1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



27 



to'return to our subject, here is the matter 

 of winter stores for our bees which is one of 

 great importance. It is so easy to take 

 their honey from them with the extractor 

 that many inexperienced bee-keepers fre- 

 quently take too much from their colonies, 

 thinking they will gather enough later on to 

 carry them through the winter; but often 

 the harvest closes sooner than we expect, 

 then you are in a bad shape, with a large 

 number of light colonies on hand and no 

 honey coming in. I have been right there 

 and know what it is to be caught in this 

 way. In order to avoid light colonies in the 

 fall, let your bees fill up their hives with 

 the first honey of the season, and see they 

 have a plenty of it capped over before you 

 put on your extracting- supers. It is so nat- 

 ural for them to store their honey above 

 their brood, that, unless you take especial 

 pains to see that they have a nice lot of cap- 

 ped honey in the lower hive, before you com- 

 mence to extract you will be liable to have 

 many light colonies for winter. We always 

 save when extracting some nice heavy combs 

 of capped honey to give any light colonies 

 we might find shortly before putting them 

 away for winter. Now as some of you have 

 recently seen photos of our apiary, I wish 

 to tell you of the changes we have just 

 made. First, we have removed several ap- 

 ple-trees from the bee-yard, as we don't like 

 any shade among our hives. Then we have 

 taken away those small buildings, and in 

 their place we now have a fine building 24 X 

 56, which has a good cellar under it that 

 will give ample room to winter 1000 colonies. 

 In this building we can store all our extract- 



E. W. ALEXANDER S HONEY- STRAINER PAIL. 



HONEY- STRAINER PAIL— TOP VIEW. 



ing-combs and, in fact, every thing connect- 

 ed with an apiary of 1000 colonies, includ- 

 ing all the necessary barrels to hold their 

 honey. It is two stories high, which gives 

 us a chance to use the pipe again to convey 

 our honey from the extractor to the tanks 

 which we value so much. We thought we 

 had some things quite 

 handy before, but now 

 it will not require more 

 than half the labor to 

 handle our honey that 

 it has in the past. And 

 now, my friends, I hope 

 that you have seen 

 something in these two 

 articles on extracted 

 honey that will awak- 

 en a new interest in 

 you toward your bees; 

 for surely if we ex- 

 pect to produce large 

 quantities of either 

 comb or extracted hon- 

 ey, we must have ev- 

 ery thing as conven- 

 ient as possible, for, to 

 a certain extent, we 

 are in competition with 

 those immense sugar- 

 refineries where mil- 

 lions of dollars are in- 

 vested; and in order to 

 hold our part of the 

 trade, and bring honey 

 into general use, we 

 must cut corners here 

 and there and every- 

 where so that we can 

 produce honey cheaper 



