1900 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



183 



may be the most prolific queens of the 

 races named: but all of my experience 

 with them goes to prove tliat their pro- 

 liticness is so used that it counts for 

 less in section honey tluiu any other 

 race of bees with which I am acquaint- 

 ed, unless it be the Syrians. The 

 trouble lies in the fact that the queen 

 does not reach nearly to her height of 

 egg-laying powers till the honey-harvest 

 commences, after which she will spread 

 iierself in a most magnificent style. 

 This brings on excessive swarming 

 during the middle or near the close of 

 the honey-harvest, causing nearly all of 

 the honey gathered by the few bees on 

 hand at the beginning of the harvest to 

 be used in the rearing of brood, the 

 bees from which are of little vahie, as 

 th^ most of them help with the exces- 

 sive swarming or become consumers 

 after the honey-harvest is past. All 

 bee-keepers should understand that* 

 proliticness in any queen counts for 

 little or nothing unless this proliticness 

 is used at the right time to produce 

 liosts of bees just in the right time for 

 the harvest. And it is because the pro- 

 lificness of Italian queens can be so 

 used to a better advantage than can the 

 prolificness of any other race or variety 

 that I am wedded to the Italians, and 

 not for their white capping of honej'. as 

 the reader of Mr. Greiner's article 

 would be led to think. If I have ever 

 said that my '•strain "of Italian bees 

 will cap their honey as white as the 

 blacks."' I must have been dreaming, 

 for the whiteness is in favor of the 

 blacks. But my Italians do cap their 

 honey white enough so that it never has 

 to take second place as to price in the 

 markets of Boston, New York or Phila- 

 delphia. But here I am again with my 

 space used up, with more things mark- 

 ed to be touched upon in the September 

 American Bee-keepek. At least two 

 more articles could be written on the 

 good things in the September number 

 without exhausting the matter it con- 

 tains. When I undertook this writing; 



up of the last number. I did not realize 

 what a big job I had on hand. But I 

 know the magnanimous spirit in the 

 readers of The Bee-Keeper will lead 

 them to excuse. 



Borodino, N.Y., Sept. 1.5, 1900. 



HANDLING THE PRODUCTS OF 

 THE HIVE. 



A Few Hints by F. Greiner. 



FORTUNATE is he who has comb- 

 honey to market this year. We 

 are having just at present (Aug. 

 :3.5th) a fair honey-flow from buckwheat, 

 and it «eems now that we will not have 

 to feed our bees for winter: but all our 

 hives were so destitute of honey whfui 

 the flow from buckwheat commenced 

 that nearly all the honey buckwheat 

 can possibly yield will be needed by the 

 bees to keep them through the next 

 winter. 



Other friends; even in this State, have 

 harvested a good crop and perhaps are 

 by this time preparing same for the 

 market. I deem it best not to fit and 

 crate very much honey until it gets 

 cooler. September and October are the 

 months well adapted for the work. 



For cleaning and scraping the sections 

 of honey I still prefer and use the jack- 

 knife, it has a short, thick, but sharp 

 blade. To do the work, the section is 

 placed on a coarse mesh-wire sieve, 

 which allows all the scrapings to drop 

 through. I often use cheap labor for 

 this work: but to take the filled sec- 

 tions out of their wide frames, section- 

 holders, T supers etc., requires an 

 experienced hand, lest a good many 

 sections would be damaged. 



Before emptying a full super it is a 

 good practice to first stand same on end 

 right before you on a work-bench in 

 such a manner that the light will shine 

 into all the spaces. Almost at a glance 

 you will be able to see whether any 

 comb has been attached to the separa- 

 t(jr. Some colonies have a disagreeable 

 wav of doing this. If the super has 



