August, 192'2 



GLEANINGS IN BKE CULTURE 



509 



honey to the colony, the full supers are 

 placed above escapes, removed and extract- 

 ed. Honey produced in interior valleys 

 can be removed when the combs arc heavy 

 and the bees have started to cap them along- 

 the top. Frequent takes of a super of honey 

 every 10 to 15 days throughout the season, 

 supplying at like intervals a super of drawn 

 comb, will result in a' maximum amount of 

 honey. It would be poor beekeeping, with 

 a tremendous waste of honey and an unnec- 

 essary outlay of equipment, to tier up six 

 or seven high, and then attempt to extract 

 two or three different kinds of sealed honey 



with a large quantity of ripened honey and 

 allowed to stand for two or more months in 

 a large ripening tank, even in a moist cli- 

 mate, will be found to be perfectly fit for 

 the market. 



Escapes. 

 It is our practice along about 4 o'clock 

 in the afternoon to go into a yard and slip 

 escapes under 50 to 60 supers of honey. One 

 man can do this work in from one to two 

 hours according to conditions. It is impor- 

 tant to leave one, and preferably two supers, 

 either empty or partly filled, between the 

 escape and the brood-nest, so that the bees 



Pig 3 — Uncapping-box with steani-beiited kuife at the left, aDd ordinary uncapping-knife in hot water 

 at the right. After being uncapped the combs are placed in the middle of the capping-box shown where 

 the operator of the extractor, who stands beyond the box at the right, can easily reach them. Note the 

 outlets for honev from both the extractor and the capping-box empty the honey into an open trough, 

 which carries it" by gravity to the settling tank. The top of the settling tank is shown through the 

 opening into the upper portion of the tank room. 



late in the fall when the season is over and 

 robbing is severe. It is a rule with us that, 

 whenever a super of honey is ready to ex- 

 tract, off it comes and an empty one is 

 slipped in directly over the excluder. In a 

 rapid honey flow we must tier up as high as 

 five to seven supers above the brood-cham- 

 ber, On rare occasions we have had as 

 many as seven supers containing practically 

 nothing but unsealed honey. At such times 

 we take off the heaviest super and slip un- 

 der the others an empty. Our first thought 

 is to give the bees plenty of room at all 

 times during the flow. The honey from a 

 few supers which is not sealed, when mixed 



will have somewhere to go during the eve- 

 ning. Some difficulty may be experienced 

 in ridding supers from bees when the first 

 honey is taken off, if the colonies were De- 

 mareed. Unless it is a week after all brood 

 emerged in the upper stories, some of the 

 younger bees may cluster with the few 

 drones that are present. If honey is re- 

 moved early in the morning, it is a simple 

 matter to shake these few bees from the 

 combs. Early the following morning, after 

 the escapes were inserted, a truck calls at 

 the yard with about as many empty supers 

 as there are full ones to take off. If the 

 flow is in progress the empties are slipped 



