94 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1. 



very decided grounds against them. He had, 

 he said, produced comb honey extensively 

 without them, and he thought his honey woul 1 

 compare favorably with any separatored honey 

 produced. vSeparators were an expense and a 

 nuisance — a nuisance, because they invited 

 burr- comb attachments to the comb surfaces, 

 and because they retarded the prompt enter- 

 ing of the bees into the supers. If he were to 

 use separators at all, he would favor, he 

 thought, slatted separators on the plan of the 

 fence. He regarded free communication clear 

 through the super very important, and a su- 

 per without separators he believed was far su- 

 perior to any thing with them. Yes, sir ; he 

 would challenge any man to produce better 

 honey with separators than he could without. 

 Mr Herman Rauchfuss very promptly rose to 

 his feet, and accepted the challenge then and 

 there, and then the fun began. While one or 

 two favored this position of Mr. Lvon, the 

 majority, including the Rauchfuss brothers 

 and President Aiken, took decidedly the op- 

 posite view. Sec Rauchfuss read a letter 

 from a prominent commission house, urging 

 that bee-keepers use separators, as non-sepa- 

 ratored honey was often unsalable, and brought 

 a lower price. "Shots" were fired back and 

 forth in lively succession, greatly to the en- 

 livenment of the convention and the merriment 

 of the members. Some one, I do not recall 

 who, said it was a common practice in his vi- 

 cinity to use one or two separators in a case ; 

 that this was a saving in expense, and the bees 

 wt re more ready to enter the supers. This in- 

 vited a regular fusilade from the separator 

 men, who were strongly in the majority. 

 When the discussion had all but closed, with 

 the non-separator fellows all but squelched. 

 President Aiken, evidently to complete the 

 process of " squelching," arose and said there 

 iwas a time when he had advocated before that 

 association the use of no separators in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey ; but he felt that he 

 had made a serious mistake ; and if bee-keep- 

 ers would forgive him he would never do so 

 again. He had seen some of the poor non- 

 separatored honey on the market, and felt 

 that such goods were a poor advertisement for 

 the Colorado beekeepers. He now used and 

 recommended all to use separators. While he 

 admitted that Mr. Lyon's honey might be 

 first-class, yet the majority of beekeepers 

 would do far better to use separators, in his es- 

 timation ; and then, turning to Mr. Lyon, he 

 .didn't believe his (Lyon's) honey would be 

 classed in the same grade with a first-class ar- 

 ticle produced with separators. Mr. Lyon, in 

 response, grinned a smile that indicated he 

 was not squelched, but of the "same opinion 

 still." 



W. L. COGGSHALL AND HIS LIGHTNING OPER- 

 ATOR. 



W. L. Coggshall owns and operates — well, 

 he does not know exactly how many, but some- 

 where from 1100 to 1200 colonies. These are 

 distributed among some ten different yards, 

 the furthest one being something like 40 miles 

 from the home apiary. They are scattered 

 among the hills between lakes Cayuga and 



Skaneateles, and hardly a better location for 

 such extensive bee-keeping could be found in 

 the whole State. His brother, David C, for- 

 merly his partner in business, now owns some- 

 thing like 600 colonies, and the two have cov- 

 ered almost all the territory between the two 

 lakes with apiaries that range from two to 

 three miles apart. 



W. L. COGGSHALL. 



There is probably no man in the world who 

 secures as large a number of pounds of honey 

 per colon}', with as little labor as W. L. Cogg- 

 shall. Indeed, his record, and that of his 

 helpers in extracting, is something phenome- 

 nal. An extracting-house, extractor, and all 

 other appurtenances, are stationed at each 

 yard ; and it is the custom for Mr. Coggshall 

 to take with him two or three men, also a load 

 of kegs, barrels, and half-barrels. Arriving 

 at the yard, they don their armor-proof bee- 



COGGSHALL'S EXTRACTING HAND CART. 



suits, because no ordinary sting proof clothing 

 would answer. They then proceed to extract, 

 not after the orthodox fashion, but in a man- 

 ner that would make the hair of an average 

 bee-keeper stand on end. The hives are rip- 

 ped open — yes, even kicked open, sometimes, 

 if a kick will do it more quickly — smoke is 



