Vol. XII. 



SEPT. 1, 1884. 



No. 17. 



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NOTES FKOM THE BANNER APIARY. 



NO. 58. 



A COKKECTION. 



TMPROPER punctuation perverts the sense of 

 |l[ the bej^iuniny of the second paragraph of my hist 

 ^l article. It should be as follows: "Three years ago 

 ^■^ I buried 11 colonies; all except one very weak 

 one came through in fine condition." 



RAISING COMB HONEY. 



I do not advise waiting until the bees are hanging- 

 out before putting on boxes, even if I did succeed 

 so well when compelled to wait; but I W(Mld advise 

 waiting until the bees are ready to begin to hano out. 

 You, friend Root, speak of waiting so long that the 

 swarming fever might be started. Well, what if it 

 was started; would that be undesirable? Until the 

 present season I have always secured more honey 

 from those colonies (and their increase) that swarm- 

 ed than from those that did not, and the reason 

 why I did not this season is because the honey har- 

 vest was very short and very earlj\ The increase, 

 however, is worth more than the difference in the 

 amount of honey stored, while, if there should be a 

 good yield of fall honey, the tables might yet be 

 turned in regai-d to the amount of honey pecurod. 

 Friend Doolittle, in the Aug. 1st No., say.«: "But 

 when working for comb honey, both of these colo- 

 nies would get strong enough so as to got the 

 swarming fever right ip the honey harvest, which 

 would spoil uU prospects of any surplus comb 

 honey." Tt wouldn't with me. I don't caro when a 

 colony swarms; if it swarms only once, I can gettho 

 comb honey all the same, and I have no trouble in 

 PQ managing: fls to proyent' a!! aftei'-swanning. 



You say that you are a little anxious to know how 

 many colonies I have now working for comb honey, 

 and about how much comb honey I shall get. I 

 worked 68 colonics for comb honey, and have se- 

 cured about 4700 lbs. ; and all gathered from a white- 

 clover crop that was cut short by the drought. No 

 honey from bass wood. 



You say, " Admitting that separators can be dis- 

 pensed with, will all bee-keepers be likely to agree 

 that it is more profitable to dispense with them than 

 to keep them'?" It is not at all likely that all bee- 

 keepers will, as some ai"e so wedded to their fixtures 

 and methods that it would be almost impossible to 

 induce them to oven try some better method. 



You say, in substance, that, if we reduce the sec- 

 tion in thickness we must increase it in size, other- 

 wise the Simplicity section will not weigh a pound. 

 If we reduce it only the thickness of one bee-space, 

 and dispense with separators, the comb will be of 

 exactly the same thickness. During the past two 

 seasons 1 have used 4000 sections 1 11-16 inches wide; 

 or, to be more exact, 1 5-T inches, which is a trifle 

 more than 1 11-16, and such sections average a pound; 

 while there is really so little difference, so far as 

 securing straight combs is concerned, in favor of 

 the lij-inch sections, that I should adopt the 1 5-7 

 sections if the bees did not ripen the honey and seal 

 it up so much quicker in the thinner combs. There 

 is more difference in this respect, between these 

 two sizes of sectiOHB, than there is in the straight- 

 neps of the combs. I have this year used several 

 thousand of lu-inch sections, without separators, 

 and they average a trifle over i'.f of a i)Ound each. I 

 think that they will bo a nice thing- for the retailer, as 

 thpy look as though they contained alnioat as mucli 

 honoy as ft pound snot'on, I have not yrt, howovor, 



