926 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



which gives the queen room for her full 

 capacity. Am I right here ?" 



"I can see no flaw in that assertion. 



' ' If the queen has all the vacant cell room 

 her prolificness requires, more room is only 

 a damage to our crop of comb honey; for m 

 the finding of too many vacant cells in the 

 brood-chamber at the beginning of the hon- 

 ey harvest comes an ' accustoment ' to the 

 brood-chamber for storing honey, instead of 

 the sections, and thus the queen is crowded 

 upon with honey, instead of said honey go- 

 ing into the sections; and with restricted 

 room for her eggs comes discontent, and 

 from this discontent comes the desire, and 

 from the desire comes swarming, the very 

 thing that we are told we shall not have if 

 we will only use large hives." 



"I wish my neighbor could hear your 

 argument. Perhaps he could give as good 

 arguments on his side. I don't know enough. 

 I can only say that it looks reasonable." 



' ' Remember we are looking at the matter 

 from the comb-honey standpoint, or honey 

 in sections, not extracted honey. 



' ' But you do have larger hives, do you 



not?" 



"Yes. Some fifteen to seventeen years 

 ago I was persuaded to buy of a farmer, 

 living five miles from me, his bees, as he 

 did not wish to keep them longer, and with 

 the bees he gave me the privilege of allow- 

 ing them to remain where they were for a 

 few pounds of honey each year. These bees 

 were in the ten-frame L. hives, and I have 

 kept them in those hives ever since, and at 

 the same place, and thus I have had a 

 chance to know about the workings of these 

 hives as compared with the nine-frame Gal- 

 lup hives of my home yard." 

 "How do they compare ? ' 

 "The result has been that I can, by giv- 

 ing plenty of section room, hold these colo- 

 nies at the outyard back from swarming 

 about a week later, on an average, than 

 where the nine Gallup frames are used ; but 

 this out-apiary is no nearer being a non- 

 swarming apiary than my home yard, and, 

 in fact, I often consider them more deter- 

 mined ' to swarm than those are here ; but 

 the swarming comes a little later in the 



season." ,. , , ^ 



" Do you consider this httle later swarm- 

 ing of any benefit for comb-honey produc- 

 tion?" _ , 



' ' This being held back a week in swarm- 

 ing has quite a bearing upon the problem of 

 comb-honey production, from my present 

 standpoint; for when colonies are managed 

 on the ' shook ' plan of swarming, as given 

 in the February 1st number of Gleanings 

 of this year, this holding-back puts them in 

 iust the right position to have the swarming 

 done up so they can take advantage of the 

 honey harvest when it comes, with the 

 largest possible working force, with no de- 

 sire to swarm after the manipulation. 



" But all this requires work." 



"Yes some work; but no more work than 

 we are well paid for. One thing I find, no 

 matter what hive is used, or how many 



frames that hive contains, within the bounds 

 of reason in securing a good crop of section 

 honey, either way, toward large or small 

 brood-chambers, a given amount of labor 

 must be performed, so that the idea of let- 

 ting the bees take care of themselves is 

 nearly or quite a myth, if we expect to_ reap 

 any great success from our bees. This no- 

 labor part, and that of putting more colonies 

 into the field, has been harped on so much of 

 late that it has become a sort of bugbear, 

 and a desire seems to have sprung up for a 

 ' holding of the pot to catch the porridge ' 

 sort of apiculture, unworthy of the best at- 

 tainments. ' In the sweat of thy face shalt 

 thou eat bread ' brings the highest joy that 

 is attained in this life. Is it not to the one 

 who has labored and toiled patiently, day 

 after day, till at last the problem worked 

 upon has been fully conquered and solved, 

 that the greatest satisfaction comes ? ' ' 



Bee Keeping AMON&THE Rockies 



What an all-devouring appetite is that of 

 friend Adelsbach, of the Western Bee Jour- 

 nal! Wonder whose turn it will be next. 



Extracted honey that has already granu- 

 lated too much to run at all may be made to 

 run quite freely by a thorough stirring. 



Back in Illinois I seldom found it of any 

 benefit to put the honey-knife in water, 

 either hot or cold. When I did, cold water 

 was just as good as hot. But when extract- 

 ing Colorado alfalfa honey, hot water is de- 

 cidedly better than cold, even in hot weather. 



It is claimed by those who think it unnec- 

 essary to use excluding zinc between the 

 brood - chamber and the extracting -combs 

 that the honey can readily be extracted from 

 combs containing unsealed brood without in- 

 juring or throwing out the brood. This is 

 largely true in the East, but not here. I 

 had to extract from only four or five combs 

 containing brood, and I found it a matter of 

 difficulty, requiring both time and skill to get 

 the honey out without throwing out a large 

 proportion of the unsealed brood. It can be 

 done satisfactorily only in the hottest weath- 

 er. 



The big tank for extracted honey is all 

 right; but those who -claim that honey put 

 into such a tank needs no straining are "way 

 off"" under certain circumstances. My hon- 

 ey was strained through coarse cheese-cloth 



