424 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 17, 1906 



PRODUCING EXTRACTED HONEY. 



There are honest differences of opinion on this subject, 

 and they are fully justified by the difference in localities and 

 managements. The first we find is that of the Dadants, who 

 have always insisted that unless the apiarist wishes to im- 

 prove his stock by giving selected queens, it is just as well 

 to let the bees renew their queens themselves, when they 

 think best to do it. And this is easily understood. The Da- 

 dants are working for extracted honey, use very large hives, 

 and give their bees all the built combs they need, both in the 

 brood-nest and in the supers. With plenty of empty comb in 

 the supers, bees will never crowd the brood-nest with honey, 

 and with plenty of room in the brood-nest the brood-rear- 

 ing will not be curtailed, and swarming will rarely take place. 

 So the two reasons for wanting young queens when working 

 for_ comb honey do not exist when working for extracted. 

 It is -hardly necessary to say here that in producing comb 

 honey, the difficulty is because the bees are not able to build 

 comb in the sections fast enough to accommodate the honey 

 that they can bring in, hence their disposition to put it in 

 the brood-nest. 



CHANGING QUEENS YEARLY. 



And now comes Mr. Doolittle, who says that he produces 

 comb honey, but does not think it necessary to change queens 

 every year. 



Hm! Doolittle is a bigger man than I am in more ways 

 than one. Perhaps the "locality" may explain the difference 

 of opinion. 



If I understand his writing correctly, he has only one 

 flow of honey, from basswood and white "clover. Before that 

 flow he has several weeks, in which to build up his colonies. 

 During that time there is enough nectar coming in to keep 

 up brood-rearing, but not enough to furnish any surplus 

 honey. So he can- winter only medium colonies, having suffi- 

 cient time to build them up for the white clover and bass- 

 wood. 



During the main flow he doesn't want too much brood. 

 In fact he doesn't want a queen too prolific at that time. 

 He prefers to have in the sections the honey that the brood 

 would have consumed and have the bees busy in the supers, 

 rather than busy at brood-rearing. As the flow lasts only a 

 few weeks, the bees reared at that time would mature too late 

 to be of any advantage. Others have gone even further in 

 that direction. Heddon, Hutchinson, etc., contract the brood- 

 nest severely at that time. Elwood and Hetherington cage 

 the queens or remove them entirely, partly for the same 

 reason and partly to prevent swarming. 



After the main flow is over, there is nothing, or practi- 

 cally nothing, to gather outside, and the extra bees reared 

 during the flow would simply be what has been termed "use- 

 less consumers." 



Evidently with such management a young queen that 

 would persist in laying as much as possible during the main 

 flow is not wanted. 



That the system is good under such circumstances is not 

 to be doubted. The splendid crops obtained bv Doolittle tell 

 the tale. The tree is known by its fruits. If I have made 

 any mistake, or misunderstood something, I shall be glad to 

 be corrected. In fact, I would like to have, from Doolittle 

 a full article on the subject. 



OTHER LOCALITIES. 



But it does not follow that the same system of manage- 

 ment would work well everywhere. 



i. In some localites in northern Michigan, for instance, 

 a good surplus can be obtained from wild raspberries early in 

 the spring. Everywhere, now and then, somebody brings 

 forth a super full of sections built and filled during apple- 

 blossom time, showing that in some places, at least, surplus 

 honey could be obtained from that source. Evidently to take 

 advantage of such surplus it is necessary to go into winter 

 quarters with strong colonies, as there would not be time 

 enough in the spring to build them up. 



2. Some localities have two flows. For instance, the 

 alfalfa regions have two flows corresponding to the two crops 

 of alfalfa. Some years ago, after having written an article 

 similar to this, I received several" letters complaining that 

 during the first flow of alfalfa the bees were crowding the 

 brood-nest and rearing but little brood, with the result that 

 when the second flow came there was not enough field-bees 

 to take care of it, and inquiring if I knew a remedy. Other 

 localities have a second flow of buckwheat or fall" flowers, 

 and if the brood-rearing is curtailed during the first flow' 

 what is gamed then will be lost later, besides having the bees 

 go into winter quarters in a weaker condition. 



3. The trouble mentioned in the case of two flows exists 

 in the case of a long flow, say two months or more, even 

 more rather than less. 



4. Sometimes, after the main flow is over, there is dur- 

 ing the balance of summer and the fall enough nectar to be 

 had to keep up the colonies and provide with ample provisions 

 for the winter. In such cases the weakening of the colonies 

 during the flow might be a disadvantage. True, more honey 

 might be had as surplus, but after that the colonies would 

 be weaker. And in a very light flow a weak colony might 

 dwindle, a medium one barely keeps up, and a strong One in- 

 creases, gets full provisions for winter and early spring, and 

 is sure to winter all right and give good account of itself 

 the following year. 



5. In my locality, and all over the South, it is still 

 worse. There we have not exactly a long flow, but a long 

 honey season consisting of a succession of usually weak flows, 

 of different duration, and separated by longer or shorter in- 

 tervals. 



No two years are alike. Some flows are sometimes 

 longer, sometimes shorter, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, 

 or missing entirely. The sources of flows are not the same 

 everywhere, and the length of the season also vary with 

 the different localities. What makes it worse yet, is that 

 the spring begins early, but cold, raw, and sometimes freez- 

 ing weather comes back often, and stops the work in the 

 sections entirely. This of course makes the clogging of the 

 honey in the brood-nest worse. By ample protection of the 

 supers, all possible inducements to the bees to take up work in 

 them, renewing the queens every fall, the evil can be greatly 

 mitigated, but not entirely, by any means ; and I am still ex- 

 perimenting in the line of improvements in that direction. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



(£onr>entton 

 Proceebings 



~> 



J 



Extracted Honey and Its Quality 



Read at the Northern Michigan Convention 

 BY GEO. H. KIRKPATRICK. 



HOW we may produce a better quality of extracted honey 

 than is being produced to-day by the average bee-keeper 

 is a subject of much importance to the average bee- 

 keeper, for fully three-fourths of the annual crop is extracted 

 honey. 



I shall not point out any iron-clad rules, though I shall 

 attempt to give a few practical points. Perhaps the most im- 

 portant feature is the location. We should seek a location 

 where the bees will be sheltered from the chilly winds in early 

 spring; a location that will place our bees within easy reach 

 of a very large acreage of honey-producing plants such as 

 yield a quantity of light honey. The practical bee-keeper in a 

 good location will secure a fair crop of honey from any of the 

 different styles of hives now in use. 



Twenty-three years have passed since I began bee-keep- 

 ing. I commenced with the Standard 10-frame Langstroth 

 hive." I have used the Langstroth hive more or less during 

 these 23 years. Having tested pretty thoroughly the Danzen- 

 baker and the Heddon hives, I have proved to my own satis- 

 faction, by repeated tests, that a much better quality of honey 

 can be produced in shallow extracting supers than in deep 

 ones. During the past five years I have built all new hives 

 only eight inches deep. We now have more than 200 colonies 

 in these shallow hives, and we shall continue to build and to 

 use this hive. 



Note the results : With this shallow hive we have one 

 suited to the size of the colony in early spring; a brood- 

 frame that the queen will occupy close up to the top-bar. 

 True, a single story of this hive is too small to rear such 

 colonies as we must have to store large crops of real good 

 honey. This hive is suited to the storifying principle — a prin- 

 ciple of much importance to the extracted-honey producer. 

 1 begin to tier up when the single-story brood-chamber is 

 filled with brood and bees. When the colonies arrive at this 

 stage I put on the first super, placing between it and the 

 brood-chamber a queen-excluder. At this time I lift two 

 combs of hatching brood from the brood-chamber into the 



