1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



431 



for about -?4000 ; so you see his idea in keep- 

 ing bees was only to fertilize the fruit-bloom. 

 At that time it seemed to me that, if there was 

 a bee anywhere in the orchard, it would sting 

 me; but since I have studied their ways, and 

 handled them some, I find they are not such 

 little rascals as I once thought them to be. 

 The owner of these bees told me I might have 

 them if I would take care of them and keep 

 them on the ranch. I informed him that I 

 had no use for any kind of insect that had 

 such a sharp way of doing business. One 

 day, however, I was watching a neighbor 

 working with some bees (it is needless to say 

 I was inside of a building, and was watching 

 every bee that came toward the building), and 

 I became interested and borrowed his ABC 

 of Bee Culture; became more interested, made 

 some hives, and transferred the bees, and now 

 have sixty colonies in eight-frame Langstroth 

 hives of my own make. I shall increase to 

 100 stocks, as I have 140 acres of trees for 

 them to work on. Although this is one of the 

 most fertile valleys in the world, the drouth 

 last year was very hard on fruit-trees. The 

 fruit did not mature last year, neither did the 

 buds for this year's crop; so for two years now 

 the orchardists have not made their expenses. 

 A large percentage of the white varieties of 

 cherry-trees have died, owing to last year's 

 drouth. In digging wells to irrigate we have 

 found the soil in some localities as dry as pow- 

 der to a depth of fifteen feet. 



By the way, we have a gas-engine out here 

 that generates gas and runs on crude petrole- 

 um that costs only five cents per gallon, and 

 a gallon will go as far as a gallon of gasoline 

 in other makes of engines. I speak of this 

 because I have seen none advertised in East- 

 ern papers. 



I have found that honey gathered from 

 fruit-bloom is bitter to the taste. There is a 

 wild peavine that grows here that the bees 

 gather honey from all summer and fall, and 

 the honey, when first gathered, is as blue as a 

 navy shirt. 



Suisun, Cal., April 24. 



COMB AND EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Producing Both at the Same Time on the Same 

 Hive; the Shallow Extracting-super for Start- 

 ing Bees into the Sections. 



BY LOUIS SCHOLL. 



The article in April 15th Gleanings, by 

 Mrs. Barber, in regard to producing comb and 

 extracted honey, was read with great interest; 

 and as Mrs. B. asks others to try her plan, and 

 report, I will endeavor to tell how I conceived 

 the idea of using shallow half-depth extract- 

 ing supers on all colonies intended to be run 

 for comb (section) honey. 



All of my hives that I have been using were 

 the 1^-story eight-frame Dovetailed, with 

 shallow extracting-supers. These are left on 

 the hive during the winter — in fact, all the 

 year round except on those colonies which are 

 well started in their section-supers during the 

 honey-flow, as the shallow-frame supers are 

 generally moved to other colonies run for ex- 



tracted honey exclusively. These are mostly 

 colonits which are too slow for comb honey, 

 and often these are the weaker colonies in the 

 yard. 



Well, to return. In 1895 we had a sudden 

 flow from mesquite; and as I had only one su- 

 per and a set of frames to each colony they 

 were soon filled with honey before any was 

 ripe enough to be extracted. As the bees 

 needed more room I could do nothing else 

 than to get all of my sections ready, and nail 

 up some supers, using old fence boards and 

 what all. These were put between the shallow 

 super and the brood-nest ; and how the bees 

 did fill those sections ! 



I did not care to produce a very great 

 amount of section honey, so I selected several 

 of my best and strongest colonies to produce 

 the amount wanted; but after putting the sec- 

 tion-supers on they were very slow to enter 

 them. 



One or two did not go up at all, and not one 

 of these colonies entered the supers until the 

 brood-nest was completely filled with honey. 

 As bees are loath to store honey above sealed 

 stores, they would loaf and hang all over the 

 front of the hive, while the other colonies 

 produced a far greater amount of both comb 

 and extracted honey. So it will be plainly 

 seen that this idea w?s a good one, and it has 

 been practiced ever since that time. 



I have been bu^y this week in placing the 

 comb honey supers between the shallow-frame 

 supers (which are about half full) and the 

 brood-nest. The mesquite flow is now on; and 

 if the weather continues favorable, those su- 

 pers will soon be full. 



To conclude, I will give here a copy of my 

 report for 1897 in the Southland Queen, Janu- 

 ary, 1898 : 



" I have the eight-frame Dovetailed hives, 

 and use shallow extracting-supers. As I run 

 my bees for extracted and comb honey I first 

 let them get started in the shallow super, and 

 then I put a super filled with sections in be- 

 tween." 



" If you run some colonies for comb honey, 

 and treat them in this way, the bees seem to 

 try to see how quickly they can fill the sec- 

 tions between the super and brood-nest." 



After considering all these most important 

 points on the production of section honey, as, 

 bees too slow to enter section-supers, too much 

 honey in the brood-chamber, and that bees 

 are quite loath not to store surplus honey 

 above the sealed honey in the brood-frames, 

 and a great many other points worthy of the 

 fullest consideration, I have now on trial in 

 my apiary a sectional hive consisting of a se- 

 ries of cases, brood-cases, and section-cases all 

 interchangeable, by the use of which I believe 

 we can overcome a great many of these diffi- 

 culties. After putting this hive to a thorough 

 trial we will gladly say more about it in some 

 future articles. 



Hunter, Tex., April, 1899. 



[Once get the bees started, and they will go 

 right on with the work. The principle of us- 

 ing an extracting-super to get the bees into 

 the notion of going above to work is all right. 

 It worked nicely for us last summer. — Ed.] 



