ENTOMOLOGY 419 



to stimulative feeding, the care of the colony described under the 

 heading of Spring Management will increase brood production. 



The Production of Honey. The obtaining of honey from bees 

 is generally the primary object of their culture. Bees gather nectar 

 to make into honey for their own use as food, but generally store 

 more than they need, and this surplus the bee keeper takes away. 

 By managing colonies early in the spring as previously described, 

 the surplus may be considerably increased. The secret of maximum 

 crops is to keep all colonies strong. 



Honey is gathered in the form of nectar secreted by various 

 flowers, transformed by the bees, and stored in the comb. Bees also 

 often gather a sweet liquid called honeydew, produced by various 

 scale insects and plant-lice, but the honeydew honey made from it 

 is quite unlike floral honey and should not be sold for honey. It is 

 usually unpalatable and should never be used as winter food for 

 bees. When nectar or honeydew has been thickened by evaporation 

 and otherwise changed, the honey is sealed in the cells with cappings 

 of beeswax. 



It is not profitable to cultivate any plant solely for the nectar 

 which it will produce, but various plants, such as clovers, alfalfa, 

 and buckwheat are excellent honey plants as well as valuable for 

 other purposes; their cultivation is therefore a benefit to the bee 

 keeper. It is often profitable to sow some plant on waste land ; sweet 

 clovers are often used in this way. The majority of honey-producing 

 plants are wild, and the bee keeper must largely accept the locality 

 as he finds it and manage his apiary so as to get the largest possible 

 amount of the available nectar. Since bees often fly as far as 2 or 3 

 miles to obtain nectar, it is obvious that the bee keeper can rarely 

 influence the nectar supply appreciably. 



Extracted Honey. Extracted honey is honey which has been 

 removed by means of centrifugal force from the combs in which the 

 bees stored it. In providing combs for the storage of honey to be 

 extracted, the usual practice is to add to the top of the brood chamber 

 one or more hive bodies just like the one in which the brood 

 is reared and fill these with frames. If preferred, shallower frames 

 with bodies of proper size may be used, but most honey extractors 

 are made for full-size frames. The surplus bodies should be put on 

 in plenty of time to prevent the crowding of the brood chamber, and 

 also to act as a preventive of swarming. 



Honey for extracting should not be removed until it is well 

 ripened and a large percentage of it capped. It is best, however, to 

 remove the crop from each honey flow before another heavy produc- 

 ing plant comes into bloom, so that the different grades of honey 

 may be kept separate. 



The frames containing honey to be extracted are removed from 

 the hive, the cappings cut off with a sharp, warm knife, made spe- 

 cially for this purpose, and the frames are then put into the baskets 

 of the honey extractors. By revolving these rapidly the honey is 

 thrown out of one side. The basket is then reversed and the honey 

 from the other side is removed, The combs can then be returned to 



