1802 



(JI.EANINGS IN HEE CULTURE. 



W5 



of tlii> bfoiiiiMi iiilKihit, it. WDiilii he from ten to 

 fourteen di'jiii'fS lioltcf. In such wcutlicr ;is 

 this, liivi's not looUtni aftor tuv li:il)l<> to melt 

 down, or at least thi'ir combs arc. Tlic best 

 insurance aiiainst tliis catastroph(MS plenty of 

 shade: Itut hives |)ainted white, and given 

 plenty of ventilation, will generally pull 

 tlirough. Single-story hives arc almost certain 

 to melt down, while one with three stories will 

 stand all the heat tliat comes, even when not 

 protected. Tiie apiaries here being run almost 

 exclusively for extracted honey, the hives gen- 

 erally are of two stories. At l!liis season, leav- 

 ing the extra story on is good; but most of the 

 bee-men leave it on also all winter, and that I 

 think is bad. This is the land of the orange 

 and lemon: but for all that it is coUi enough 

 liere to mal«' bees suffer tliat are left ail winter 

 in great two-story hives, all warped and crack- 

 ed as most of them arc. and letting escape the 

 warmth generated by the bees within. In such 

 hives, bees consutne two or tliree times as much 

 honey as they would in a single-story one fixed 

 up snug, as "the bees have to consume large 

 quantities of honey in order to generate a suf- 

 ficiency of heat. It is this great consumption 

 of honey necessitated by cold hives which oc- 

 casions so much loss of bees from starvation in 

 California apiaries every year. With the let-up 

 in summer's heat is the time to take off supers. 

 Moths will not bother the extra combs until 

 the following spring, at which time they should 

 be replaced on the hives. With hives where 

 upper and lower stories are interchangeable, a 

 good way is to leave the two stories on the 

 hives; but place the brood-nest above, as heat 

 ascends. If there is no upward ventilation the 

 brood-nest will be kept as warm as though in a 

 single-story hive; and the super underneath 

 will act as a deterrent of swarming the follow- 

 ing spring— something which is appreciated by 

 those of us who prefer to make our increase 

 by dividing. If you want swarms, confine your 

 bees to one story and you will get them in abun- 

 dance if the season is good. 



SKUNKS. 



Now is the time to make war upon skunks. 

 After three or four months of hot rainless 

 weather the ground gets so hard that these 

 odious and odorous little animals can not 

 scratch it up to get the choice tid-bits in the 

 shape of bugs and grubs off which they com- 

 monly live; consequently they congregate 

 around the apiaries and consume enormous 

 quantities of bees. I have seen their dung in 

 my apiary, and it was composed entirely of 

 bees. I should say one skunk would eat several 

 hundred in a night. A neighboring bee-keeper, 

 Mr. (1. M. (iardiner, who has had considerable 

 • experience in poisoning them, do(!S so by the 

 following method: In front of each hive tliat is 

 being bothered, and this can be told by the* 

 scratches, bury, a few inches d(!ep. a small 

 piece (inch stjuarei of comb honey with which 

 strychnine has Ix-en mixed. The skunk will 

 dig" it out. eat it, and give up the ghost. A few 

 seasons ago Mr. C.ardiner by this method killed 

 some thirty in one apiary that h(' found; there 

 were probably more wliose dead bodies he did 

 not find. I rid my apiary of them last season 

 by trapping eight. This method entails shoot- 

 ing them, and a most sickening job afterward 

 when taking from the grasp of the trap. Some 

 one has told me that a ^kunk held up by the 

 tail is not dangerous. I can not vouch for the 

 truth of it; but I do know that I do not want 

 to be the one to try to get him in that predica- 

 ment. 1 think that tail story is about on a par 

 with that of catching birds by putting salt on 

 their tails. \Vm. G. Hewes. 



Newhall, Cal., Aug. 3. 



GETTING COMB HONEY AND EXTRACTED 

 HONEY 



FItOM TIIE SAME HIVE AT THE SAME TIME. 



Friend Rt tot: — Since I wrote; you on .June 38, 

 lamenting the wet weather and non-yii^iding of 

 the white clover, a change of a more satisfac- 

 tory character has taken place. The w(;ather 

 shortly after became as dry as it liad previously 

 bcHMi wet; clover, basswood, and thisth; all 

 yielded up their sweets, and numy a b(!(>-man's 

 heart has revived as his barrels and tins have 

 been called into use. In this neighborhood we 

 have got almost our usual cro|). which, however, 

 fi-om the nature of the locality is nciver very 

 large— 40 to .W lbs. per colony; but I hear of 

 good crops being obtained elsewhere — in one 

 instance about SOOO lbs. from .52 hives, and in 

 another about 100 lbs. per colony from about 80 

 hives. 



Thunderstorms, with soaking rains, have 

 been frequent for the past fortnight, and the 

 white clover is freshened up again, and yield- 

 ing quite a little, though not enough to amount 

 to surplus. Good buckwheat and fall-flower 

 sections will probably yield well for the next 

 six or seven weeks. 



I have this season been trying a plan sug- 

 gested to me by Mr. McEvoy, our foul-brood 

 inspector, for getting comb and extracted honey 

 from the same hive, and have been so far pleas- 

 ed with the results, as I would in some in- 

 stances obtain as much comb honey from an 

 extracting hive as I would from one run for 

 comb honey alone, and would have a consider- 

 ble quantity of extracted honey besides, and 

 finally leave enough in the hive for wintering. 



The hive I run is a twelve-frame one, taking 

 what is known as the Jones Combination frame. 

 The frame is 12% wide by IQi., deep. I use a 

 section 33^x4)^x1)^, of which nine fill up a wide 

 frame. At the commencement of the season, 

 three or four of these, with sections duly filled 

 with foundation, are intermixed with the oth- 

 er combs in the top story; and as the other 

 combs are filled up, the foundation in these is 

 being drawn out, and the sections are gradually 

 going on toward completion. As one goes on 

 the rounds extracting he notes the progress be- 

 ing made; and as they advance toward the 

 proper depth of cell he removes the intervening 

 combs and crowds all the wide frames together. 

 They can be pushed up to one end or side of the 

 hive, as the case may be, and a division-board 

 or nice straightly shaved extracting comb be 

 placed ijehind them, or, as I have been doing, 

 leave them over the middle of the brood-nest 

 with a straightly shaved comb on either side of 

 them. When they are all sealed up— and tiiere 

 is no outside row of unsealed sections, such as 

 you have on the crate system— the frame is 

 removed, the bees brushed off, and I have a 

 nice lot of comb honey in a very convenient 

 form. 



The sections taken in this way are not nearly 

 so much trouble to scrape off, as the bees can't 

 get any chance to place propolis, except just 

 about the edges. 



The sections I liave used are slotted all 

 round, and the small size as above; but if it 

 were not so that this size suits our trade here 

 better. I should prefer to have six sections to 

 the frame instead of nine, and have them slot- 

 ted top and bottom only. The bees work more 

 willingly and to better advantage on the large 

 section than on the small, as I have satisfied 

 myself by experiment, and the neighboring 

 combs are left with a more natural surface. 

 With the small sections, the surface of the 

 flanking combs is left uneven, an outline cor- 

 responding with the form of the sections oppo- 



