.In. 



O I. K A \ I \ (I S I \ n K K (• r I. T U K R 



411 



TAKING EXTRACTED HONEY 



^moving Honey in Wholesale Way 

 After the Honey Flo-w. Circum'vent- 

 ing Robbers. Extracting with Comfort 



By Morley Pettit 



WE do not 

 take hon- 

 ey off un- 

 til the crop is all 

 on the liives. 

 This calls foi' a, 

 large stock of 

 supers, and we 

 count on an av- 

 erage of at the 

 very least three ten-frame L. supers and a 

 shallow super for each colony, spring count. 

 That is not really enough for a maximum 

 crop at all yards, as for example in 1916. 

 That was the year it rained all the previous 

 fall and all spring right up until June 25 

 after the clover had been in bloom for 

 weeks. Then it suddenly turned hot, and 

 for one month things happened! Toward 

 the end of that month we had three supers 

 on everything, four on a great many, and 

 five on quite a few, all nearly full of honey 

 and not a pound of it ready to extract, ac- 

 cording to our standards. The weather and 

 the honey flow were such that they could 

 not ripen it. Where we would have been 

 with only one or even two supers per col- 

 ony I hate even to imagine. While on Gov- 

 ernment work I have visited beekeepers in 

 cold weather and have seen their honey all 

 in five-pound pails with a half inch of clear 

 liquid over the granulated part in every pail. 

 They said their honey was always that way, 

 and thought it was a normal condition for 

 good clover honey. They extracted fre- 

 quently from one super per colony during 

 the honey flow, turned out a great deal of 

 unripe honey, and complained about the low 

 price! As soon as the colony has some 

 honey in nearly all the cells ot a super an- 

 other is given, always next the brood-cham- 

 ber. Yes, it means a lot of lifting; but we 

 are sure it pays. We have tried putting 

 the empty super on top and it does not 

 work — not in our "locality." After having 

 made some increase and melted up some old 

 combs we generally run short of combs to- 

 ward the end of the honey flow and supers 

 of foundation are in order. This serves the 

 double purjiose of getting combs and encour- 

 aging the ripening of the full supers above. 

 We try to add foundation freely enough to 

 have some partly drawn to take off; that 

 shows they have not missed gathering for 

 lack of space, yet it gets all well capped. 

 Combs with wide top-bars go nine in a super, 

 narrow ones ten. 

 Bee-escapes for Stripping Apiary of Its 



Honey. 

 When it comes to taking off the honey 

 we take along escape-boards enough for one 

 whole yard. We used to tilt the stack and 

 slip the board under all at once, and then 

 we tried taking one super off each hive at a 

 time, thinking they would go out of one 

 more quickly than from the whole stack. 

 Now we do not do either. If enough empty 

 combs for one super per colony in one 

 yard can be saved from the supering season, 



that suits best; 

 if not, we have 

 1o make shift 

 iii\til some are 

 e .V t r acted. To 

 put on escapes 

 the procedure is 

 somewhat like 

 this: Go to the 

 first hive and 

 tear down the stack of supers, saving out 

 the shallow super and any real light combs. 

 The shallow super has been on top of 

 the stack all summer and should be sol- 

 idly filled and capped. Kemove the ex- 

 cluder and place the shallow extracting 

 ing super on the brood-chamber, then the 

 excluder and a super containing empty 

 combs and any unripe honey there may be 

 in the last super which had been added to 

 the hive. The escape goes on top of this 

 and then the pile of supers of honey. Now 

 the escaping bees have somewhere to go, 

 and if the supers do not contain one cell of 

 brood they will clear rapidly, as a rule, 

 altho there are exceptions. This seems like 

 work, and I do not know how to get the 

 best results without work; but there are al- 

 ways two men to do it. After the escapes 

 are all on some responsible person must go 

 over every hive again and see that robbers 

 have no possible chance to get into any 

 super. They will soon be all unguarded, 

 and if robbers ever get a start the fat is 

 surely in the fire. With everything secure, 

 that yard should be left to itself for a full 

 24 hours; if the weather is inclined to be 

 cool, 48 hours is better. 



Loading and Getting Away Without Trouble 

 From Robbers. 

 In taking oft' supers at the end of the 

 flow the struggle with robbers is the great- 

 est difficulty. Where trucks are to be loaded 

 direct from the hives this is accentuated. 

 When it is very hot and bright we some- 

 times have to work rather late in the eve- 

 ning; but the latest plan we have tried is 

 ordinarily sufficient to keep them within 

 bounds. First, see that there are no very 

 weak or qucenless colonies. Then teach 

 everyone to be as careful as possible about 

 lea\'ing combs exposed for bees to get a 

 taste. Next, have a quantity of soft cotton 

 cloths, each one large enough to cover a 

 super, soaking in a pail containing a medium 

 solution of crude carbolic acid. The crude 

 kind will not burn the hands like the re- 

 fined, yet it is (|uite as good as a repellent. 

 Three persons can work to advantage at tak- 

 ing off. The supers are stacked five or six 

 high close to the hives with an escape-board 

 under and on top of each pile and a carbo- 

 lized cloth over the top in addition. Where 

 nine combs in a super can be crowded to- 

 gether and a tenth put in, this is done to 

 prevent swinging while on the road. The 

 taking off and filling out and stacking and 

 covering with boar<ls and dripping carbo- 

 lized cloth, the brushing out occasional su- 



