1886 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



warm as any night in June) the bees would 

 sometimes raise the temperature of the cellar 

 to 58 or 60^. I put this temperature from 

 memory, as I don't Ivnow that I made a rec- 

 ord ; but had you been at the recent con- 

 vention at Detroit you would have heard 

 about cellars going up to even 90^, and that 

 in Canada. To my great astonishment, the 

 friend who gave this temperature is one of 

 our most successful men in wintering his 

 bees. AVhen questioned, he admitted that 

 the bees came out of their hives and cluster- 

 ed against and all over them, and all be- 

 tween them. But he said they went back 

 all right when the temperature lowered. I 

 have seen just such a state of affairs, but it 

 resulted in the loss of several valuable 

 queens. My experience in wintering in cel- 

 lar, as a rule, ^ave about the temijerature 

 you mention. You have given us some very 

 important facts in regard to sub-earth ven- 

 tilation ; namely, when the temperature is 

 14^ below zero outside, your sub-earth tube 

 delivered air in the cellar at a temperature 

 not lower than 4o-'. 1 do not see why there 

 should be a difference in the temperature of 

 the earth north and south, if we get down 

 deep enough to be beyond the influence of 

 winter or summer— say eight feet deep, or 

 may be a little more. And, by the way, 

 friend M., will you please tell us how low 

 down your sub-earth pipe is laid, and how 

 large it is in diameter? In regard to the 

 best temperature of a cellar, the different 

 temperatures mentioned at the convention 

 preferred by different individuals varied so 

 gi-eatly that it leaves one quite at sea. In 

 the A B C book we have put it at 40^; but 

 Ave mention there that some of the bee-keep- 

 ers of York State prefer it as high as 50'^. 

 Now, very likely half way between tlie two, 

 or 45°, will come as near it as we shall be 

 able to agree on. 



HOW TO USE THE SOLAR WAX- 

 EXTRACTOR. 



THE TEMPERATUKE OF CALIFORNIA AS COMPARED 

 WITH THE EASTERN STATES. 



fN page 775, in a toot-note to my report you say, 

 "I do not quite understand what you say 

 about extraoling- honey as well as wax," re- 

 ferring to the solar wax-extractor. I have a 

 case that will explain the operation very 

 clearly. After we had done taking ofl" our honey 

 in August, I was requested by a friend who is in ill 

 health to come down and takeoff his honey for him. 

 He lives some fifteen miles nearer town than we do. 

 Myself and nephew went down, never doubting but 

 that we could take off the honey from the hundred 

 hives, and house it, in one day. Imagine our con- 

 sternation when we found there never had been any 

 boxes put in the top stories, and that the bees had 

 built just according to their "own sweet will." 

 Well, we had to cut the honey out of the top stories 

 of that whole hundred hives. We did that in two 

 days, and stowed it away in barrels and five-gallon 

 cans, in the houey-house. Now, you can't sell mass 

 honey here at aniy price, so the only thing to be done 

 was to get all this broken and mashed-up comb into 

 extracted hone3'. I will here give you the modus 

 operandi, remarking, by the way, that a great deal 



of the extracted houey produced in this county, and 

 country too, is produced in just this way. 



A SOLAR WAX-EXTRACTOR— HOW CONSTRUCTED. 



A solar extractor is made exactly as you would 

 make a trough out of two boards. This, you see, 

 would produce two angles of reflection. But I 

 made a half-octagon, so you see I have two angles 

 of reflection on each side. Now you are ready for 

 your tin lining. This must be all fitted neatly to the 

 box, and well soldered together. Then put in your 

 spout. If you intend to use this spout out of doors 

 it must be of leather or rubber, so you can stick it 

 into the honey-can and wrap a cloth around it, or 

 you may get more bees than honey. Now make a 

 light strong frame, to fit just half way down in your 

 solar extractor. Cover it with wire cloth, well 

 tacked on. Lay on this a piece of clean sacking, for 

 a strainer. Now pile in your honey, keeping it as 

 much in the middle as possible. The reason for 

 this is, that 3'ou want the sides clear, to act as re- 

 flectors. Put on your sash and stop up your pipe. 

 Of course, no bees must get into this honey, or they 

 will never get out alive. The action of this sun ex- 

 tractor is thus: 



The honey and comb both run through the cloth 

 and wire screen into the lower part of the extract- 

 or. The honey sinks below, while the wax floats on 

 top of it. The wax gets hard much sooner than the 

 honey gets cold. You can therefore draw off the 

 honey while it is warm, as it will run much easier 

 and cleaner from the extractor. In the evening, 

 when the bees are all in their " little beds," you can 

 take off the sash and lift out the wax in great 

 chunks that would " knock an ox down." 



What do I melt small cakes of wax for? Well, I 

 had that ton of honey at the end of the season, that 

 the bees would not seal up. In each box of sec- 

 tions there would be one section at the end whose 

 outside was not sealed np. It was unsalable. I 

 therefore cut that cake out and left the box whole, 

 so that it would pack right in the case. I made 

 these cakes into extracted honey. 



It is not a fact, that the heat of the sun is much 

 greater here in our climate than it is in the States. 

 In fact, it is not, to use a common saying, " half as 

 hot." I have known )iiY//ifs, bothin Pennsylvania and 

 Ohio, that I think would have come pretty near to 

 melting beeswax; nights when the denizens of 

 great cities had to crowd out of doors to get even a 

 breath of free air. The thermometer here general- 

 ly ranges from 50 to 70° in the winter, and from 70 to 

 85° in the summer. It rarely gets up to 90°. This 

 summer it was exceedingly hot — got to 90 several 

 times. People thought they were burned up — en- 

 tirely consumed. To day I am melting beeswax, 

 with the thermometer 70° in the shade. It is run- 

 ning in a swift stream about the thickness of a very 

 thick darning-needle. 



It is very singular to me that you can not melt 

 beeswax there, with a temperature of from 85 to 

 10.5"^, as you have it in the summer. Very singular, 

 too, that you have to make shade for your hives, to 

 keep the honey from melting down, and yet can not 

 melt wa.x under glass, with a bright tin bottom and 

 sides as reflectors. We don't have to shade our 

 hives here. There is not one hive shaded in ten 

 thousand, in this county. They are all U lumber at 

 that. This speaks as loud as the thermometer, docs 

 it not':* If you make your solar extractor right, and 

 can't melt beeswax in it, it must be — climate. Ah ! 

 there we have got you. The only climate worth 



