



42dYEAR. 



CHICAGO, ILL, SEPT. 4, 1902. 



No. 36, 



* Editorial. ^ I 



Comb Versus E.xtractefl Honey.— 



The question is often asked by beginners, 

 " Sliall I produce comb or extracted honey i" 

 The question is not one to be answered off- 

 hand in a single word. The flora must be 

 considered. Someliindsot honey, especially 

 the darl;er and the stronger-flavored varieties, 

 may find a ready market, even if not at a 

 high figure, while the same honey in sections 

 could hardly find sale at any price. The mar- 

 ket must be considered. There are local pref- 

 erences which can not be utterly ignored. 

 Consumers in some localities may prefer ex- 

 tracted at the same price as comb. In other 

 localities they will have none of it at any 

 price. 



The man must also be considered. One 

 man has learned the trade of producing comb 

 honey so as to make it more profitable, while 

 another man in the same locality will make 

 extracted more profitable. Perhaps the sea- 

 son should also be considered, although how 

 is one to know in advance what the season 

 is to be '. If the season is unusually cool, the 

 cool days, and especially the cool nights, will 

 drive the bees out of the sections; and if 

 honey be gathered in larger amount than 

 necessary for the daily consumption of the 

 colony it will be crowded into the brood- 

 chamber, crowdingout the queen ; while with 

 extracting-combs the honey would be stored 

 above. As illustrating this, see the following 

 editorial from the Rocky Mountain Bee .Jour- 

 nal; 



This is one of the seasons when it would 

 have paid to run all of our apiaries for ex- 

 tracted honey. A fairly good crop might 

 have been produced even if all new combs 

 had to be built. In one of our out-apiaries 

 are rigged about 2.5 colonies for extracted 

 honey, with the design of supplying our home 

 city market. Full-depth extracting-supers 

 were given with frames containing half- 

 sheets of wired foundation. In every in- 

 stance these supers (they hold 10 frames) 

 have been filled and are ready for extracting. 

 Comb-honey colonies in the same apiary 

 have not finished one super apiece. The 

 honey in the extracting-supers is all sealed 

 and will yield 4.5 pounds apiece. In the sec- 

 tion-supers three or four rows of sections in 

 the middle are finished. The balance are un- 

 sealed and only half built out. The season, 

 of course, accounts for this vast difference. 

 In the extracting-supers a large cluster of 

 bees could form, and comb-building was not 

 seriously interrupted during the cold days 

 and nights that prevailed during the first 

 Mow. In the section-supers the comb-builders 

 had to divide up into 25 little clusters, and 

 these literally '• froze out " during the afore- 

 said cold weather. 



The l-'ourfolil Bee-Hive.— Mr. A. W. 



Smith, of Sullivan Co., N. Y., wrote us us 

 follows Aug. II ; 



Epitok Yokk;— I answered an advertise- 

 ment in the New York Herald, of a wonderful 

 bee-hive, and received the enclosed letter, 

 which I thought might interest you. I do 

 not think it any improvement on the common 

 hives in use in this country. 



A. W. Smith. 



A very interesting document is the circular 

 enclosed, which might be worth printing here 

 but for its length. It is bard to see what 

 there is patentable about the "specially-con- 

 structed fourfold bee-hive," and hard to see 

 what advantage it tan have, although the cir- 

 cular assures us its advantages " are so ob- 

 vious that even the layman can grasp and 

 comprehend them at a glance." 



It seems that in this hive there is no sep- 

 arate compartment for honey, at least the 

 author says " there is no separate honey-sec- 

 tion in my hive," and adds; 



" The reason why, after years of experience, 

 I can not endorse the separate honey-section 

 is that the bees, in the first place, fill up with 

 honey the empty nooks around the queen, 

 and only after there is no more space here at 

 all, they carry the honey into the section 

 separated from the queen; this, however, 

 greatly harms the breed, for the great quan- 

 tity forces down the queen-bee from the bee- 

 breeding perches to such an extent that the 

 family often degenerates or entirely declines 

 by reason of too much honey." 



Isn't that richness for you J .Just what the 

 "breeding perches" are is not explained, 

 although the writer of the circular says; 



" My experience has taught me that the 

 Ijees perform their work most industriously, 

 and readily in an undivided section in which 

 the queen-bee can freely move from perch to 

 perch to arouse the population to industry." 



What would happen if the queen should 

 fall off one of the perches as she goes on her 

 rounds " to arouse the population to indus- 

 try " is not stated. 



Is it possilile that a sufficient number of 

 dupes can be found to pay for the expense of 

 issuing and advertising such a circular? 



A Bad Case of Stinging.— Xot long 

 ago Editor Root had a little controversy with 

 the bees, which he reported in Gleanings in 

 Bee-Culture. Another fracas with bees has 

 occurred at the Home of the Honey-Bees— 

 this time no laughing matter. A horse be- 

 longing to Mr. Harrington was standing un- 

 hitched in a field in which was an unfenced 

 apiarj', and the horse got among the bees. 



Pretty soon the horse began to kick, and 

 then a regular stampede ensued. The more 

 the bees stung her the madder she became. 

 She kicked two hives over, and, as if out of 

 I revenge, she would walk right up to a hive in 

 front of her, and stamp one of her front hoofs 

 right through it. she actually ran one foot 



right through one super of comb honey, 

 down into the brood-nest, and, such a racket! 

 Mr. Harrington arrived on the scene Justin 

 time to find the horse covered with bees and 

 kicliing everything in sight into smithereens. 

 He managed to get her free, and started her 

 for the open Ijarn. lie himself was literally 

 covered with stings. He raked the bees out 

 of his hair by the handfuls; and when he 

 emerged from the yard there was scarcely a 

 spot on his face or body that you could place 

 a finger on without putting it on a sting; and 

 the ' old mare ' — well, she shared about the 

 same fate. 



Notwithstanding the dozens, and perhaps 

 hundreds, of stings received, the curious part 

 is that Mr. Harrington insists that after the 

 first few stings the rest did not hurt, although 

 he remembers feeling slightly sick. 



As to the horse, Mr. Harrington treated it 

 in the following manner; 



He called for a pound of salt, and, in the 

 meantime, proceeded to rake the bees off the 

 horse. He wrapped the salt in a paper, and 

 pushed paper and all down the horse's throat. 

 She was beginning to swell, and it was evi- 

 dent she would die in a few minutes unless 

 the salt would act, and something did act. 

 Very soon the swelling began to eas.e up ; the 

 horse seemed easier, and. in the course of an 

 hour, when given grain, she ate as if nothing 

 had happened ; and in two or three hours 

 more she wastlriven home by Mr. Harrington, 

 2'.j miles, in the very buggy in which she had 

 been hitched, and from which she kicked her- 

 self clear. With some binding-wire the thills 

 were made to hold together, and man, horse, 

 and buggy went to town as usual. 



Boxwood is spoken of very highly by S. 

 E. Miller in the Progressive Bee-Keeper as a 

 honey-yielder in Missouri. He has a tine lot 

 of extracted honey from it, and says ; 



" June 10 is the date in my almanac for bees 

 to commence on boxwood, but they com- 

 menced on .June 0, and did good work on all 

 favorable days until about the 20th. Little 

 trees not over four inches in diameter — some 

 of the same ones that I have husbanded in 

 the past — were fuU of bloom, and the roaring 

 of the busy bees in their tops was certainly 

 good music to my ear." 



There .•\re Other Fools, Too. General 



Manager Secor sends us the following clip- 

 ping, which originally appeared in the New 

 Y'ork Sun ; 



TuET Fooi. THE Bcmble-Bee — HiS HlVE- 



LoviNo Corsixs Tickle Him and 



Ste.\l His Hoset. 



The men who study insect life have found 

 that the big, lilack and yellow bumble-bee is 

 often swindled of the results of his hard day's 

 work at honey-gathering. The dapper little 

 hive-bee knows how to play upon his weak- 

 nesses. 



The hive-bee is a thoroughly city dweller, 

 living in a bee metropolis which has its bee- 

 mechanics, builders and nurses, bee-boards of 

 health that look after the ventilation of the 

 city and the removal of the garbage — bee- 

 policemen who guard the hive against moths 



