158 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



added to the 60 lbs. of surplus honey, makes 120 lbs. 

 of capped, or ripened honey, deposited by my bees In 

 the four months. 



Bee-masters ttU us (or, at least, some do), that the 

 nectar gathered by the bee contains about two-thirds 

 of watery material, which must be evaporated by the 

 heat of the bees after it is placed in the cells, before 

 it is ripened sutBciently for capping. If so, this 120 

 lbs. of capped honey would represent, by weight, 

 360 lbs. of nectar. Then, ngain, we are informed hy 

 some writers, that during the breedmg senson a 

 Strong colony of bees will, in addition to the honey, 

 require about 40 lbs. of pollen and water. If so, the 

 total amounts by weight, taken into my hive by the 

 busy bees would amount to 2,800,000 gr. troy, or 4U0 

 lbs. av., being one-fourth of a grain troy and a frac- 

 tion, per trip. If you weigh H gr. troy of honey, it 

 would appear to be enough to till the honey-sack of 

 the bee to an uneasy distension. 



In counting bees, you must not use the tongue, 

 and say one, two, three, but you must educate the 

 eye so as to be able to count by your sight. My pulse 

 Is very regular in its beats of sixty to the minute; 

 so when 1 took my seat I placed myself in an easy 

 position; thereafter becoming quiet. I placed my 

 finger on the wrist and my eye on the entrance, and 

 the eye told the number entering the hive between 

 each pulsation. Anon. 



St. Joseph, Mo., Jan., 1884. 



CASES VERSUS WIDE FKAJttES. 



HOW SHALL WE GET THE MOST HONEY, WITH LEAST 

 CAPITAL AND LABOR? 



¥0U are no doubt aware that Bro. Doolittle and 

 myself work very differently in our effort to 



— ■ accomplish the same purpose; viz., to bring 

 from nature the greatest amount of income, with 

 the least capital and labor. I wish to compare our 

 different systems of management as they appear to 

 me. In reading Bro. Doolittle's descriptions of his 

 management, we are impressed with the idea that 

 he is trying to see how much surplus honey he can 

 get from one colony, or from each colony in his 

 apiary. This would imply that the production of a 

 field, or area, is endless; and were this a fact, which 

 it is not, as we well know by oDservlng the actions 

 of the Grimms, Hetheringtons. and Oatmans, Mr. 

 Doolittle's system of management would rest upon 

 a correct basis. My aim in prosecuting this busi- 

 ness is to get the greatest possible amount of surplus 

 from each area I occupy, with the least amount of 

 capital and labor. 



One of my objections to Mr. Doolittle's system of 

 management, a system which, if I am correct, no 

 large honey-producer in America is working upon 

 at present, is the great amount of extra labor and 

 manipulation it requires. Labor is equivalent to 

 capital, and vice versa. I have found that I can ex- 

 haust a field of its stores much more cheaply than 

 can be done by Mr. Doolittle's system (with which I 

 am not without experiment), by investing a little 

 more capital and very much less labor. My opinion 

 is, that a hive should be so constructed and arranged 

 that no "coaxing" nor driving of the queen is ever 

 necessary or useful. We know what we wish to ac- 

 complish. If we can arrange our fixtures to work 

 out the desired result automatically, we would sure- 

 ly do so. We can not do this, but we can somewhat 

 approximate it, and this we think we do to a far 



greater extent than Bro. Doolittle with his compli- 

 cated system of almost endless manipulation. His 

 assertion, that when only top cases are used, the 

 bees must be crowded for room before they will en- 

 ter them, is not true with our fixtures. We have 

 never lost a drop of honey so far as my most care- 

 ful observation could detect, with this case system 

 of comb-honey production, except in times of exces- 

 sive flow; and the same would be true with any sys- 

 tem, where empty full drawn combs were not given 

 the bees; for in such cases the field bees bring in the 

 nectar faster than the wax-workers can make cells 

 to hold it, even with the use of the most pliable foun- 

 dation. 



Such instances, however, are not common; but I 

 deem them the greatest argument in favor of ex- 

 tracted vs. comb honey. If we give a prime swarm 

 8 standard L. frames of good fdu , we find them al- 

 most solid with brocd before the surplus season 

 ends. It will thus be seen that we suffer no loss by 

 that proceeding. We think Bro. Doolittle's mistaken, 

 statement, above referred to, arises from the fact 

 that he has fallen behind the times regarding the 

 use of comb fdn., and that he was much more be- 

 hind the present time, in the arrangement of his fix- 

 tures when he experimented with top storing only. 



If our colonies have little strength, they gather 

 little honey. If otherwise, with our arrangement 

 they enter the cases, draw the foundation, and there 

 store the honey as soon as they have any to store. 



Bro. Doolittle is mistaken. We long since got rid 

 of that hindrance, known as brood-chamber clog- 

 ging, with honey. I freely admit, that with our sys- 

 tem of management, occasionally a failing queen 

 overlooked will hold down her colony so that the sec- 

 tions are not entered. What then? The brood 

 combs are not crowded with either brood or honey, 

 for the queen is a failure, and the workers are few. 

 This colony does not oppose our other colonies in 

 our field. All that is needed to make up for these 

 occasional oversights is two or three extra colonies, 

 and we exhaust the field all the same. We have not 

 yet reached perfection, and our system obviates the 

 necessity. 



Losing surplus honey by the swarming of swarms 

 is something that does not happen with our system 

 of management. 



Five or six year:? ago, Mr. Oatman and myself dis- 

 cussed long and loud this subject of storing in sec- 

 tions in the lower story. Last winter Mr. O. laughed 

 at himself that he ever practiced " so ridiculous a 

 system." At present he uses top storing only, al- 

 though his hives are Ji larger, being 2 in. deeper 

 than the 8-franie L. which we use. Mr. Oatman'a 

 present success compares more than favorably with 

 that in the past. 



My objections to Bro. Doolittle's system are my 

 objections to broad frames and separators, on gen- 

 eral principles; that sections, if finished in the brood- 

 chamber, are apt to be discolored; in either case 

 they are apt to contain pollen, if in a location where 

 that abounds. But the one great objection is the ex- 

 cessive amount of labor it involves, and we think we 

 have found, lumcccssurily so. 



One of my brightest students of 1883 had for three 

 years carefully read and tried to use Bro. Doolittle's 

 system. As soon as he came to work with ©urs he 

 became eloquent in its praise. The above are some 

 of our reasons for prefering our system to Bro. 

 Doolittle's. 



Now a word regarding Bro. Miller's experience. 



