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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



July 27, 1905 



BDLK COMB VS. SKCTION HONEY. 



As to which is the more profitable, bulk comb or section 

 honey, Mr. Hagood says section honey. 



Mr. Abernathy, bulk honey, every time, having produced 

 last season 18,000 pounds from 280 colonies of bees, and sold 

 the entire crop for 10 cents a pound. After disposing of his 

 crop he had orders for 16,000 pounds more. 



Dr. Davies prefers section honey. Messrs. Eibble, White 

 and Scott also prefer section honey. 



Quite a discussion took place on this subject, and much 

 good was derived therefrom. 



On motion the convention adjourned to meet at 8 o'clock 

 the ne.vt morning. 



vSECOND DAY. 



The convention met promptly at 8 o'clock, and resumed 

 work as laid down in the program. 



A committee to draft a program for the next mefting was 

 appointed as follows : E. A. Ribble, J. H. Barnes, Dr. R. P. 

 Davies and W. H. White. 



The election of officers for the ensuing year resulted thus : 

 J. M. Hagood re-elected President; R. C. Abernathy, Vice- 

 President ; and W. H. White, Secretary. 



A vote of thanks was tendered the people of Blossom for 

 the cordial manner in which they entertained the members of 

 the convention. 



A motion was carried to tax the members 25 cents each as 

 annual dues for the purpose of keeping up the stationery and 

 other expenses that may occur. 



Blossom was selected for the next place of meeting. 



The convention adjourned until the first Wednesday and 

 Thursday in April, 1906. W. H. White, Sec. 



-V (£ontrtbutcb -f 

 Special (Irtides 



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Management of Bees for August 



BY C. P. DADANT 



THE second honey crop begins usually about the middle of 

 this month wherever fall blossoms abound. It begins 



with the knotweed, and the ironweed, and ends with the 

 Spanish-needles and the asters, in September. Sometimes the 

 white clover lasts through the entire summer, and furnishes 

 quite a little honey during August, especially if the summer 

 has been moist. It is therefore necessary to give the hives 

 additional space unless the supers have been removed and re- 

 placed by fresh ones. It is in fact not very good management 

 to leave the supers on all through the summer, because the 

 bees will put a great deal of propolis in the sections. It is 

 better to remove them as soon as the clover crop is at an end, 

 to put them on again as soon as the fall crop begins, except 

 when the honey season is uninterrupted. 



This applies especially to the production of comb honey. 

 With the extracting supers it matters but little whether the 

 bees put propolis in them, and they are safer over the brood- 

 combs than stored away in the bee-house. 



Just as soon as the bees are noticed whitening their 

 combs, they should be given ample room. New swarms that 

 have filled the lower story during the clover harvest are often 

 known to fill supers during the second crop, so they must be 

 supplied with supers. Sometimes, also, colonies that have 

 swarmed and have become greatly weakened begin to recu- 

 perate and may prove among the best for the second crop. 



It is well also to (examine all the colonies for laying 

 queens. After tlie swarming season is over some queens get 

 lost in the field while out to mate, and the colonies to which 

 they belong may not have had suitable brood at hand to re- 

 place their loss. So we often find, late in July or early in 

 August, strong colonies dwindling down because of being 

 queenless. It was formerly customary among the practical 

 bee-keepers to rear a number of queens and to keep them in 

 nuclei for such emergencies, but the queen-business has gone 

 into the hands of specialists, and the price of a (jueen is now 

 so low that it is hardly worth while to bother with queen-rear- 

 ing. Most of our producers order their queens from well- 

 known breeders at :i less price than it would cost them to rear 

 them. 



But if we do noi wish to buy our queens, a good way to 

 replace the loss of a ((ueen is to supply the colony with a sheet 



of brood in all stages (especially young brood), with the adher- 

 ing bees, from the best colony in the yard. A queenless col- 

 ony helped in time will still rear a queen and gather enough 

 honey for winter. 



But we must bear in mind, at the August crop, that the 

 condition of the colonies is changed since the swarming sea- 

 son has passed. Some colonies that were strong in June may 

 be weak in August, and vice versa, so each hive must be ex- 

 amined just as at the beginning of the harvest, and either 

 given more space or reduced according to its requirements. 



If the colonies have been given extra ventilation during 

 the hot weather by raising the hives from the bottom-boards, 

 it will be well to lower them down again by the end of the 

 month, as cool nights are coming and there will be loss of heat 

 if too much space is left. 



New colonies made by dividing on old combs should be 

 reduced to the amount of space they can readily cover. In 

 this way they will put their honey in more compact shape for 

 winter, and will also protect themselves best against the moth. 

 For it Is at this season that the moths are most numerous. 

 Strong colonies have nothing to fear from them, and every 

 colony may be regarded as sufficiently strong if it does not 

 have more combs than the bees can cover, and if it has a good 

 laying queen. Hancock Co., 111. 



Is Old Foundation as Good as New ? 



BY J. A. GREEN 



THE article by G. M. Doolittle, on page 54, would seem to 

 the inexperienced to be a " settler " on the question of 

 the comparative value of old and new foundation ; yet, to 

 my mind, it is as good an example as one could wish to find 

 of the desirability of really proving a thing instead of either 

 taking the word of some one else or accepting as conclusive 

 the results of incomplete experiments. 



The question of the comparative value of old and new 

 foundation can not be settled entirely by the bee-keeper. In 

 a matter like this, we should ask the bees. But, you will say, 

 this is what has been done. 



Doolittle and other bee-keepers have used old foundation, 

 and have found that the bees used it all right. Does not that 

 prove that old foundation is as good as new ? By no means. 



Take notice that Doolittle says that a// the foundation 

 used by him for IS years has been put into the frames or sec- 

 tions during the months of December, January, February and 

 March, then stored away until used. Will he tell us what he 

 has had to compare this foundation with ? All that his prac- 

 tice really proves is that bees will use old foundation, some- 

 thing that I think no one will question. But it would give 

 scarcely a hint as to what was the preference of the bees. 



Now let me tell you how I have tested this matter, in what 

 I consider the only fair and convincing way. Although I 

 fully believe that new foundation is best, and though I much 

 dislike to have any sections filled with foundation carried over 

 from one season to the next, I am obliged by the necessities 

 of my position to anticipate the bees' needs, and consequently 

 the close of the season usually finds me with quite a number 

 of supers filled ready for the bees, but unused. These, Doo- 

 little tells us, are just as good for use the next season as if 

 they were filled with fresh foundation just before the honey- 

 flow. Accordingly, no doubt, he would use them just as they 

 are, and consider himself lucky in having them all ready for 

 the bees. 



Experience has made me a little cautious about this, 

 though, and I never give a colony a full super of old sections. 

 Instead, I divide the super, putting half the old sections into 

 another super and then filling both with sections containing 

 foundation as fresh as I can conveniently get it. They are 

 always put in in a certain way, the new sections all on one 

 side of the super, the old on the other, and I can always 

 tell at any time not only which supers are prepared this way, 

 but can always tell which of them are the old and which 

 are the new sections. I have done this for many years, 

 having each season from 20 to 100 supers prepared in this 

 way. Now, as to results : 



In nearly every case, except when the bees have been 

 crowded into the supers by a heavy flow of honey, the bees 

 will start on the new sections first. Occasionally they will 

 make quite a start on them before they will touch the old 

 ones, but usually, in an ordinarily good honey-flow, there will 

 be only a little difference, just enough to show that they pre- 

 fer the fresh foundation. Even this little difference will 

 usually disappear before the super is finished, so unless you 

 keep close watch of the work being done, you will not notice 

 that the bees have any preference. 



