204 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



the old stand, over which I have placed 

 a couple hives with sheets of founda- 

 tion, or frames of empty combs, and 

 the way they pile in the honey just 

 does one good to see. I have always 

 swarmed my bees artificially; the full 

 time taken up for each swarm being^ 

 about five minutes. While I {Generally 

 follow a particular system, I do nut 

 always; but rather adapt the system 

 to the conditions. In this way I may 

 use half a dozen different ways in one 

 day. 



THE HIRED HELP PROBLEM. 



I usually hire one man, whom I pre- 

 fer to be at least 18 years old, for two 

 and a half months in the summer, but 

 I do not take him with me, except in 

 the extracting- season. I have addi- 

 tional help, by the day, only when the 

 rush is the greatest, entailing a total 

 wage bill charged against the bees 

 each year (outside of my own labor) 

 of about $70. I usually secure the 

 same helpers year after year, as it 

 takes a season or two for a green hand 

 to become skilled in the work. This is 

 especially so in the use of the honey 

 knife, where a practiced hand will do 

 nearly twice as much as a green one. 



In the extracting house everything is 

 so placed as to prevent any false un- 

 necessary motion. My strainer can 

 holds 15 gallons, and the strainer, cov- 

 ering the full top of it, accommodates 

 something over three gallons and is 

 used until it begins to clog. I find it 

 needs a strainer of at least this size to 

 strain the honey as fast as extracted. 



The honey is run from the strainer 

 can, from a large faucet, directly into 

 the cans in which the honey is 

 marketed. 



PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER. 



After the surplus season is over I 

 have very little to do until the first 

 heavy frost in September, when I go 

 over my bees and crowd them back into 

 one hive body. Often the hive will not 

 hold them at first, but as the weather 



cools, they gradually manage to get 

 inside. At this time of the year I find 

 that the queen has often established 

 herself in the second story, in which, 

 also, is the principal store of honey, 

 The bulk of the bee bread is generally 

 in the lower hive; therefore, as I reject 

 all the pollen possible for my winter 

 C'llony, I select the second stor3' in 

 which to winter the bees and into this 

 I shake all the bees from the other 

 stories. 



WHOLESALE CLEANING UP OK PARTLY 

 FILLED COMBS. 



I thus go over my entire yard, and 

 then put out the empty bodies to be 

 cleaned of their honey by the bees. If 

 you have never tried this, you will, at 

 first, begin to think you are in for a 

 spell of robbing; however, before you 

 have got through with your yard, you 

 will feel at ease, for the bees soon quiet 

 down to such an extent that they often 

 take two or three days to finish up any 

 patches of capped honey. It should be 

 understood that I place out to be 

 cleaned by the bees onlj^ such combs as 

 may be unprofitable to handle in any 

 other way; and, by giving them all the 

 work to do at once, they make a clean 

 job of it without damaging the combs. 

 After reducing all the colonies to one 

 body each, I ascertain their amount of 

 stores by passing along and simply 

 lifting each hive, then marking upon 

 the back of it the amount it should be 

 fed. In estimating this amount we 

 must give the bees the benefit of any 

 doubt as to quantity; and, after that, if 

 we estimate that a hive needs 10 pounds 

 of feed, we should place it at IS 

 pounds. As soon as I have gone over 

 them in this way, I feed them, giving 

 each hive all it needs at a single feed- 

 ing. If a hive has to be fed all its 

 stores, I feed in two operations. 



In feeding my bees in this way for 

 winter I take granulated cane sugar, in 

 100 pound sacks, to the yards, and 

 mix in a barrel in the extracting house, 



