546 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Sept. 2, 



the bees, then allowing the brood to batch. I used the bees 

 to stock nuclei for queen-breeding, and now I have them built 

 up into extra-pood Italian colonics. This honey was good for 

 nothing else, only to manufacture into bees, and my neigh- 

 bors used to say in Iowa, " Give Gallup a little honey and a 

 few buckwheat hulls, and he will manufacture a colony of 

 bees at any time." 



You probably say there is work about this. What are we 

 keeping bees for ? It is just as poor economy to allow your 

 bees to do without feed at any season as it is to starve yo\ir 

 stock. Orange Co., Calif., Aug. 2. 



Where to Store Comb Honey. 



BY G. .M. DOOMTTLE. 



As the season of the year is upon us when we are taking 

 section honey from the hives, it may be well to ask about 

 where we shall store it, unless we have thought the matter up 

 before, and come to a correct conclusion. A " correct conclu- 

 sion," when I first kept bees, always said, "Keep section 

 honey in the cellar," and then when askt " why," I was 

 always met with, " Because that is where all of our ancestors 

 kept it." Well, because a majority do a thing, it does not 

 always prove that what the majority do is the best thing to 

 do. The majority did not go in the ark with Noah, yet no 

 one, seeing things in the light of the past, will now say aught 

 against what Noah did. Then Noah and the right were finally 

 in the majority when he came out of the ark. 



Likewise, one or two began to preach that a continued 

 keeping of honey in the cellar would cause it to be drowned 

 with dampness until it would be of no more value than were 

 the people who persisted in staying out of the ark, when they 

 were laught at and mockt ; but a continuous preaching, and 

 that backt by thousands of pounds of souring, fermenting and 

 sickening looking and smelling honey, as I once saw in the 

 city of New York, changed things so that those who stood for 

 a warm room as being the place to keep honey as soon as 

 taken from the hive, are in the majority now, among those 

 who read our bee-papers. 



If the temperature of the room need never fall below 70 

 Fahr., standing from that to 100- of heat, honey stored in 

 such a room will be always improving, and would keep its 

 excellent qualities for years. Because such temperature is 

 hard to maintain, is the reason that honey in the comb is 

 allowed to deteriorate, and that no one wants old honey after 

 the new has come upon the market. I once kept section 

 honey by the aid of a coal-stove, so that it was much better 

 every way at the end of three years, than was some of the 

 same honey when it was taken from the hive. 



Many of our Eastern bee-keepers store their honey in a 

 loft, or room just under the roof of the house, which is the 

 best possible place for summer keep, and such a place is ad- 

 visable where some hoisting apparatus can be f urnisht to do 

 the work of elevatiug it. 



The next best thing is to have a one-story building, raised 

 a suitable distance from the ground, say from 18 inches to 2 

 feet, the same being covered with a metal roof, which should 

 be painted red or black. If, in addition to this, the sunny 

 sides of the buil<ling are painted dark also, you will have heat 

 sufficient to ripen your honey in fine shape, unless there 

 should come two or three weeks of cloudy, rainy weather, as 

 we sometimes have here, in which case artlflclal heat should 

 be resorted to. 



The honey should be piled a few Inches off the floor, and 

 a little out from the wall, otherwise that near the bottom and 

 side of the room will accumulate moisture from want of cir- 

 culation of air. Honey that is sealed will stand much more 

 dampness and non-circulation of air than will that which is 

 unsealed ; hence. It is well, as far as may be, to pile that the 



most perfectly sealed near the bottom of the pile, and that 

 less sealed nearer the top. There arc very few sections but 

 what have more or less unsealed cells where the same border 

 on the wood to the section, and these are what cause the 

 trouble of leaky sections more than anything else, for very 

 few practical apiarists will take much honey from the hive 

 having unsealed cells, except those noted. 



Now, if our storing-room can have a temperature and dry- 

 ness of air sufficient to evaporate or thicken the honey in the 

 cells next to the wood, we are boss of the situation, till the 

 honey leaves our hands, and can place it on the market in the 

 best possible shape. I have had the honey so thin in these 

 open cells when taken from the hive, that it would run out 

 and daub ;hings if the section was not kept in an upright 

 position, and yet, after three weeks' stay in ray honey-room, 

 with a temf(praturo as above, the same section could be rolled 

 about at pleasure, and not a drop of honey come from any 

 cell, it was so evaporated or thickened. 



Then, there is another point in favor of this warm-room 

 plan : Where honey is shipt to a distance, unless kept as 

 above, it will rarely hold out weight when it reaches its desti- 

 nation, as the dry car will absorb much of the moisture from 

 the honey, thus causing the one to whom you ship to report a 

 shortage, and you to consider him dishonest. But take honey 

 from your dry, hot room, and ship it, and instead of drying out 

 it will be liable to come in contact with an atmosphere more 

 moist than the one in which you kept it, and the result is that 

 every case weighs, on reaching its destination, from several 

 ounces to a pound more than it did with you, thus giving you 

 the name of giving " good weight." — Progressive Bee-Keeper. 



A Few Experiences of the Past Season. 



BY E. B. TYRRELL. 



I will try to give some of my past season's experiences in 

 the " Mysteries and Miseries of Bee-Keeping," as Mr. Edwin 

 Bevins puts it. 



By the way, Mr. Bevins reminds me of the cow that gave 

 a fine pail of milk, and then kickt it over before the milker 

 could rise from his stool ; for in one paragraph he advocates 

 producing only extracted honey, and in the next he " gives 

 himself away," that he is a comb honey producer. Can't be 

 that Mr. Bevins practices what he preaches. 



I started the season with one great, big mistake, which I 

 will tell about, as it may benefit some one else, altho I am 

 ashamed to acknowledge the mistake. It was in not being in 

 readiness for the bees. I neglected getting my hives and frames 

 in readiness early, and consequently I lost much honey, and 

 also many valuable swarms. 



One thing which I wish to call the attention of the readers 

 of the Bee Journal to, is in the matter of hotlom hive-ventila- 

 tion during the hot summer months. I gave all my hives ven- 

 tilation by raising the backs of the hives up about % or 1 inch, 

 by placing a little pebble under the back of the hive, and the 

 bees did not mind the heat, altho some apiarists around here 

 lost bees by the combs melting down. 



Oh, yes, that reminds me that this is my first season with 

 chaff hives, and I can't say that I like them, as they are too 

 clumsy to handle. I believe they are good winter and spring 

 hives, but I don't like them in summer. They are too expen- 

 sive, clumsy and warm. Yes, and I had one swarm in a 20- 

 frame hive, one-story, and altho it gave me good results as far 

 as honey Is concerned, I don't believe I'll make another, for 

 the reason that It is too clumsy, and, besides, there is too 

 much surface exposed when you take the cover off for the pur- 

 pose of getting at the frames. The boes would crawl all over 

 the top and sides of the hive, making a nasty mess to work in. 



I have decided to produce extracted honey, and I believe I 

 will stick to the H-frame Langstroth hive, tiering it up as 



