i8y7. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



off. I always use tin separators, and have the comb built nice 

 and straight in the sections, as a nice section of honey helps 

 to malie the sale. To build up a trade for the bee-l<eeper, I 

 think it pays well to stamp the section with a stamp giving 

 his name and post-office address. 



To introduce and sell extracted honey to the same people 

 that had for the last eight or ten years been buying my comb 

 honey was quite another thing, and hard for me to do, and, 

 for that reason, my e.\tracted honey I shipt mostly to the 

 large cities to be sold on commission, and of late years at a 

 ruinously low price. 



The mistake I had made in trying to sell extracted honey 

 to grocerymen was in trying to sell in large quantities (60- 

 pound cans), instead of using small receptacles to get a trade 

 built up for liquid honey. So, at last, I tried the one-pound 

 square glass jars, with a neat label on each ; this did the 

 business. 



I have the Jars of honey crated so they will not break, and 

 take them right along with me to market. I go iuto a grocery, 

 ind at the leisure of the proprietor I show him ray package of 

 honey, and explain to him how neat it is, and how heavy and 

 ripe the honey is. I tell him that it Is just the same as other 

 honey, only it is out of the comb. If a sale cannot be made 

 otherwise, I sometimes leave a dozen jars for him to sell, to 

 be paid for when sold. 



When I have made a sale, I bring in the honey, and with 

 a clean cloth I wipe the dust off the jars and set them on the 

 •counter, or set them in line on the show-case to attract atten- 

 tion, as they should make a nice display so as to sell in a few 

 days. This will please the grocerymen, as you will readily see. 



To hold your trade, sell strictly pure honey, ripe and rich; 

 do business always on the square, and get acquainted with 

 those you sell to. 



There, now, fellow bee-keepers, I have tried to tell you in 

 my poor way how I have been somewhat successful in dispos- 

 ing of my crop of honey. Marshall Co., Ind. 



Apiary of J. E. Enyart, Gentry Co., Mo. 



BY J. E. ENYART. 



The picture herewith shows the rear end of ray hives, 

 •which face east. At the right is my honey-house, but I have 

 a larger one at present. I have several kinds of hives, and 

 the picture was taken with shade-boards on them. 



I was born June 7, 185 L, in Daviess county, Mo.; I went 

 to the district school all of my spare time from the farm dur- 

 ing winters. My parents removed to Gentry county. Mo., in 

 1865, where I have remained ever since. 



I remember well when I found my first bee-tree, by mere 

 ajiiideiit, that gave me the bee-fever, in 1872. After that I 

 hunted bees all of my spare time in July and August, and 

 found several trees each season, as year by year went on. 



I married Miss Adaline Groves, Aug. 29, 1882. Our son, 

 born Aug. 9, 1883, is seen in the picture. 



I had a love ior bee-keeping, so in the spring of 1888 I 

 began in earnest, by getting some improved hives, and trans- 

 ferring bees from log-gums and box-hives. I had fair success 

 that seaSDn in getting honey, but was not successful in keep- 

 ing comb honey ; I remember when I opened my nice, clean 

 box and found my nice section honey nearly ruined by the 

 raoth-worni. Then I sent for " Langstroth on the Honey- 

 Bee," revised by Dadants, which is a fine work. I also pur- 

 chased several other good bee-bnoks ; ordered the American 

 Bee Journal in 1891, and have been a constant reader ever 

 since. 



I have had several good crops of honey, and have re- 

 ceived fair prices for it. My wife and son are a great help to 

 me in my apiary. Gentry Co., Mo. 



i!5. 



•*• 



Season of 1896 — Comb Honey vs. Extracted. 



BY C. DAVESPORT. 



The past season In this locality was a fairly good one for 

 honey. Basswood was an entire failure, although it blossomed 

 in great profusion, as did fall flowers of many kinds, but they 

 also failed to yield any honey except wild buckwheat; from 

 this a small amount was secured. The surplus was gathered 

 from white and Alslke clover, and from those colonies in good 

 condition, which averaged about 6(J pounds of comb honey. 

 Last year, for the first time, there was considerable Alsike 

 clover around here ; Ibis yielded well, but the honey from it is 

 not equal to that from white clover. 



Although I have always produced comb honey principally, 

 X have for a number of years had a leaning towards the pro- 



duction of extracted, and have read with much interest what 

 has been written about the profits of comb and extracted 

 honey. But these reports were very conflicting, especially In 

 regard to how much more extracted could be produced, some 

 claiming thai twice as much extracted honey could be secured, 

 and from this on down to one or two who claimed that there 

 could be as much, or very nearly as much, comb honey pro- 

 duced as extracted. 



In order to find out something about this, as well as the 

 difference in the amount of labor required in the production 

 of the two kinds, I conducted an experiment the past season 

 that may be of interest to some who have never produced both 

 kinds of honey. At the beginning of the season 40 colonies 

 in good condition were selected — 20 of them were used for the 

 production of extracted honey, and the other 20 for comb 

 honey. The hives were all 8-frame except five, which con- 

 tained 10 frames. The latter were all put among those run 

 for extracted. A careful account was kept of the amount of 

 honey stored by each set. In the beginning an effort was also 

 made to keep track of the amount of work required by each 

 set, but this was soon given up as impracticable, but I will 

 say more of this later. With the 40 colonies no effort to pre- 

 vent swarming was made, except to give them plenty of ven- 

 tilation and surplus room. Of the 20 run for comb honey, 11 

 swarmed ; these were each hived in a new hive on the old 

 stand: all the bees left on the combs were shaken off and 

 allowed to run in with the swarm. The combs of brood and 

 honey were then given to weak colonies, nuclei, etc., and no 

 further account taken of them. 



Of the 20 colonies run for extracted honey, 7 swarmed, 

 and 3 of these were from the 10-frame hives ! These 7 

 swarms were all treated the same as the others. 



Perhaps I should say that the frameson which all swarms 

 from both sets were hived had only small starters of founda- 

 tion in them, for in producing comb honey in this locality, at 

 least I was, until the past season, convinced that more white 

 honey could be secured in the sections if swarms (either nat- 

 ural or artificial) were hived on frames with only small start- 

 ers of foundation, for then if the supers from the old hive in 

 which work had been commenced, or if there was none on the 

 old hive, one containing two or three sections with partly or 

 fully drawn combs and the rest with full sheets of foundal'on 

 is placed on the hive soon after the swarm is hived, work will 

 be commenced in it at once in a fair flow, and, as fast as comb 

 is built below the queen will surely keep it full, or nearly fu'l, 

 of brood, so that, of necessity, most of the white honey is 

 stored in the supers, providing the swarm issued at or soon 

 after the beginning of the white honey harvest, and this is the 

 usual time for swarming to occur in this locality. 



On the other hand, when full sheets of foundation are 

 used in the brood-frames, a swarm will draw it out much 

 faster than the queen can lay, and then all the way from 15 

 to 30 pounds — the amount, of course, varying and depending 

 upon the queen and character of the flow — of white honey 

 stored in the brood-frames. But there is one serious objec- 

 tion to this plan of using only starters in the brood-frames, 

 and that is the large amount of drone-comb that will some- 

 times be built, especially with an old or declining queen. I 

 have had some cases where swarms would in this way rear 

 fully as much as four frames of drone-brood, and at this sea- 

 son, no matter how much drone-comb is built, the queen 

 usually lays eggs in the most of it, and at least one generation 

 of drones is reared. This a serious loss, for I believe sealed 

 drone-brood weighs as much as sealed honey; so in cases 

 where two or three frames of drone-brood are reared, it is at 

 a loss of from 10 to 20 pounds of white honey — perhaps more, 

 for I have based my figures on the supposition that a pound 

 of sealed honey will produce, or is equal to, a pound of sealed 

 brood. But my oijinion is that it takes in the proportion of 

 at least two pounds of sealed honey to equal one pound of 

 newly-sealed brood, and if I am right in this, it would give us 

 from 20 to 40 pounds of honey that would in some cases be 

 used in rearing useless drones, and this, too, allowing that 

 only one generation is reared, when the fact is, there are often 

 more. The cost of full sheets of foundation would be small 

 in comparison with the amount that is lost, when a large 

 amount of drone-comb is built. 



Last season I also conducted some quite extensive experi- 

 ments in this line by hiving both natural and artificial swarms 

 on frames containing full sheets of foundation, and others on 

 frames with only small starters. The results of these experi- 

 ments have left me in doubt as to which is the best plan, 

 although the swarms hived on full sheets gave me, on the 

 average, much the best results. But last year we had a long, 

 but at no time very profuse, flow from clover. In a short, 

 profuse flow, like we generally have from basswood, 1 believe 

 the swarms hived on starters would have given the best re 



