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AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



March 6, 1902 



Extracted honey is really a much better and safer article 

 to handle, either for the bee-keeper or groceryman, than 

 is comb honey. \'ery few people outside of the honey- 

 producer know how to handle comb honey properly, and 

 without getting it to leaking. I sometimes do wonder that 

 storekeepers will handle the article when I see in what 

 shape they keep it— leaking, daubing everything, shelves all 

 sticky, cases dirty with the dust that settled on them, broken 

 combs, etc. Now all this seems unnecessary, and yet it is 

 not an uncommon thing to be seen. 



In case of extracted honey how different it is! Unless 

 a package breaks there is scarcely a leak. The honey is 

 put up m original packages by the producer, some per- 

 haps m tm, some in glass. They can be handled rouglily, 

 turned upside down if sealed; on the whole, such should 

 give satisfaction all around, and do. The only drawback 

 is the granulating (•art. On this the consumer needs en- 

 lightenment. After he once understands this matter thor- 

 oughly he will object to it very little. In fact, a great many 

 people think the extracted honey just delicious when it 

 is semi-granulated. I found many people that were just 

 taken up with it when it was so partly granulated, sort of 

 semi-transparent and almost too thick to run at all. When 

 our honey gets solid and hard in small-mouthed and deep 

 glass packages, it is then not in good shape to be sold and 

 It must be liquefied. By keeping them in a very warm place 

 for a time the honey will come back to its liquid state with- 

 out opening the packages. I would not use small-mouthed 

 deep glass bottles anyhow, and, if I did, I would not put 

 up .any more of the honey than I could dispose of soon. 

 As long as we have our honey stored in tin we can liquefy 

 it very easily. 



I do not store honey in wooden receptacles and let it 

 become hard. It requires a great deal of work to remove 

 solid honey from wooden packages, as I have found by 

 experience. This can and should be avoided. 



I do not object to selling to retail dealers, in fact I am 

 anxious to do so. I tell the groceryman so; but I do 

 object to his making an unduly large profit. I also tell 

 the groceryman that he does not understand handling comb- 

 honey properly; that the honey he keeps for sale in the 

 way he does rather disgusts the purchasing public, and that 

 the honey I sell, or show to the people as I go from house 

 to house, looks neat and clean ; it has not been punched 

 full of holes by careless handling, therefore does not leak, 

 €tc. If I can sell him a number of cases of honey I 

 caution him to exercise more care in handling the sections, 

 clean up all leaks immediately, and keep things looking per- 

 fectly tidy. 



I cannot say that I was entirely satisfied with my peddling 

 trip, although I sold some $28 worth of my product I 

 though I ought to have sold more. The beauty and the 

 surprise, however, was, that orders came in for more honey 

 in consequence of my trip right along after that and I 

 expect in the future I will have very little trouble in sell- 

 ing a large share of my crop in my vicinity. 



If the bee-keepers as a whole would follow a similar 

 course in disposing of their crop, there is no doubt that 

 the price of honey would very soon rise, for it is the large 

 business centers that fix the price of it, and these centers 

 are over-supplied now. Let these people get anxious for 

 our honey, and then you can ask a fair price, and get it. 

 We do not produce too much good honey at the present time ; 

 the trouble is the uneven distribution. F. Greiner. 



A brief history of the Ontario County Bee-Keeper,-,' 

 Association was given by Mr. Olmstead, mentioning tlie 

 names of the founders, etc., and was responded to. 



HUNTING BEES. 



In his talk on this subject, Mr. H. L. Case gave some 

 valuable hints to those who like this sport. He said he 

 had given up the "bee-box" with its bait, to start a line, 

 long ago, but lined the bees from watering-places; he had 

 found that bees do not travel far carrying water, but take 

 it from the next puddle, or spring, watering-trough or the 

 like. If bees are found working in such a place near a 

 piece of woods, one may be sure to find the bees near by. 

 To locate the bees is an easy matter — just keep the eyes 

 open. He had found in a few afternoons 24 trees within a 

 few miles of the village, and said there were 75 more in 

 the woods. Six bee-trees he found one afternoon, lining 

 all from one and the same little spring. 



HOW MR. RIKER MAN.\GES. 



Mr. Riker, of Iowa, produces only extracted honey ; he 

 told the bee-keepers how he managed his bees. He win- 

 ters them in single-walled three-story hives; says they give 

 better results than chaff hives in Iowa. The lower story is 

 empty, the bees with the combs containing 40 pounds of 

 honey are in the second story, and the upper story is 

 filled with absorbing packing material. A temporary wind- 

 break of cornfodder is set up around on three sides' of the 

 apiary. This shelter he thinks is most essential. Pro- 

 tected in this manner his bees come out of the winter with 

 12 pounds of bees per colony, which fill the hives with brood 

 so that he soon has from 18 to 21 pounds of bees in each 

 hive. The lower and empty stories are filled with combs, 

 the packing is removed from the upper story and eight 

 combs are given here, the eight given occupying the same 

 room that the 10 would occupy. 



When colonies become too strong, he removes combs of 

 brood and adhering bees and forms increase. He does not 

 take off any honey till the season is over. The upper 

 stories are taken to a basement room and kept warm for 

 some time, when he extracts the honey. The lower stories 

 are emptied of their combs and the hives gotten ready 

 again for winter. 



The highest yield he has ever had in one day from one 

 colony was 18 pounds from clover. 



When queens are discovered that are not up to the 

 mark, they are removed at once and young fertile queens are 

 given. He introduces queens without further ceremony; 

 as soon as the dequeened colony becomes uneasy the new 

 queen is allowed to run in at the entrance and is accepted. 

 Incidentally he made the remark that one of his queens, 

 which had been clipped, did good service for seven years. 



FOUL BROOD. 



Mr. R. L. Taylor then spoke on foul brood, describing 

 symptoms and appearance, and said he had cured many 

 diseased colonies by shaking the bees off from their combs, 

 and giving them a new hive and foundation-filled frames. 

 However, when the disease is in the advanced stage, and 

 could be told by the odor when entering the apiary, he 

 thought burning was the safest and best. When he first 

 had foul brood in his yard he said one of the affected 

 colonies cast a swarm which he hived on foundation and it 

 remained healthy. This showed him the way. He had 

 found that foul brood did not spread as rapidly as we are 

 led to believe, but advised to exercise great care to pre- 

 vent the spreading of the disease by bees robbing. The 

 work of shaking off the bees should be done rapidly ; it 

 would not do to treat diseased colonies when bees were 

 flying. Diseased bees should also be prevented from enter- 

 ing adjoining hives. Early in the morning, he thought, was 

 a good time, before the bees got to flying. He cautioned 

 not to leave any honey lying around anywhere. With care, 

 the disease could be cured ; one need not get into a frenzy 

 because his bees have the disease. 



The question-box was conducted by Mr. Taylor, and 

 proved to be interesting, but lack of space forbids going 

 into the details. 0.,ia in Cu., J\ \. 



Contributed Articles. 



No. 2.— Bee-Keeping for Women. 



How to Beg^in the Business of Keeping- Bees. 



■~ BY EMMA M. WILSON. 



If you are going into bee-keeping as a business you 

 should begin at the very beginning, and know something 

 about bees. 



When I first commenced driving I did not drive a horse 

 until I knew how to harness and unharness it. I wanted 

 to learn enough about the harness so that if anything 

 went wrong about it I would know what it was that was 

 wrong, and how to remedy it ; and more than once I have 



