374 



AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



June 12, 1902. 



screens, and double or treble cone escapes on the windows, 

 all made with a view to keeping bees out and facilitating 

 the escape of those that by any means are in. If you are 

 taking- off supers when there is no robbing, just set them 

 about the yard as open and airy as possible, and they are 

 soon free ; but if robbers, put into the shanty, but also as 

 light and airy as possible, and let the bees go out through 

 the escapes. If brood is in a super, only brushing will get 

 the bees out. 



Do not be afraid to have two supers to the colony ; it 

 pays to have plenty of room, saves having such a rush in 

 extracting when the flow is on and you are so very busy 

 you don't have time to eat. You can so much more easily 

 and quickly drive bees down from a top super into a second 

 one, the second being put under the full one ; but have the 

 second one on long enough so it will be licked dry and be 

 occupied — you can not successfully smoke down into a wet, 

 sticky super, and not very well through an excluder. Extra 

 supers cost less than hired help — the hired man takes his 

 pay and goes, the supers are paid for and you still have 

 them as so much capital and wealth. If it is a question of 

 hired help or more supers, it is big economy to get the 

 supers. 



Have j'our extractor and all the machinery at home. 

 You have to go to and from the out-yards in any case, and 

 also have to transport the honey, just haul it home in those 

 extra supers, it is no more hauling to move the supers than 

 to move the machinery and cans or tanks, and your extract- 

 ing machinery being all set and arranged at home to the 

 best advantage, makes it a pleasure to handle the product. 



Doing the extracting at home, let the honey remain in 

 the settling tank as long as the tank is not too full, or as 

 long as the honey does not candy, and you have a gilt- 

 edged product. Also, let the honey remain on the hive 

 until all or nearly all is sealed ; it is just as easy to uncap a 

 solid sealed comb as one half sealed, and the wax from the 

 cappings is as profitable as the honey, or more so. 



Stop the old. fussy method of educating your consumers 

 to expect honey always liquid. The same amount of efl'ort 

 and energy spent in educating to use (or buy) candied honey 

 will accomplish the desired end, and save an immense 

 amount of trouble and expense. Just imagine me having 

 customers SOO to 1000 miles away sending back honey to 

 have me melt it for them. I know you will say you can not 

 do it, the people will not have it so ; yet all the while you 

 go right on educating them to have it the reverse. That 

 our extracted can be marketed in the candied condition, and 

 successfully, and a very large class of consumers reached 

 that are not now eating honey, are two things I know. I 

 also know that a good home trade at from 7 to 10 cents for 

 the net honey at home beats selling delivered in Chicago at 

 5 to 6 cents, and producer furnish package and pay freights. 

 That is the size of it, and you must face the fact. 



Here are a few things to keep in mind : Producing ex- 

 tracted honey requires less skill as an apiarist, but it takes 

 quite a considerable more capital invested in hives and 

 machinery : takes more hard work, and, as intimated herein- 

 before, unless you keep in mind that fact, of so much of the 

 stores being put into the extra, and a vast amount of brood 

 being reared in its place, you will starve your bees in winter 

 and spring. Remember, too, that extracted honey will 

 keep indefinitely, so that you have your time to accomplish 

 its marketing ; but with comb honey it must be sold and 

 consumed within its first year. 



Have abundance of super-room ; plenty of tank-storage 

 capacity to hold the product until well settled ; do not rush 

 to extract as fast as gathered, but use the extra super-room 

 to hold the crop until after the rush is over; the rush over, 

 extract at your leisure at home, having a warming-room in 

 which to heat before extracting ; after extracted and well 

 settled, put into retail packages and set aside to candy ; 

 ship or market in retail packages that do not require a sec- 

 ond packing after being drawn from your storage-tank, 

 thereby lessening the vast amount of labor and expense 

 that comes between the producer and consumer. 



These things mean radical changes from the practices 

 of many, but you will do well to think them over, and when 

 you can get to it, practice in some way the principles. One 

 plain fact must be evident to all, e.xtracted honey sold in 

 bulk, in cans and barrels, will not bring good prices nor be 

 profitable. Produce for home trade, and in a retail way for 

 table use ; this is the solution of the problem that is now 

 before the producer of extracted honey. R. C. Aikin. 

 (Continued next week.) 



The Premiums offered this week are well worth working 

 for. Look at them. 



I Contributed Articles. 



No. 2— Rearing Long-Lived Queens and Bees. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



I don't know that I can get all I wish to say on the 

 queen-rearing business into one article, but I suppose I 

 will be allowed to write more if I live long enough. 



To say that I was surprised at Dr. Miller's and Mr. 

 Dadant's answer to the question, as to what is the cause of 

 the longer or shorter lives of worker-bees, hardly expresses 

 it. Why, gentlemen, don't you know that it is the longest- 

 lived bees that do the most work, and out-of-door work at 

 that? I know that the very best and most profitable colo- 

 nies of bees are reared from long-lived queens — queens that 

 live S or years. On the other hand, the least profitable 

 colonies and the shortest-lived bees are those that are reared 

 from queens that live only from 6 to 24 months. 



Perhaps no one has had any more experience in testing 

 queens from as many different queen-breeders than I. As 

 I have been a prominent writer, queen-breeders would send 

 queens for rae to test in the hope that I would recommend 

 their stock, especially when the great fad was for fancy color. 

 Now the fad is long tongues. I3ut, gentlemen, and ladies, 

 too, I want to see another fad, and let it be long-lived bees, 

 both queen and workers. Neither their tongues nor tails 

 will be shortened any bj' carrying out that fad. 



When I came to California I took an apiary in Ventura 

 county, to run on shares, and knowing how to rear long- 

 lived queens and bees I selected two colonies that suited me 

 to breed from, and having some dirty honey to stimulate 

 with, and plenty of ready-made comb (the bees were all in 

 lOframe Langstroth hives), I began stimulating about the 

 last of January, very gradually at first. But in February I 

 attended to it more thoroughly, but not sufficiently to have 

 them store any so as to restrict the queens in breeding. I 

 diluted the honey to about the consistency of fresh-gathered 

 nectar from the flowers, and sprinkled it in the top of the 

 two hives every evening, right among the bees. Both hives 

 were two stories, and each had one comb containing a patch 

 of drone-comb ; I spread the brood according to my notion 

 as the queen required, and the first of March I had two 

 rousing colonies. There being so many bees the queens 

 could and did deposit eggs in any part of the hives, 

 wherever they could find empty or vacent cells. Right here 

 I will say that I usually get more queen-cells built than 

 where the queen deposits her eggs in any one particular 

 part of the hive, and I was not disappointed, as I got 36 

 natural queens from the two colonies. Both colonies sent 

 out their first swarm early in March, before I had drones 

 from other queens. 



The proprietor thought they were not pure, because they 

 were too dark-colored ; but I called them dark leather-colored 

 Italians, and I was not disappointed in them. " Why," said 

 he, " their drones are all black." 



Right here I will explain to our Eastern bee-keepers, 

 that bees can and do gather pollen here the entire year. 

 There was not to exceed four days the past winter that they 

 did not gather pollen in some part of the day. 



If the bees are left to themselves the queens usually stop 

 breeding in November, and do not commence, to amount to 

 much, until the last of January. February is about like your 

 May and June weather. Of course, I mean here in the 

 Santa Ana Valley, not in the mountains. It is now May 

 13, and for the past three weeks bees have been storing very 

 rapidily, and swarming beyond anything I have seen before, 

 since I came to this State. They are everywhere. A boy 

 in the next block from me has 22 swarms, picked up in 

 about as many days. One man has 12, another 42, another 

 24, etc. They have gone into barns, warehouses, chimneys, 

 etc. 



I told you in my first article (last week) how you could 

 rear short-lived queens and workers. My calculations are 

 to tell how I know, in another article. 



I see Mr. Kiker gives another touch on page 302, on the 

 long-lives question. That is right, touch them up, as many 

 of our queen-breeders need it, and need it very badly, judg- 

 ing from the number of worthless queens that I have re- 

 ceived from diff'erent ones, many of them having beea 



