134 



THE ame:iican bee-keeper 



July 



time to clean up any dripping honey; 

 tlien, when ready to operate, loosen 

 the enameled cloth at the back end and 

 raise it a little and flap it up and down 

 to drive the bees down with puffs of 

 cold air (some one gave us this before, 

 now). Then takeoff the enameled cloth, 

 and give a few puffs of smoke if needed. 

 Set the super off the hive, cover the 

 frames with cloth and quilt, put on a 

 flat hive cover and set super on end, on 

 the front of hive. Now, with smoker 

 and brush hustle them out and down at 

 the hive entrance, where they will run 

 in as fast as they can. 



The honey is now ready to go to the 

 honey-room to be stacked up crosswise, 

 or with sticks between so the bees can 

 pass out without going up through the 

 whole pile. It takes but a few minutes 

 to take off super and put it in the honey- 

 room. What few bees are carried in 

 with the honey will be out of the cases 

 and out of the honey-room before night. 



Brother Doolittle"s point of view is 

 well taken in prompting us to more care- 

 ful reading and thinking; and when his 

 "eagle eyes" comedown on our mistakes 

 we must receive it with thanks and in- 

 vite him »to come again. And in so 

 reading an article we often gather some 

 new and good idea that the author ap- 

 parently never thought of. 



Chenango Bridge, N.Y. 



[It is an excellent plan to have escajx' 

 cones in the hOney-room, as suggested 

 by Mr. Keeh^r; and we have used pi-ac- 

 tically the same metiiod as outlined 

 above quite extensively. We have pro- 

 duced no comb-honey, however, for 

 several years, and have* therefore had 

 no opportunity of testing Mr. Main's 

 plan; but, theoretically, at least, it is 

 very ni^e — a great improvement on the 

 old smoke-and-brush method. In using 

 smoke, as we Ikiv(> l(!arned by exjxn-i- 

 ence, there is danger of greatly impair- 

 ing th(i flavor of the honey. We luive 

 seen honey, crated soon after having 

 been thus smoked, which imparted a 

 very perceptible odor of smoke upon 

 being opened three months later. The 

 escape, since its introduction, has given 

 better satisfaction; and we had thought. 



possibly, by Mr. Main's method of using 

 it, it might be entirely satisfactory. In 

 California the plan was to bore a one- 

 and-a-half inch hole in the side of an 

 empty super, place this upon the flat lid- 

 of an adjacent hive, or the one from 

 which it was removed, and upon it the 

 super to be cleared. The smoker-nozzle 

 was then inserted in the hole, and as 

 the bees, in a cloud of smoke, fled up- 

 wards for their lives, they were brushed 

 to the winds. When it is possible to do 

 so. we greatly prefer to entirely dispense 

 with smoke in clearing supers. ]-Editor. 



Dollars and Queens 



Exchanged for Ideas. 



We have several silver dollars of re- 

 cent issues, and also a number of 

 untested Italian queens. These we here- 

 by offer to our readers in exchange for 

 articles for publication. The queens kre 

 as well worth a dollar as are the silver 

 coins, so the contributor may have his 

 choice. 



From this date and until further 

 notice, we shall send each month, at the 

 option of the contributor, $1.00 in cash, 

 or ap Italian queen, to each of the two 

 contributors whose articles we deem 

 )nost interesting or instructive. 



For the two second-best articles we 

 will send fifty cents each. 



All matter submitted in contest will 

 become the property of The American 

 Bee-keepek. 



Short articles are more desirable than 

 long ones. 



The names of the winners will be pub- 

 lished in the same number of The Bee- 

 keeper in which the letters appear. 



Some one will get the cash and queens 

 as surely as the paper is issued. You 

 might as well have some of them while 

 they are going. Write on some "live 

 b(!(>-keeping topic; the expense will be 

 but two cents, and it is not at all im- 

 probable that yo\i shall be one of the 

 four to whom the premiums will be 

 mailed each month. 



As the editor has this arrangement in 

 charge, it would be as well that all mat- 

 ter pertaining thereto be addressed 

 p<>rsonally to 11. E. lIii.L, Fort Pierce, 

 Florida. 



