Sept. 13, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



583 



in most lines of gfoods in the past 18 months — why should 

 not honey prices advance also ? 



A little experience of mine has a bearing- on the matter. 

 Some 12 or IS years ago I was fortunate in securing- a good 

 crop of fireweed honey. We lived then near a large tract of 

 land over which a fire ran the year before. In this country 

 fireweed grows, usually profu.sely, for one season after such 

 a fire. Then there is little of it seen until after another 

 fire, which may not come for several years. In this par- 

 ticular year, bee-keeping neighbors, who lived out of bee- 

 range of this fire-swept tract, got a poor crop, and I had 

 little except fireweed honey. This honey is light in color, 

 and of good flavor, and will pass for clover honey, except 

 with experts. 



When the comb honey was ready for market, I packt 

 about 500 pounds and went with it to Chicago. The year 

 before there had been a large crop, and prices had ruled low 

 for those times, and there was still some old honey in the 

 commission houses there. I talkt with many commission 

 men. They thought about 15 cents was the right price for 

 honey — possibly 16 for a fancy article. I knew from vari- 

 ous sources the honey crop was light, and decided my honey 

 must sell for more than that. I selected a good house, and 

 told the manager he could have my honey if he would hold 

 it for 20 cents. " Well," he said, " we have room to store 

 it, and can hold it, if you wish, until you order it sold for 

 what it will bring. But there is no use trying; we can't 

 sell it for that price." "All right," I replied, " when I 

 want it sold for less I will write you." 



Three days later a card came saying the honey was 

 sold, and they could use more at the same price ; that " buy- 

 ers thought it an extreme price, but the quality was so fine, 

 and the packing so attractive, it sold readily." 



In a short time my comb honey was all sold at 20 cents. 



Now, can't a moral, or several morals, be drawn from 

 this little story ? First, it pays to understand our business, 

 whatever it is, and attend to it ourselves, in an intelligent 

 manner. I was richer by a considerable sum than would 

 have been the case had I left all to the discretion of the 

 commission man. Take the papers, and keep posted. All 

 progressive honey-producers know there is not much honey 

 to come forward this season. There is a class, and not a 

 very small one either, who will have good honey at almost 

 any price. 



I have sold honey, a great many tons of it, as well as 

 other produce, thru commission men for over 25 years. I 

 have frequently interviewed them, and I think I understand 

 them pretty well. I am glad to be able to say they are most 

 of them very fine men, and my dealings with them have 

 almost always been very satisfactory. But they are be- 

 tween two fires — shippers and buyers. They have friends, 

 often heavy buyers, whom they are anxious to please and 

 hold, and it is not strange that thej' will often do so at the 

 expense of shippers. Put it out of their power to do this 

 with j'OHr honey this year by limiting the price. If not in 

 too much of a hurry to sell, you can get a good price for all 

 there is to sell. Of course, this plan will not work so well 

 in flush years. 



I now produce only extracted honey, and have a good 

 home market for most of it. If I had comb honey this year, 

 and wanted to sell it thru commission houses in Chicago, or 

 any other city, I would induce honey-produciug friends to 

 pool their interests with mine, put up the honey in attrac- 

 tive shape, go to the market and explain the situation to a 

 half dozen or more good houses in the selling district, and 

 fix the selling price at a fair figure, considering the prob- 

 able supply and demand. Selling honey in many places at 

 the same price, buyers would soon learn that they must pay 

 a good price for honey if they got it, and would pay it just 



dily as a low one. 

 as rea Van Buren Co. Mich., Sept. 3. 



Shade for Hives— Preventing Drone-Comb. 



BY G. M. DOOUTTLK. 



WILL you please tell us in the American Bee Journal 

 what is the best method of shading hives from the 

 sun ? 

 zr Answer. — Various methods have been advanced, such 

 as grape-vines, sunflowers, trees, shade-boards, etc.. each 

 having its good points. Trees have one advantage over 

 everything else, in that they shade the apiarist as well as 

 the hives; and what bee-keeper is there who has not wisht 

 for a shield from the sun for himself when working for 

 hours on a July or August day when the mercury was play- 



ing among the 90's in the shade ? While this is so, yet trees, 

 as a rule, are apt to give too dense a shade ; and I am satis- 

 fied, from years of close observation, that, so far as the 

 bees are concerned, they do much the best right out in the 

 rays of the sun the whole year around, when the ques- 

 tion comes to dense shade or no shade at all. P'or this rea- 

 son I prefer to have a shade where I can go once in a while 

 when becoming greatly heated, and either paint the hives 

 white or use a shade-board for each hive, letting them stand 

 in the sun. 



Lately, in making some new hives, I have taken no 

 pains in making the cover water-tight, but have made a 

 shade-board to project from two to six inches around the 

 top of the hive, the six inches being on the south, while the 

 north side has a four-inch cleat nailed to it, thus giving it a 

 pitch to the south, this causing the rain to run off easily, 

 while at the same time it gives a good circulation of air 

 over the top of the hive, so that the heat never drives the 

 bees out of the sections, or causes the combs to melt down, 

 with the hives standing in the full blaze of the sun in the 

 hottest of weather. 



Where I formerly covered the tops of my hives with 

 tin, or made tin-rooft hives, I now cover this shade-board 

 with tin, and in this way no water ever touches the top of 

 the hive. After a use of them for six or eight years I am 

 much pleased with them, and prefer this arrangement for 

 shade to anything else I have ever tried. The wood material 

 used for the shade-board is '4 -inch stuff, thus making it 

 very light to handle ; and as an insurance against the wind 

 blowing it off, I put a common brick on each ; and during 

 the time I have used them, not more than one or two have 

 been blown off, even in the most severe gales. 



HOW TO PREVENT DRONE-COMB BEING BUII.T. 



Question. — In the production of comb honey where a 

 firstfor prime) swarm is hived on comb-foundation starters, 

 say two or three inches deep, and with sections on top filled 

 with full sheets of foundation, what is the best method of 

 preventing the building of drone-comb ? 



Answer. — Under such circumstances as the question 

 describes, prime swarms are not very apt to build much 

 drone-comb, as drone-comb is very largely built the first 

 season for store-comb. In other words, bees build very 

 little drone-comb the first season after being hived, only as 

 they get in advance of the queen in comb-building. If they 

 build comb faster than the queen can occupy it with eggs, 

 then they keep on building comb, the same as they would if 

 she kept eggs in the cells as fast as built ; but instead of 

 building worker-comb they change the size of the cells to 

 those which are more economical for storing honey, which 

 are of the drone size. These cells are filled with honey, so 

 do very little harm the first year ; but the next year, as the 

 honey is consumed from them, the queen deposits eggs 

 there, and from this comes a horde of useless drones, or 

 such bees as produce no honey, but constantly consume it. 



The above is applicable to a swarm of bees in a hollow 

 tree or some bos-hive, where they can do just as nature 

 prompts. But it will be seen that the questioner has placed 

 his swarm in a different condition than would be one in a 

 hollow tree, in that he has put on sections filled with foun- 

 dation, which foundation will be drawn out into comb as 

 fast as the bees want room to store honey, as well as to re- 

 move a large part of the bees from the brood-chamber, and 

 for this reason the bees will very rarely build comb in the 

 brood-chamber faster than the queen will fill it with eggs, 

 if the queen is a good prolific layer, as she should be in all 

 cases where comb is being built ; and the result is, sections 

 filled with honey with very little, if any, drone-comb in the 

 brood-chamber below. 



And, I believe, as does W. Z. Hutchinson and some 

 others, that the brood-chamber is filled with comb more 

 cheaply under such circumstances, and more honey secured 

 in the sections than where the brood-chamber is filled with 

 frames full of foundation. 



Now, if in addition to the above, the brood-nest or brood- 

 chamber is contracted to two-thirds its asual size when the 

 swarm is hived, we are almost certain not to have any 

 drone-comb built, for this gives an additional security 

 against the bees getting the start of the queen. But sup- 

 pose a frame or two of drone-comb should be built, this can 

 be removed from the hive the nest spring, and frames of 

 worker-comb substituted for it, when the drone-comb can 

 be melted into wax, or kept for the production of extracted 

 honey, using it in an upper story over a queen-excluding 

 honey-board. I have practiced this method for years, and 

 think it pays me better than to buy foundation. 



I am well aware that there are many of our best bee- 



