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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



scarce and high-priced. Even away down 

 in Cuba friend de Beche says he gets a 

 larger per cent of profit on the capital in- 

 vested where he employs a cheap native 

 Cuban, at a low price, than where he man- 

 ages an apiary with an expensive expert. 

 Of course, the expert produces a larger 

 crop of honey, and keeps things in hand- 

 somer shape than the low-priced man. 

 This is especially true in Cuba, where ex- 

 tracted honey often nets the producer not 

 much over two cents a pound. Another 

 thing, the cheap man produces more wax 

 than the high-priced one; and wax is worth 

 almost as much in Cuba as it is here. 

 Now, it would make a long reply if I were 

 to go over the whole ground of managing an 

 apiary profitably by seeing it only four 

 times during the summer. Of course, this 

 is for extracted honey. Swarming is to be 

 prevented largely by giving the bees plenty 

 of room; and this is done by having enough 

 empty combs for the strongest colony to 

 store all they can gather. When honey 

 first begins to come in, give each colony an 

 upper story with eight instead of ten empty 

 combs. Mr. Townsend uses ten- frame hives 

 for obvious reasons. Whenever this upper 

 story is, say, half filled, give them another 

 super with eight more combs. Of course, 

 the eight combs are equally spaced in the 

 ten-frame hive. This gives a chance to 

 lengthen out the cells before capping it over. 

 The extracting is all done at the end of the 

 season, no extracting being done at all ex- 

 cept at the last visit. If you wish to pre- 

 vent swarming, be sure you give each cjIo- 

 ny enough combs to hold all the honey they 

 may gather; for if they get every thing full 

 they will be sure to swarm out. Better give 

 them too much room than not quite enough. 

 Put all the empty combs on top. The bees 

 then will fill the" combs and seal them up 

 below before going into the combs above. 

 The honey is all mos> perfectly ripened and 

 capped over. In uncapping, cut down low 

 enough to make your c^mbs all as smooth 

 as a planed board. Get rid of all hills and 

 valleys on the surface of your extracting- 

 combs. In this way you will get more wax 

 than by just taking off the caps. But with 

 perfectly smcoth level combs the uncapper 

 can do twice as much work; and where the 

 bees are not allowed to build combs, they 

 must indulge their wax building propensi- 

 ty in some way. Let them use it by length- 

 ening the cells and capping them over. Mr. 

 Townsend gets from one to two cents a 

 pound more for his extracted honey than 

 that in the general market. I can readily 

 believe this. Of ccurse, you want to be 

 sure that every colony has a queen. After 

 that you do not need to see the queens at all 

 from the beginning of the season till the 

 close. There is so little swarming, where 

 the bees always have plenty of room ahead 

 of them, that no attention is paid to hiving 

 swaims at all. I would suggest decoy 

 hives. But friend Townsend says he can 

 buy bees cheaper than to chase after what 

 few swarms theie may be hanging there. 



When asked if he did not have his apiary 

 near a residence he said that in many re- 

 spects he preferred the contrary. One of 

 his apiaries is nearly a mile from his house, 

 and has never been meddled with. This 

 speaks well again for Northern Michigan. 



Before leaving the matter of extracting I 

 wish to mention an idea he gave us about 

 uncapping. Tip the comb a little from you 

 so that the cappings when sliced off will 

 fall into the uncapping- tank by gravity. If 

 you let them slide off the knife and lodge 

 on the uncapped surface they will be hard- 

 er to get oft' from the sticky honey than be- 

 fore you uncapped them. With combs al- 

 ways as straight as a marble slab an ex- 

 pert uncapper will slice off the caps at a 

 single stroke. Mr. T. does not use an un- 

 cappingcan. A keg or half barrel stands 

 over a good- sized tub, being supported by 

 two narrow bars of wood dropped a little 

 below the rim of the tub. This is so no 

 honey can go over on the fioor. The oper- 

 ating strips are narrow so the caps will 

 not be piling up on them. The droppings 

 drop into the keg, and drain off into the tub 

 below. 



There was considerable discussion about 

 getting the honey that drips from the cap- 

 pings so as to get all of it, and not have it 

 injured in the process. Of course, melting 

 the cappings by the use of the solar ex- 

 tractor or otherwise will get the honey; but 

 the heat will injure it in color and flavor. 

 I think one of the women suggested that, if 

 the cappings were put ioto a cheese- cloth 

 bag. and hung up back of the stove, where 

 it is almost warm enough to melt the wax, 

 you will get nearly all the honey, and have 

 it unharmed. 



You will notice, friends, that the most the 

 manager has to do in these three first visits 

 is to put empty comb on the hives that need 

 it. Father Langstroth said years ago that 

 a good stock of empty combs was the sheet- 

 anchor of bee-keeping. The question might 

 come up, " Where shall we get our stock of 

 empty combs? " Perhaps they- can be built 

 up in the h< me apiary. 



Our old friend Covyou, who was present, 

 showed us an excellent plan for wiring 

 frames on slender wire nails driven in the 

 frames and bent over in hcok shape. By 

 his plan there are two horizontal wirts, 

 one a little above the bottom-bar and the 

 other a little below the top-bar, then there 

 were two diagonal wires. This braces and 

 supports the frame, and is put in very 

 quickly. 



Mr. Townsend winters his bees in North- 

 ern Michigan on a plan that commends it- 

 self very much to me at least. In the porous 

 sandy soil he makes a V-shaped trench. 

 Rails or other suitable sticks are laid cross- 

 wise of the trench. The hives of bees, with 

 sufficient stores, no top or bottom boards, 

 are placed on these rails. All the dead 

 bees and other trash drop down between 

 the rails at the bottom of the trench, there 

 being no bottom in the hives. The bees 

 have most perfect ventilation. Trash or 



