PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE W T FALCONER MANPG CO 



VOL. VI. 



FEBRUARY, 1896. 



NO. 2. 



Many Bees, Much Honey. 



I5Y G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Some years ago I secured 566 

 pounds of extracted honey from one 

 colony of bees in one season, and re- 

 ported the same to several of the 

 different papers, especially those de- 

 voted to bee culture. This was con- 

 sidered a large yield at that time, and 

 is still so considered by those who 

 have not kept posted along the lines 

 of large yields since then, yet many 

 of our best bee-keepers believe that it 

 is possible to obtain 1,000 pounds 

 from a single colony in a good season; 

 in fact nearly or quite that has been 

 reported once or twice, while reports 

 of 600 pounds and above have been 

 made by several. However, as some 

 are skeptical on this point of large 

 yields, believing that they are more 

 fallacious than otherwise, perhaps a 

 few words regarding how it is done 

 will not be amiss, especially as a letter 

 lies before me asking that I explain in 

 the American Bee-Keeper how such 

 results can be secured. In the spring 

 of the season jabove mentioned I se- 

 lected an ordinary colony of bees, and 

 set it apart for extracted honey. I 

 built them up as fast as possible and 

 when the fruit trees came in bloom 



the queen had brood in twelve frames, 

 and from that source I obtained 16^ 

 pounds. A few days after this the 

 twelve frames, bees and all, were set 

 into a hive four feet long, and a div- 

 ision board placed at the rear of the 

 frame of comb. Once a week two 

 more empty combs were inserted in 

 the center of the brood nest until the 

 hive contained twenty combs well fill- 

 ed with brood. As white clover was 

 not yielding honey, the hive was filled 

 out with frames of empty comb, which 

 numbered 32. I did not expect that 

 the queen would occupy any of these 

 last twelve combs, but in this I was 

 mistaken, for before white clover was 

 through yielding honey I found brood 

 ine every one of the 32 combs, which 

 if placed compactly together, was 

 fully equal to fifteen frames of brood, 

 coming out to the wood all around. 

 Each frame would give at least 100 

 square inches, making all due allow- 

 ance for the ,few cells of pollen that 

 would be scattered about in different 

 cells, and each square] inch gives 50 

 worker bees, hence there were 5,000 

 bees to hatch out of each of these 

 frames every 21 days, or 75,000 from 

 the fifteen frames. The average life 

 of the bee in the working season is 45 



