee-ranch, 

 except in the night, and we learn of the death of horses 

 every year from the stings of angry bees. The automobile 

 will enable the bee-keeper to approach, or pass directly 

 thru, the apiary with his load of appliances and honey at 

 any seasonable hour; and the automobile can be used for a 

 variety of purposes in the apiary, running a saw, running 

 the extractor, or anything where light power is needed. 



Franklin's printing press was a crude affair, but it an- 

 swered the purpose when Franklin was a printer, and the 

 circulation of papers was limited, but Franklin's press 

 would make a sorry show beside the modern lightning 

 press ; but the bee-keeper's interests are not so extensive, 

 like the making of newspapers, and inventors will not give 

 their time to the invention of appliances that will have but 

 limited sale ; but we may be quite sure that if the business 

 had warranted it, such rapid manipulation as I have out- 

 lined would have been in use long ago. 



When we further consider the subject of new inven- 

 tions for the apiary and its management, we find that there 

 is room for improvement in every line of our work. The 

 smoker with which we subdue our bees is too large and 

 cumbersome to operate with dispatch. In fact, with any of 

 our bellows smokers quite a percentage of our time is spent 

 in working the bellows. My ideal smoker would be not 

 overlarge, and with it I would have a proper, prepared fuel, 

 and it should be self-operating; and so arranged that both 

 hands of the bee-keeper can be used in the manipulation of 

 the hive while the smoker is doing its part automatically. 



We need new and fancy packages for small amounts of 

 honey, something that can be sold on the street and on the 

 lines of transportation. 



c~" Such a package was sent to me some time ago, and it 

 workt like a charm. The honey could be eaten from it as 

 it was held in the hand, but there was a strong objection to 



the material it was made from. It was made from the same 

 material that forms the covering for sausages. Such ma- 

 terial is all right when applied to sausages, but there is an 

 evident unfitness of things when applied as a receptacle for 

 honey. 



The foregoing improvements I think will occupy the 

 attention of bee-keepers in the near future, and greater 

 than these will certainly be developt if the exigencies of our 

 industry demand. 



" The Importance of Water for Bees." 



BY G. .M. DtJOl.ITTLE. 



ON page 482 is a most remarkable article, considering 

 that it comes from the pen of that careful observer. 

 Prof. A. J. Cook. Not that I think that we know "all 

 that is to be known regarding the use of water in the api- 

 ary," but /'ac/i go to prove that his analogy regarding the 

 bees and higher animals is faulty, and his logic mainly 

 theory rather than logic coming from close observation. 



Did Prof. Cook ever see a bee perspire? If so, he has 

 seen something I never saw, and I have lookt particularly 

 on this point. He has doubtless seen perspiration stand on 

 nearly all of the higher order of animals. He quotes bees 

 dying of suffocation as proof of perspiration. But had he 

 toucht his tongue to one of those bees just dead from the 

 " water of respiration," and " of perspiration," he would 

 have found that instead of a " mass of dead bees and 

 water," he had a mass of dead bees and stickiness, thus 

 showing that in their dying efforts the bees had disgorged 

 the honey they had taken thru their disturbance caused by 

 being shut up. And had he allowed these "stuck up" bees 

 their liberty just before death overtook them, in a place 

 where they could " wallow " in the dust and dirt, as I once 

 happened to do, he would have found that the dust and dirt 

 was fastened to tliem after dry, very much as paint is 

 fastened to a building, rather than becoming a dust that 

 would rub off easily, as dust always will where only water 

 is mingled with it. 



Again, facts prove that bees visit watering-places to 

 any great extent only when brood is being reared, instead 

 of at times of greatest heat and activity, as Prof. Cook's 

 theory would lead him and us to believe. 



Let me give some facts which I have observed almost 

 times without number. In March, April and May I have 

 seen bees by the thousands repairing to the watering-places 

 with the mercury at from 45 to 50 degrees — so cold that, 

 should a cloud pass over the sun, hundreds and thousands 

 would remain chilled, and die from the cold and frosts of 

 the night following. Were they in a state of perspiration 

 then ? No. Well, what were they out at the watering- 

 places for? Thousands and millions of little larval mouths 

 "watering "at home, for water to mix with honey and 

 pollen so that these little larval mouths might have chyle 

 to eat that they might grow into imago bees. Can it be 

 that Prof. Cook never observed bees at watering-places at 

 such times as this ? 



Now let us change the time of year. Several years of 

 my bee-keeping life have given very hot weather during 

 September and October, after brood-rearing had nearly or 

 quite ceast, and during these months with this extreme 

 heat often came a great gathering of " honey-dew," so that 

 the bees were as active and the weather just as hot as-it 

 ever is during basswood harvest, the mercury standing up 

 in the 90's, and the bees rushing pell-mell in and out at the 

 entrance every day for a few days, while the heat and dew 

 lasted, but thus far neither lasted long enough (or else it 

 was out of season) to start brood-rearing to any extent. Did 

 I -find any bees at the watering-places "slaking their 

 thirst," or getting water to take the place of that thrown 

 off by perspiration ? No, not a bee there, or very few at 

 most. Why ? Because there were no larval mouths in the 

 hive calling for water in the chyle not being prepared. 



Once more, and I will leave other facts to rest till Prof. 

 Cook meets these given. When we handle combs of brood, 

 the larva; in which are nearly ready to seal, or have just 

 been sealed, are they heavy or light ? I have weighed 

 combs of brood, the central portion of which was just 

 sealed, and the remainder nearly ready to seal, which 

 weighed 4'2 pounds, while the same frame when full of 

 sealed honey weighed six pounds, and when empty 5+ of a 

 pound. Where and from what source did this weight 

 mainly come? Was it the honey the larvae contained ? Was 

 it the pollen they .had eaten ? Prof. Cook knows, and the 

 readers in general knovf, that said weight was water, to 



