116 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



one year I had enough clover honey to sell, 

 and the customers came back stating that 

 they wanted some of that black thick honey 

 such as I sold them last year. But, even 

 though I have not as good a location ps 

 some," he continued, " I manage to get 

 enough from the bees to paj^ my taxes. My 

 taxes amount to over $40. I always lay my 



honey money aside for that purpose. Every 

 year I have enough to pay my taxes, and 

 some years I have considerable left over." 

 Not so bad, I thought, for a city man who 

 l«eps bees for the fun and recreation he 

 gets out of the business rather than for the 

 financial gain. 



New Brunswick, N. J. 



OVER TWO TONS OF HONEY A YEAR FROM A CITY APIARY 



BY GEORGE ZAUTNER 



[Another picture of our correspondent's apiary appeared on the cover of our Oct. 1st issue. — Ed.] 



I have been interested in beekeeping ever 

 since I was a little boy, though we have 

 always lived in the city. My father bought 

 his first hive of bees about 42 years ago. 

 When he built his home it was on the out- 

 skirts; but now the city has grown so large 

 that it extends a mile or more beyond us. 

 I always helped father when he was work- 

 ing with the bees, and I became very much 

 interested in them. The first comb honey we 

 produced was in a square box that held 

 about five or six pounds of honey, with 

 glass on two sides. In those days we were 

 satisfied if we got two or three such boxes 

 from each hive. Now all is different. The 

 improvements in beekeeping are something 

 wonderful. We now have the modern hives 

 and all the necessary equipment for up-to- 

 date beekeeping. 



The honey season is very short in this 

 section. It begins about June 15 and ends 

 about July 20. We never get any surplus 

 from fruit-bloom. The bees use for brood- 

 rearing what they get from that source. 

 We depend on clover for our crop. When 

 the clover is gone, that ends the season. 

 So you can see we have to get our bees in 

 prime condition by June 15. 



We have two large city parks quite near 

 us, and I think we get most of our honey 

 from that source. 



We must give our bees the best of care in 

 order to get them in condition for the honey- 

 flow. In early May, when a queen has her 

 hive well filled with brood and bees I open 

 the hive, put her with a frame of brood in 

 another hive, filling the rest of the space 

 with drawn combs, and set it on top of the 

 other hive without an excluder. In three or 

 four weeks I have t^^o hive-bodies filled with 

 bees and brood. 



About June 15 I take eight of the best 

 frames of brood and the queen, and put them 

 below with an excluder on top to keep the 

 queen below. Then I put on the first super 

 and set the other hive-body of brood on top. 

 This makes the upper hive queenless, and 



the bees will start queen-cells eveiy time. 

 But in five or six days I open the upper 

 hive and cut out every queen-cell. This 

 operation will keep the bees from swarming 

 for the present. When the first super is 

 about half filled I put another one under the 

 flist one so as to give them plenty of room 

 to work. 



In about fifteen days from the time I put 

 the first super on I take off the upper brood- 

 nest and set it on a' new stand. Most of the 

 brood will have hatched by this time. I 

 leave it on the new stand for a day or two, 

 when all the field bees will have flown back 

 to the old hive. A splendid way to make 

 increase is to give this hive a young queen. 

 Or it may be set on top of another hive 

 that is run for extracted honey. 



In order to produce fancy section honey 

 one must have his hives overflowing with 

 bees. All our queens' wings are clipped. If 

 a swarm comes out the queen will drop in 

 front of the hive in the grass (I keep the 

 gi'ass short to prevent the queen from get- 

 ting lost). I cage her in a wire cage made 

 for that pui"pose, remove the hive to the 

 rear, and put an empty one in its place. 

 Then I place the queen in the cage on the 

 alighting-board of the empty hive. When 

 the bees in the air discover their queen is 

 not with them they come back, looking for 

 her. When sufficient bees come back to 

 protect her I release the queen, when she 

 will run in the hive, and all the bees follow 

 her. Toward evening I open the liive that the 

 swarm issued from, and cut out all queen- 

 cells. I then set the swarm to one side and 

 put the hive that the swarm issued from on 

 its old stand, shaking the swarm back in 

 front of the hive that it came from — bees, 

 queen, and all. After this I add another 

 super to give them more room. This opera- 

 tion of cutting out the queen-cells and shak- 

 ing the swarm back takes only about ten or 

 fifteen minutes. The next morning, befoi'e 

 the bees begin to fly, I set the hive on a new 



