18<)2 



(il.KAXINHiS IX I5EK CULTURE. 



331 



I sliould want t«> loratc wlicrc ilwiv wcrt' hiijjc 

 (luantitics of friiil-l)lossoms— apjilcs. pcai'lu's, 

 peal's, plums. t>tc. -followcii hv I'cd raspberries, 

 jjiKiseheii ies. aiiil oilier small fiiiils. ami these 

 siieeeeiled hy tlandejioiis ami pleiily of white 

 elover and i'asswood. 'I'hen should follow 

 plenty -of fall lloweis hiu-kwheat. soldeniod. 

 iiearl'sease. smarlweed. asters, etc. If we can 

 not have all of these ijouil tlowers in plenty, get 

 as many as possible. Of course, in the South 

 thi> honey-bearing llowcrs will he dilTerent. 

 Kvery eoiintry has itsouii (lowers. Hut honey- 

 llowei-s we must have, or we shall gel no honey. 

 The more llowcrs there are. the better. 



The next important item is plenty of bees to 

 gather the honey. What kind of bees is best ? 

 Now. to tell the truth. I don't Unow. I com- 

 menced with the blacks, and 1 must say they 

 are hard to beat. I have tried several strains 

 of Italians, some of which have done pretty 

 fair work. Hut I think the hybrids are better 

 workers than the pure Italians. 1 am now try- 

 ing the (."arniolans — the dark-colored ones. 

 They have done tirst-rate for me the last two 

 years. In fact, tliey liaxc done the best of any 

 iuM'S that I have. My home yard of 1(X) colonies 

 consists of Carniolans. 



Now. after wo have got in the right location. 

 and have the bees, we must have an apiarist 

 that knows how to handle the business; and. 

 in my opinion, to secure the best results, tlu^ 

 apiarist should ow'n the bees; or, in other 

 words, the owner should know all about the 

 business. He or she may hire the most of the 

 work done by others, but the owner should 

 oversee every thing. Very much depends upon 

 very sinall details. Every thing that is to be 

 use5 when the honey-flow comes should be pro- 

 vided before the time it will be wanted. Have 

 every thing ready— hives, extractors, and all 

 other tools; also packages for the honey crop, 

 and a place to store the honey. We have our 

 packages now on hand to liold our next crop. 

 We may not get a crop, but we must be ready, 

 n we don't use the barrels this year, we may 

 next. iSee to it that the bees are in first-class 

 condition in the fall. Plenty of honey means 

 good strong colonies in spring. A man. to be 

 successful with bees, must have a liking for the 

 work, so much so that he will pick up every 

 thing on the bee business, and read it. Not 

 that he is expected to follow all that he reads, 

 but he may get a good deal from another's mis- 

 takes. I doubt wh(»tlier any of us knows all 

 there is to be learned about the business, so we 

 must study and think, and act according to our 

 best judgment. If we have more bees than we 

 can work alone, hire help. ^Ve hire young uien 

 and boys. A boy twelve to fifteen years old can 

 do first-rate work extracting honey, if he has 

 some experienced liand to tell him just what to 

 do. One good hand that iias worked with the 

 bees two years can take charge of two green 

 boys and "get good results from iheir labor. 

 Our extracting season lasts about four to six 

 weeks. We give a green boy twelve to fifteen 

 years old S8.00 a month the first year. If he 

 proves to be a good hand, next year we give 

 him about •*2.0() more per month. If he stays 

 with us. we keep raising his wages up to ?=.".*0.00. 

 Another important item in producing extracir 

 ed honey is to have plenty of extra empty 

 combs, so when the honey-llow comes we can 

 tier up and give the bees plenty of room to store 

 lioney. We work our L. hives three stories 

 high during the homy season. In the fall we 

 take off one set and store them away until 

 wanted the next year. In this latitude I take 

 them off in October, and pack them away in the 

 third stories, piled one on the other in ourcomb- 

 njom. If they were taken away from the bees 

 much sooner than October, tlie motlis would 



tiestroy them, unl(^ss we smoked them with sul- 

 phur. Combs packed away in a tight room 

 w biM-e they will frec/.e hard are safe from tiie 

 mollis, i liave kepi them all summer witli no 

 siirns of worms alxmi, ihem. 



For shippiug extracted honey w<! us(! oak 

 ban-els. iron- hooped, holding from .'WO to H0() 

 lbs. l-or our last ci-op we used sonu' nujla.sses- 

 barrels made in the South. In these we put our 

 dark honey, and sold it to tin; bakrsrs. Our nic<' 

 white honey we sell to dealers foi' tabU' us(i. 

 We also sell several thousand pounds at home, 

 to farmers and city folks. We keep three stores 

 in our town supplied with honey, put up in tin 

 pails of different sizes— pint, quart, two, ttiree 

 and foiu- (luart. We gel the pails of A. I. Root. 



COST OK I'KODUCING KXTRACTEI) IIOXKY. 



Vou ask me to give you the cost of producing 

 exifacted honey, and refV^r me to Messrs. Tay- 

 lor's and DoolitlhTs articles on tlu' cost of comb 

 honey. I have records of the amounts of honoy 

 toat we got for a long tinu% and how many bees 

 we had eacli year; but what the crop cost per 

 pound I can not even mak(> a good guess on. In 

 imo our honey cost us a dollar a [)ound; in 1801 

 we got 3U,(K)0 lbs., and sold at .->, ti. 7. and some 

 at 8 cts. The crop gave us a living for the year, 

 and about five hundred dollars ovei'. What it 

 cost a pound, I don't know; but I am sure it 

 did not cost as much as we sold it for. The 

 way we are fixed I can not get at the cost ex- 

 actly. We have 20 acres of land to work, and 

 often we get through with the bees, and get 

 home before night; then we set all of our 

 honey-boys at work on the place, hoeing and 

 cultivating, killing weeds, etc. I think it would 

 be very doubtful whether any one could tell 

 just what a crop of honey costs. I am sure that 

 no one can make a statement that would do for 

 every year on the same location; then, again, 

 locations differ much, and management would 

 make a large difference. There is as much dif- 

 ference in bee-keepers as there is in other folks. 

 If I write an article on any subject I want at 

 least to satisfy myself that what I have to say 

 is practical. Mr. Doolittle tries to make the 

 cost of comb honey as big as he can. When he 

 charges up S.5.00 a day for his time, going to con- 

 ventions, price of bee-papers, and time of reading 

 the same, etc., why does he charge it all to the 

 production of comb honey? If I am not mis- 

 taken, his queen-traffic brings him more money 

 tiian his honey. Why doesn't he divide some 

 of tho.se expenses with his (lueen-tradiB? It is 

 all guesswork. He doesn't know. I don't know 

 and who does? E. France. ' 



Platteville, W'is.. March 7. 



EXTRACTED HONEY. 



WHAT IN.JfRES ITS SALES ; SHIFTLESSNE8S OF 

 BEE-KEEPERS, ETC. 



On page 131 for Feb. 1.5, Mr. Geo. F. Robbins 

 relates the observations and experience of his 

 grocer whodeals in honey. Thegrocer said that 

 there would be nothing in offering premiums 

 at fairs for honey extracted on the ground, see- 

 ing honey -extractors in operation, and tnat the 

 way in which liquid honev was obtained would 

 do nothing to remove the generallv ijrevailing 

 opinion tluit extracted honey is manufactured 

 or adulterated. This is far from a reasonable 

 conclusion to warrant belief. To see and to 

 understand is to believe. All manner of people 

 are convinced in this way. Within two miles 

 of our place there is a city of 1(5,000 people; and 

 as there is a pretty driveway from the city 

 through our place, many people stop with "the 

 man who keeps the fire-bugs,'' for honey. We 



