THE^ MMERIC-atM WMM J©^R1HS:1U. 



9 



PresitlRiit Hilton— What Mr. Heddon 



ys about the inch auger-hole is a 

 ;;i)()(l point. I have practiced putting 

 ' sheets of zinc right down on the brood- 

 frames. This closes up many of the 

 openings, and the bees stop up a great 

 many more, but [ have never seen that 

 it was objectionable. 



A. D. D. Wood — 1 have tried putting 

 OH tlie honey-boards 5 and b high, and 

 could .see no ditVerenee in the results. 

 1 have al.so tried stopping" up all the 

 holes in a honey-board, except the two 

 Mitside rows, and the results were the 

 >;nue. I was led to experiment in this 

 ilirection by putting on sections in the 

 night. One hive had an oil-cloth over 

 (lie broo<l-frames, and I did not see it. 

 ■ Iiere was a orack at one side, through 



lich the bees had gained access to 



• case, and tilled it just the same as 

 y had the others. 



James Ue<ldon — Good. That pays 

 nic for coming to Jackson — just to 

 hear that. 



The next topic discussed was, 



I'rodiiciug- Kxiracted Honey and 

 I'revvntion ot'Snarniing'. 



K. L. Taylor — I would use plenty of 

 combs, so that flie bees can have room 

 to spread their honey when ripening 

 it. I would tier up and leave the 

 honey on as long as possible, but I 

 would not allow the ditierent kinds to 

 ln'come mixed. I would use a queen- 

 excluding hone3-board. It is a great 

 incovenience to have brood in the sur- 

 ))his combs. 



.James Heddon — I used to think that 

 the great advantage ift producing comb 

 honey was, that nearly all the work 

 Mas done in-doors. AVith my new hive, 

 the same advantage can be enjoyed in 

 producing extracted honey. Just keep 

 tiering up the cases of combs as fast as 

 the honey comes in. Do not wait for 

 v* the bees to seal it over ; as it will ripen 

 i just as fast, yes faster, if unsealed. 

 p} When the honey is ripened it can be 

 * taken ofl" just the same as cases of 

 comb honey are removed. Drive the 

 bees down with smoke, jerk oft' a case, 

 shake out most of the bees, and carr^^ 

 it to the house with the windows ar- 

 ranged for the escape of the bee.s. All 

 this is done without exposing any 

 < ombs to robber bees. To extract, 

 simply invert a section of the hive, 

 loosen the screws, slip oft' the case, 

 and then stand the combs ready to ex- 

 tract. These narrow combs, not quite 

 sialed over, are just the neatest of 

 ( onibs to uncap. 



A. D. D. Wood — I prevent swarm- 

 ing when producing extracted honej', 

 by placing the queen and one frame of 

 blood in the .lower story, with a queen- 

 excluding honey-board between that 

 ami the upper stor}-. The bees build 

 inmb in the lower story, .and do not 

 suarm. 



James Heddon — This is the old 

 Adair idea. I made 30 of these " long 

 idea," or, as some called them, 

 "wrong-idea" hives, years ago. The 

 idea of preventing swarming will 

 work, but it is too much labor. 



W. Z. Hutchinson — This is essen- 

 tiallj' the Simmins' plan. 



The convention then adjourned un- 

 til 7:30 p.m. 



{Concluded next week.) 



EXPERIMENTS 



With Rci^crsing Brootl.Coinbs, 

 Contraction, etc. 



WHtteii for the American BeeJounml 



BY C. A. BUNCH. 



As I have been trying some of the 

 plans as given Isy some of the leading 

 bee-men, I will give my experience 

 with the same : 



Revcrs^ing: Itrood-Combs. 



Does it pay to reverse brood-combs 

 in the spring to increase the number of 

 bees ? I believe it pays to take the 

 two outside combs, and put them in 

 the centre of the brood-nest about the 

 time that the rest of the brood-combs 

 are full of brood, and not before. I 

 would take these two combs and shave 

 them down to } of an inch in thick- 

 ness before reversing. 



Contraction of tlie Itroo(I-]\e»it. 



Contraction of the brood-nest, or 

 moving the comljs close together about 

 If inches from centre to centre to pre- 

 vent swarming, as advised by some, 

 would not prevent swarming in my 

 apiary, if there wei'e eight combs in 

 the brood-nest, as that is the number 

 of combs that I have to the hive before 

 swarming ; though I think that it is a 

 good idea to have the combs spaced 1| 

 inches from centre to centre, so that 

 the qneen will lay in the upper part of 

 the combs, whicli I believe she will not 

 do if they are much further apart. 



Contraction of the brood-nest for the 

 production of comb honey I have tried 

 also ; but it seems that bees in Indiana 

 act dift'erently fron\ what they do in 

 Michigan, and I think that it is on ac- 

 count of the season being warmer here. 



I hived swarms on 5 Langstroth 

 frames with mostly .V-inch foundation 

 starters, and the balance on empty 

 frames ; about the time the frames 

 were built out with comb, the bees be- 

 gan to swarm, an(| at one time 4 of 

 these swarms came out at once, and 

 settled on a little Siberian crab-apple 

 tree. Oh, what a swarm it was, with 

 a lot of deserted honey-crates behind. 

 The only way to get out of such a 

 dilemma was, to give the bees room 



for 8 brood-frames, which I did, and 

 after that scarcely a swarm issued. 



Xhe Use of Honey-Uoards. 



As an experiment I used 12 wood- 

 and-zinc queen-excluding honey-boards 

 the past season, for producing comb 

 honey, and the balance of the hives 

 were without honej'-boards. It .seems 

 that some bee-keepers have no trouble 

 with the queen laying in the sections, 

 while I do. The sections were over 

 an 8-frame hive, for I had the honey- 

 boards over the contracted hives of 5 

 frames. 



I like prolific queens, but I want the 

 eggs down in the brood-nest, wliere I 

 expect to have them next season — 

 which means that I will use the honey- 

 boards on all hives hereafter. 



La Paz, Ind. 



READINQ. 



How to Employ tlie Time in 

 Winter Advantageoii§ly. 



Written for the American Rural Home 



BY G. M. UOOLITTLE. 



Now that we are in the midst of 

 long winter evenings, it becomes the 

 duty of all to spend these evenings in 

 such a way that they may be gaining 

 in knowledge along the line of the 

 pursuit they have chosen in life. In 

 no business engagement is this more 

 imperative than where the culture of 

 the honey-bee is the chosen occupa- 

 tion, and in no way can this be done 

 to any better advantage than in read- 

 ing the bee-literature of the day, from 

 which the mind is to be stored with 

 useful knowledge which can be put 

 into practical use as soon as the season 

 of 1889 opens. 



When I tirst commenced bee-keeping 

 I was greatly benefited by the writings 

 of E. Gallup, M. Quinby, A. I. Root, 

 Adam Grimm, and many others of 

 those early writers on this subject ; for 

 by their writings I learned my ABC 

 in bee-culture. My tirst year of ex- 

 perience in bee-keeping by way of puf>- 

 ting the things which I had read in 

 practice, i-esulted in 12 pounds of comb 

 honey and one swarm from the colo- 

 nies I had i)urchased to commence 

 with. The ne.xt season 1 obtained 25 

 pounds of surplus from each colony I 

 had in the spring, on an average. At 

 the end of the fourth season, I chron- 

 icled an average of 80 pounds of comb 

 honej', as the average surplus for each 

 colony in the spring. 



Duringthesefour j'ears I had studied, 

 read and practiced all my wakeful 

 hours, about the bees, having keen en- 

 joyment in doing the same, for I never 

 spent an hour in my life in work per- 



