806 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Dec. 20. 1900 



or more, bees are almost sure to perish before spring- 

 arrives. Moving the bees together under a shelter might 

 ansveer, providing they can have a chance to fly during 

 warm days in winter ; still there is much work to this pro- 

 cess, and, worse still, many bees are liable to be lost 

 or become badly mixt up when the hives are placed 

 back where they are wanted during the summer, after hav- 

 ing been thus wintered. 



The plan of having a shelter over the entrance of each 

 hive, and letting shelter and hive drift over, I have tried 

 several times, but with me it is not a success. Several of 

 our best apiarists claim that this plan is a success with 

 them, and advise the wintering of bees in this way, but I 

 have yet to see the colony of bees in this locality over which 

 the snow has been drifted from two to three months, that 

 has not become uneasy, gone to breeding, contracted the 

 bee-diarrhea, and exhausted its vitality to an extent suffi- 

 cient to cause a bad case of spring dwindling, or loss of the 

 colony altogether. After a process of time the bees seem to 

 become too warm, break the cluster, commence brood- 

 rearing to replace the bees dying of exhausted vitality, run 

 to the entrance and fan there as in summer, the commotion 

 thawing the snow all about the hive, until a cat or small 

 dog could run all around the lower part of the hive, this 

 causing them to consume their stores of pollen and honey 

 very rapidly, which consumption brings on diarrhea and 

 death, unless the bees have a chance to fly at about the time 

 brood-rearing commences, and even then the colony is so 

 weakened that it is of little use the following season. 



Where the snow stays about the hive only for a few 

 days or a week at a time, it will do no particular harm. But 

 otherwise I would advise carrying the bees to some higher 

 ground, where the snow does not drift, or else fix an under- 

 ground cellar to winter in. 



half-dkpth frames for extracting. 



Question.— I workt five colonies the past season for ex' 

 tracted honey, using the full-depth Langstroth frame in 

 the upper stories. These frames were filled half full of 

 light-colored honey and half with dark, the light being in 

 the upper part of each frame and the dark in the lower part. 

 What I wish to know is, if I were to use half-depth frames 

 could I secure the light honey in the upper set and the dark 

 in the lower ones ? If so, it would save mixing the honey 

 when extracting, as was the case the past season, for I could 

 not extract the light honey without having the dark all 

 mixt with it. 



Answer. — I very much doubt your ever having an expe- 

 rience again similar to the one outlined above, as seasons 

 vary so much. Indeed, I hardly see how you could have 

 had such a result this year, for in all of my experience I never 

 saw a whole set of frames that were evenly half filled with 

 light and dark honey. It is no rare occurrence to have one 

 or two frames so filled that, practically speaking, they 

 would be half filled with white honey and half with dark : 

 but to have the whole upper story thus filled is something 

 that does not happen more than once in a lifetime. 



Half-depth frames are recommended by some of our 

 most practical bee-keepers for upper stories for extracting ; 

 ^but I never heard any claim as coming from them that the 

 ight and dark honey could be kept separate by using such 

 frames. Some years we have a large yield of white honey 

 with little if any dark honey ; other years just the reverse of 

 this is the case ; hence it will be seen that the supposition 

 hinted at by the questioner could not possibly come to pass 

 in such years ; for when white honey was abundant the bees 

 would use nearly all the room furnisht, in storing white 

 honey, finishing out the very bottom parts of the combs 

 with dark. When there was a light yield of white honey 

 with a good yield of dark, just the reverse would be the 

 case; namely, there would be a small quantity of white 

 honey in the upper part of the upper half-depth frames, 

 while the rest of the said frames would be filled with dark 

 honey, and all of the lower ones. 



The only way that I know of to avoid mixt honey is to 

 either extract all of the white honey as soon as the white 

 honey harvest is over, putting back the combs for the bees 

 to use during the dark honey-flow ; or take awav the frames 

 of white honey at the end of the white honey-flow, and sub- 

 stitute other frames in their places. Where one has the 

 time that can be spared for extracting in the summer, the 

 former is the preferable plan, as it requires a less invest- 

 ment in frames of comb ; but where time is of great value 

 during the summer months, and of little value at other 

 times, it may pay to adopt the latter plan. In either case 

 the white honey should be left on the hive as long as possi- 



ble, taking it off just as the dark honey is beginning to ap- 

 pear, so that it may be as thoroly ripened as possible with- 

 out being mixt with the dark. 



Onondaga Co., N, Y. 



Better Outlook for Southern California Bee- 

 keeping. 



BY GEO. W. BRODBECK. 



DURING the 14 years of residence in this State, I have 

 endeavored to be reasonably conservative in all of my 

 statements regarding the bee-beeping interests of 

 Southern California ; consequently, I have no fear of being 

 considered an extremist in anything I may say. 



The past three seasons (with an emphasis on the first 

 two), have been the most disastrous successive seasons this 

 section has ever known, and the present estimate is that 

 fully 75 percent of the bees that were living in these south- 

 ern counties four years ago, have perisht ; the remaining 25 

 percent that survive are in the hands of our most enter- 

 prising bee-keepers. This is an instance fully demonstra- 

 ting the "survival of the fittest." 



While I sympathize fully with those who have met with 

 such a serious financial loss, I am constrained to believe it 

 will result in the building up of the bee-keeping industry of 

 this section on a better and firmer basis. 



California bee-keeping in the past has been conducted 

 in a slipshod manner ; and while we have many who are 

 the peer of any bee-keeper in the United States, neverthe- 

 less it has been a lamentable fact that a great percentage 

 cared but little how or in what manner they secured their 

 product, with the consequent result of selling honey for any 

 price they could get. 



The few who survive the ordeal of the last three years, 

 look forward to a brighter and better future of this industry 

 in this great State, and at this writing, as we listen to the 

 patter of the rain which has been falling almost continu- 

 ously for five days, and in such quantity and at such an 

 opportune season, that it incites a hope that the coming- 

 year maj' prove one of the phenomenal ones often referred 

 to in the history of California bee-keeping. 



Los Angeles, Co., Calif., Nov. 21. 



P. S., Nov. 22. — We have had a fraction over six inches 

 of rain up to the present, and every one I meet is happy. 



B. 



I Questions and Answers, e 



CONDUCTED BY 



DR. O. O. MILLER, ifareng-o, rU, 



(The Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal ofiBce, or to Dr. Miller 



direct, when he will answer them here. Please do not ask the 



Doctor to send answers by mail. — Editor. 1 



Working an Out-Apiary for Comb Honey. 



1. I understand you run your out-yard for comb honey. 

 How do you manage it at swarming-time ? Is some one 

 there all the time thru the day watching swarms, to manip- 

 ulate the colonies, exchanging supers, etc.? If not, how 

 often do you go there in harvest time ? 



2. Why do you work your out-apiary for comb honey ? 

 Does it give better results in dollars and cents ? Would you 

 recommend working an out-yard for comb honey ? Will it 

 not do as well to run for extracted honey, counting the 

 labor ? Indiana. 



Answers. — 1. It is not easj' to say what the manage- 

 ment is, for it is by no means always the same. Formerly 

 a watcher was on hand all the time whose sole business was 

 to watch for swarms and cage the dipt queens when a 

 swarm issued. The caged queen was put in at the entrance 

 of the hive far enough so the bees would be sure to take 

 care of her. About 5 days after the issuing of the swarm, 

 I cut out all queen-cells, and also 5 days later, when the 

 queen was releast. No colony so treated ever swarmed 

 again. Lately I have had no watcher, and we try to visit 

 the out-apiarj' every 5 to 7 days. Something is done toward 

 prevention of swarming by destroying all eggs found in 



