416 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



at this season, but it is profitable in a 

 location like mine. Of late, however, 

 sweet clover is serving this purpose, 

 though even with sweet clover there 

 seems to be no need for more than 

 8 frames of breeding room. The 

 queens do not lay under any condi- 

 tions at that season like they do in 

 May and June. 



Where the queen is given two 8- 

 frame bodies for breeding during the 

 entire season and sections placed 

 over the two bodies, the result will 

 make the comb-honey producer sick. 

 Such colonies will swarm as much as 

 where only one body is occupied by 

 the queen. By dividing these two 

 bodies when the flow begins and 

 placing each one beneath a body of 

 empty combs or foundation, with an 

 excluder between, provides plenty of 

 room and greatly retards swarming. 

 The point I wish to bring out is, that 

 in order to secure the most honey, 

 there must not be a great mass of 

 brood emerging when the flow is 

 nearing its close. These late bees 

 come on just in time to be consum- 

 ers, and are produced at heavy cost 

 in honey and care of nurses. When 

 the honey consumed, together with 

 that used to develop them are 

 counted, surplus bees at that season 

 count heavily on the crop finally se- 

 cured. This will be readily apparent 

 to the beekeeper who has noticed 

 how rapidly the stores diminish when 

 brood rearing is at its height in 

 spring. The past season, in my yard, 

 colonies kept with two full stories of 

 brood rearing room, throughout the 

 season produced fully one-third less 

 surplus of extracted honey. The bee- 

 keeper with thousands of colonies 

 may think that he cannot bother with 

 so many details, but the man with 

 two or three hundred colonies will 

 find it a paying manipulation. Where 

 nectar is available all season the bees 

 should be kept strong all season, but 

 it is poor economy to rear liees at a 

 season when they cannot add to the 

 production of the hive. Honey used 

 to stimulate breeding to gather a 

 harvest can be used to great profit 

 for the beekeeper. 



Iowa. 



(I cannot agree with Mr. Cover- 

 dale that an 8-frame story-and-a-half 

 hive is sufficient to provide breeding 

 room for the average queen. I used 

 8-frame hives for several years, and 

 later discarded them for 10-frame 

 hives. I was not satisfied with less 

 than two 10-frame bodies of brood 

 and honey at the close of fruit bloom. 

 There was usually 14 to 16 frames of 

 brood. After providing storage for 

 honey and pollen, the story-and-a- 

 half 8-frame hive leaves only two- 

 thirds as much breeding space. I 

 found that the bees in 10-framc hives 

 in the same apiary and under the 

 same Iowa conditions in 10-frame 

 hives would fill as many 10-framc su- 

 pers as those in 8-franie hives would 

 fill 8-frame supers. In time I discov- 

 ered that even the 10-frame hive was 

 too small for best results in my loca- 

 tion, where white clover furnished 

 the surplus and where the season was 

 short. Mr. Coverdale's point of get- 

 ting the young bees ahead of the 



flo'w, rather than behind it, is funda- 

 mental to successful beekeeping. 

 With the larger hives I found much 

 less manipulation necessary to se- 

 cure this result. — F. C. P.) 



A PREACHER BEEKEEPER 



By C. E. Rogers 



What have bees got to do with 

 Christianity? 



The Rev. Edward V. Gardner, pas- 

 tor of the Eureka, Kans., Congrega- 

 tional church, finds a close connec- 

 tion. His knowledge of bees helps 

 him to win souls. The Rev. Mr. Gard- 

 ner is Deputy State Bee Inspector. 

 But in addition to inspecting bees he 

 keeps a quantity of supplies in a com- 

 modious shop. Every year sees a few 

 more Gardner bee converts in the 

 neighborhood of Eureka. 



"Bees are my graft," he said not 

 long ago. "I cash in by the confi- 

 dence I gain among my rural congre- 

 gation. A farmer has no respect for 

 a preacher who doesn't know some- 

 thing about farming. A good many 

 members of my congregation become 

 interested in bees before Christianity. 

 It's a fair graft." 



In addition to getting converts, Mr. 

 Gardner's bees provide him three 

 other desirable, if not necessary, 

 things — exercise, recreation and 

 honey. 



Manhattan, Kans. 



THE CENTRAL PLANT AGAIN 



An Illinois reader writes to ex- 

 press appreciation of the article on 

 the Petfit central plant in the Sep- 

 tember. He asks for more details of 

 floor arrangement, bottling equip- 

 ment, piping to tanks, etc. His letter 

 was referred to Mr. Pettit, who re- 

 plies as follows : 



Georgetown, Ont., Sept. 14, 1920. 



We are more enthusiastic about 

 the central plant every year. But, un- 

 fortunately, when we built we could 



Edward V. Gardner, the li. «. k»... ping shepherd 

 of a Kansas Hock. 



not "think big enough," and are 

 very cramped for space. Instead of 

 25x40 feet the building should be at 

 least 30x80 feet. I mean for real 

 comfort in the management of five 

 or six hundred colonies. Let the 

 prospective builder count on an ex- 

 tracting room large enough to hold 

 at least two-thirds of his crop in 

 supers. Because, when you start 

 taking off and the bees are begin- 

 ning to get a little dark stuff you 

 do not want to take time to extract 

 till you have the white honey all 

 safely under cover. Then if the ex- 

 tracting room can be reserved for 

 one purpose only the empty combs 

 can be stored there until needed 

 again. To be quite generous with 

 space this room should accommo- 

 date all of the supers-for six hun- 

 dred colonies, at least two thousand 

 10-L — besides the extracting machin- 

 ery. 



The honey room also wants ample 

 storage space. We have twelve 

 tanks like the ones shown on page 

 304. We fill two in a day and their 

 total capacity is about thirty thou- 

 sand pounds. By the time they are 

 all filled some one generally starts 

 filling out into selling packages. The 

 honey all goes into tin where it is 

 sold in the granulated form, so there 

 is no answer to your correspondent's 

 question about bottling arrange- 

 ments. The tank-benches are three 

 feet high, allowing the filling from 

 tanks to be done in a comfortable 

 position. Windows all along the 

 wall give light and cheer, and high 

 ceilings give airy comfort to the bee- 

 keeper, who is naturally a creature 

 of the great outdoors. By rights the 

 tank room should not need to be 

 cluttered with honey in crates. This 

 should be piled in a shipping room 

 nearest the garage. 



The garage is 30 feet long, rather 

 cramped for the two trucks we use 

 now. The stairway goes up from 

 it. Two feet is plenty width for this 

 as very little is carried up it. In the 

 extracting room the extractor is over 

 by the window, with plenty of light 

 and air. The pump is a three-quarter 

 inch rotary, and the honey pipe is 

 galvanized iron one inch in diameter. 

 It goes up beside the window to the 

 ceiling, across through the partition, 

 over the door, and ends in a "tee" just 

 inside the honey room. On one end 

 of the "tee" is a cap and on the other 

 end a rubber hose reaching to the 

 bottom of whatever tank in that end 

 of the room is being filled. Rubber 

 hose connects the pump with the ex- 

 tractor and also with the metal 

 stand-pipe. Steam from the boiler 

 is connected to the melter by a pipe 

 running to the ceiling and along to a 

 point directly above the meltcr. Rub- 

 ber hose leads it down to the melter, 

 which is piped for the two knives as 

 well as itself. The boiler is heated 

 by a gasoline stove, which also 

 warms up the honey room and assists 

 ihc clarifying of the honey. There 

 is no stove in the extracting room, 

 and before another year we hope to 

 banish the engine as well. 



