1S'.17 



(J LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



329 



honoy for?" I asked myself. lie came blun- 

 dering along. 



"Got more honey?" 



" Yes. sir." 



"Then fill up this jar." 



" Why." said I, "you haven't used—" 



"No, but I was comin' back this way, and I 

 was afraid I'd get out," he said. "But go 

 'head with your fixin's; I can wait." 



I finished my bread, and he talked on. Then 

 came the fnn of filling that jar. He could not 

 tell how I was going to know how much honey 

 I had sold him. At last I made him under- 

 stand. The honey was ready; he could go, but 

 he sat down and talked about his chickens, his 

 cows, and calves. 



When he went away at last I was determined 

 to have that sign taken down. " I must quit 

 trying to sell honey, or go crazy. It might do 

 In some places, but not here," I thought. 



In the evening three men came horseback. 

 They had been drinking. I was nervous when 

 they left, and was glad to have the company of 

 a woman who had come to buy ten cents' 

 worth of honey. When my husband came in 

 that night he asked innocently: 



" How is the honey business ? " 



I just gave up and said, "I am tired; take 

 down that sign. I just can't sell honey this 

 way, and be tormented so. They don't come, 

 buy honey, and go away, but they make me 

 waste my time, spoil my cooking, neglect the 

 baby, and scare me half to death." 



How the partner of my joys did laugh! 



"I thought you would get tired." 



" Well, I tried, but I can't keep house and sell 

 honey." 



PETTIT'S NEW SYSTEM OF PRODUCING COMB 

 HONEY, AGAIN. 



A REPLY TO BRO. DOO LITTLE. 



Bu S. T. Pettit. 



Brother Doolittle, I was pleased at your kind 

 reference, on page 119, to my article on page .51; 

 but you did not seem to see that I was not dis- 

 cussing the question as to whether the field-bees 

 go right up to the supers and deposit their loads 

 of honey in the cells, or whether they hand it 

 over to younger bees who do the depositing. 

 However, I did not intend to say any thing at 

 variance with the fact that field -bees generally 

 give their loads of honey to younger bees; but 

 I am not so sure that they always do so under 

 all circumstances. 



PDSsibly you will point me to what I said in 

 the following: " Now, as the bees come in they 

 generally go up somewhere near the center; 

 and as they find the sections advanced well nigh 

 to completion the honey must go beyond." 

 Well, I confess I might have been more specific 



if I had thought it necessary. We say the sun 

 rises, the kettle boils. John Smith Is building a 

 house, when in reality he has let the job to a 

 builder, and he neither pushes a plane nor 

 drives a nail. But why. under my system, do 

 bees fill and finish the outside sections as rapid- 

 ly and as well as they do any other sections in 

 the super? is the question at issue. Let us con- 

 sider the matter. 



THE EFFECT ON THE SUPER WHEN THE HIV^E 

 IS UNDER A SHADE-TREE. 



We all know that, if a hive of bees be placed 

 under the side of a spreading tree or under any 

 other obstruction, so that the bees all come in 

 at one side of the entrance, said entrance being 

 the full width of the hive, the woik will pro- 

 gress more rapidly on that particular side, 

 whether working for comb or extracted honey, 

 than on the opposite side. The facts are sim- 

 ply as follows: Where the bees go in and up, 

 there the young bees will in a measure congre- 

 gate to meet them. If they go in and up at the 

 center, the young bees will congregate there, 

 and the outside sections will be more or less 

 neglected; but when the field-bees distribute 

 themselves, and go up at the sides and rear end 

 of the hive, the young bees distribute them- 

 selves also to meet the field-bees where they go 

 up; and as the dividers (see page 51) preserve a 

 double bee-space, or, rather, two bee-spaces, 

 at the outsides, room is provided and preserved 

 for a double portion of bees — a nice little cluster 

 along both outsides of the sections, and so the 

 work at the outsides keeps pace with all other 

 sections in the super. 



Right here I may be allowed to make the 

 claim that, under this system, more honey, and 

 that in better shape, can be taken than under 

 the old way of either comb or extracted honey. 

 I do not use dividers for extracted honey, but I 

 use the wedges for distributing the bees. 



Brother D., what you insinuate anout my bees 

 being weak, or what you say about their getting 

 strong enough, needs no reply further than to 

 say that they are strong enough, and ready the 

 year round, to take any crop of honey that may 

 come along. I have no trouble in building up 

 every spring; and, further, my hives are so 

 constructed that the section supers will hold 

 36 sections each; and when the clover season 

 sets in I put on these big supers, and the bees 

 are glad to go up to get " standing " room. Of 

 course, I select the strongest for comb. 



Your caution about stretching the bees over 

 too many sections will do good; but after all It 

 is also a serious and losing mistake to fail to 

 give the bees room according to their strength 

 and the honey-flow. 



To several swarms last year I gave 72 sec- 

 tions each in the start, and to some I gave 108. 

 It is only fair to say that the latter got some 

 bees from other swarms, and all the sections In 

 these were well finished. But it is better to 



