A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to the Interests of Honey Producers. 

 $L00 A YEAR. 

 W. Z. HDTCHDISON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL. XVII. FLINT, MICHIGAN, MAY 16, 1904. NO. 5. 



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Uimceirtalim 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



(a^EEING that I have beg-un to tell 

 *J how I do my work in producing- ex- 

 tracted honey, it seems a pity to break 

 the thread of the story, but the days 

 of swarming- will soon be here, and, if 

 I am to help those who are thinking- of 

 starting out-apiaries, and managing 

 them on the shook swarming plan, for 

 comb honey, I must wait no longer. 



Let a Michig-an man attempt to man- 

 ag-e an out-apiary for comb honey, on 

 the Gill-plan, visiting it once a week, 

 and about the first thing that he will 

 realize, as he never did before, is the 

 uncertainty of Michigan weather. In 

 Colorado they can depend upon seven 

 clear days every week, during the 

 honey flow. How different here! 

 Right in the height of the season we 

 are likely to have one, two, or three, 

 or, perhaps, four days of rain. In 

 producing extracted honey, these rainy 

 spells cut no fig-ure; they are simply 

 blanks; and we defer our visits just the 

 number of days it has rained, as the 

 bees have done nothing- and there will 

 be nothing- for the bee-keeper to do. 



How different with comb honey! 

 When bees once begin building cells, 

 and making preparations for swarm- 

 ing, it takes more than a few days 

 rain to change their minds, as one will 

 soon learn, when he commences to 

 work out a non-swarming system. 



As I have only one yard that is 

 worked for comb honey on this plan, 

 these rainy spells cut no figure. I 

 visit it the next day after the rain, so 

 if there is any swarming, caused by 

 cells having matured during this ten 

 or eleven days, since my last visit, I 

 will be there to hive the swarms, and 

 to shake any colonies that need it. 

 Now there is established a new date, 

 and the next trip will be a week from 

 this last visit. 



HOW MANY APIARIES CAN ONE MAN 



MANAGE ON THE SHOOK SWARM 



PLAN, IF IT RAINS 



SOMETIMES? 



I presume, after all that has been 

 written upon this subject, there are 

 many who are contemplating the 



