Jan. 4 LyC6 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



2. 4. and 5 years old in the others, and alternating these in 

 the -anic surplus arrangements, and, as in former experiments, 

 I cannot sec any difference. , ■ , , 



Before Wees have access to the sections, I admit that the 

 old looks less inviting than the new. having a cold, hard look. 

 while the new looks much more yellow and soft; hut hist as 

 soon .is the bees cluster on each, the old comes hack to its 

 neu appearance and pliableness, the bees drawing out and 

 lilling each to an extent that, taking the average oi the colonies 

 treated. I can see no difference in favor of either. 1 he only- 

 old foundation that the bees seem disinclined to work is that 

 which has keen on the hives, undrawn, during a period when 

 propolis was being gathered in large quantities, at which times 

 the untouched foundation is often smeared with thin, or 

 almost liquid, propolis, to an extent which makes it look as if 

 it had keen varnished. When any foundation has been so 

 treated the bees are very loth to work it. and I have known 

 sections containing such' to be left untouched, while those all 

 iboul them, containing both old and new foundation, were 

 nicely tilled. . 



in studying this matter of sections you will not fail to 

 look up the matter of "bait" sections, for. if you are like me. 

 you will want from 2 to 12 such hait-seetions in every surplus 

 arrangement which will go on each hive at the commencement 

 of the honey-How. I use these baits only to start the bees in 

 the sections', so that one super to each colony you expect to 

 run for comb honey will he sufficient; and thus you will know 

 how many you can use to each hive by dividing your baits by 

 the number of colonies you expect to use for section honey. 



If you failed to have the bees clean the honey out of 

 these part-tilled sections last fall, and you do not wish to hold 

 them for spring feeding, you can extract the honey out of 

 them at any time during the winter, as the honey must be 

 emptied out of them, for the reason that it will not be likely 

 to correspond with the new wdiite honey that will be stored 

 in them at the beginning of the harvest. To extract this 

 honey best in cold weather, lix a shelf as near the ceiling of 

 your room as possible (as the room is the warmest right up 

 to the overhead wall), putting the part-filled sections on this 

 shelf. Early in the morning start the fire, and keep it going 

 all day. keeping temperature at this shelf as near 100 degrees 

 a- possible. By 3 o'clock in the afternoon you will find the 

 honey warm and thin, while the combs will be tough and 

 pliable. You can now extract the sections by putting several 

 in a close-fitting frame, and handling these frames of sections 

 the same as you would a comb for extracted honey. When 

 th. honey is out. then you are ready to fill the surplus arrange- 

 ments ready to be set on the hives at a moment's notice when 

 the honey harvest arrives. 



I have been censured for thus advising the use of bait- 

 sections, the claim being made that if we do thus that the 

 little honey left after extracting will granulate, and from this 

 the "seed" for granulation will be left in the cells, so that 

 the honey in baits thus used will granulate much sooner than 

 would be the case were the sections cleaned by the bees in 

 the fall before the honey had a chance to granulate. But 

 after years of careful observation and experimenting. I can 

 only think my critics are mistaken, for such does not hold 

 true with me. I am confident that the bees always clean all 

 cells in which they deposit honey absolutely clean before they 

 store any honey therein, and by their so doing all this supposed 

 "seed" is removed so that there are no granulating "germs" 

 left to start granulating. And. as my experience says that 

 the honey in such extracted sections does not granulate any 

 quicker than that in any of the sections containing baits, 

 cleaned by the bees in the fall, as is often recommended, I 

 must be excused for thinking that the ideas of my critics are 

 not well-founded. 



And so you will keep on studying and preparing every- 

 thing you know you will need next year, till you are not only 

 well versed in it all. but have all in readiness in which you are 

 well versed, when you will be fully prepared to meet any and 

 al.l that may come along during the season, whether that be 

 an extra-good one. a medium, or a poor one. If the latter, 

 being all in readiness will help you to secure much more than 

 you otherwise would in a poor season, as I have proven during 

 the past season in which many bee-keepers about here obtained 

 very small results, while my colonies gave an average yield of 

 114 pounds of section honey per colony. 



If you have never tried preparing as above, this will be 

 in tune for you to do so this winter, and in this way you can 

 prove whether Doolittle is right or not. Borodino, N. Y. 



See Langstroth Book Offer on another page of this 

 copy of the American Bee Journal. 



Cleaning Unfinished Sections— Black Bees- 

 Finding Queens— Feeding Bees 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



WITH reference to Miss Wilson's inquiry as to why her 

 bees are so plaguey mean about cleaning out unfinished 

 sections, 1 shall have to reply in the words so familiar to 

 all of the readers of the American Bee Journal in till lands — "I 

 don't know." If I had a lot of bees showing such perversitj oi 

 disposition I think I would have them hanged, drawn, and 

 quartered. 



1 will venture a guess, however, as to what is the trouble, 

 lives will carry down unsealed honey at almost any time, but 

 are very slow to remove the cappings from sealed honey when 

 there is little or no room for storing in the brood-chamber. 

 If, after Miss Wilson had put the first super of unfinished 

 sections on hive No. 32, and had it occupied by the bees, she 

 had taken it off and put on a super filled with empty combs, 

 or combs only partly filled, and then placed the board on that. 

 and the super with the bees on top of the board. I believe 

 results would have been better. 



When bees are slow to uncap their honey I use the 

 uncapping-knife. In all my experience, honey, after uncapping, 

 has disappeared very rapidly, unless the weather had become 

 too cool, or the brood-chamber happened to be too nearly 

 filled. 



I have 4.000 or more of cleaned-out sections at this 

 writing, and all were cleaned on the hives, without exposure 

 to all of the bees of the yard, and with no great trouble on 

 my part. 



My bees. I believe, are a good deal like Dr. Miller's, 

 except in the matter of contrariness about cleaning out un- 

 finished sections, ting with a few black bees about 14 

 years ago. I have been introducing more or less Italian queens 

 and nuclei into the apiary every year since. The queens have 

 all been from reputable breeders in many States. I have also 

 some bees with queens reared in the yard in colonies doing 

 the best work. The present fall I have purchased and intro- 

 duced more Italian queens than in any one season before. 



Undesirability of Black Bees. 



Mr. Allen Latham quite recently made, in the American 

 Bee Journal, a strong plea in behalf of the blacks. One cir- 

 cumstance, observed this season, spoke eloquently to me of 

 their undesirableness. The season was a poor one for honey. 

 Starting the season with 140 colonies, and having an increase 

 of 3 by swarming. I have only 120 colonies packed for winter. 

 The lessened number is due to doubling up — doubling the 

 weakest and lightest with stronger and heavier colonies. 



In doing this work I found almost invariably the colonies 

 of blackest bees were the lightest in stores. The colonies 

 having most stores had queens of the previous season's rear- 

 ing, or were strong in Italian blood. 



My work of doubling and requeening began about Sept. 

 22. and did not end till the first of November. I began 

 and ended feeding on the same dates. The feeding ought to 

 have been finished earlier, but having a large number of 

 colonies to feed, and there being a promise in early September 

 of .a good fall flow. I delayed feeding in order to save expense. 

 A change in weather conditions destroyed this hope, and it 

 was then that I began an examination of the hives. 



In my examinations, whenever I found a hive with bees 

 that showed they were very weak or altogether deficient in 

 Italian blood, the queen was removed and an Italian queen 

 given. There were but few colonies in this condition. The 

 other colonies requeened were strongly hybrid, and the changes 

 were made for various reasons. 



Finding Queexs in the Hives. 



Much has been written on the subject of finding black 

 queens which is all thrown away on me. 1 cannot endure to 

 spend much time in the search for a queen. My way is to 

 nail a strip of perforated zinc across the entrance of an 

 empty hive, and then set this empty hive in the place of the 

 hive wdiere the queen is that I want to find. Care must be 

 used in cutting the piece of zinc. It is necessary to cut so as 

 to leave a mere thread of metal below the lower row of 

 perforations, so that the metal between the ends of the per- 

 forations may not be bent inward or outward. A strip thus 

 prepared is better than an Alley trap, or a swarm-guard, as it 

 makes no place for some of the bees to cluster and thus hinder 

 the entrance of other bees. 



When the empty is put on the old stand. 1 put a wide 

 board in front, propped up so as to be on a level with the top 



