1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



579 



lowed by the ordinary beeway section or 

 three inches for t >p and bottom. This li- 

 inch space is placed right where it amounts 

 to something. If you add half an inch to 

 your nose, it would mean a good deal more 

 than if you added that much to the circum- 

 ference of your well-rounded body; so that 

 in talking about the difference in beeways 

 we must consider ivhere this difference is. 



The second consideration you have over- 

 looked is that a fence has horizontal slots 

 through which the bees can pass back and 

 forth. When you take into consideration 

 the fact that a wire- cloth separator (and 

 facts prove it, I think) will give more regu- 

 lar, more uniform, and more even combs 

 than the ordinary solid separator, then in 

 proportion as the fence or wire- cloth sepa- 

 rator is more open, in that proportion it will 

 produce more even filling and more uniform- 

 ity of weight. 



Possibly, according to your experience, 

 plain sections in fences are filled out no bet- 

 ter or no more uniformly than beeway sec- 

 tions with solid separators. This may be 

 true with your mixed strain of bees: but 

 the plain sections of honey we buy at Medi- 

 na (and we buy thousands of them) are cer- 

 tainly more uniform in weight, and are bet- 

 ter filled than the ordinary beeway section.* 

 I am well aware when 1 make this state- 

 ment that there are some who will disagree 

 radically with me; but I am stating what I 

 see and observe. 



You will remember there are Texas bee- 

 keepers who will testify that the Hyde- 

 Seholl separator— a separator that is virtual- 

 ly identical in principle with the wire-cloth 

 .separator when used with plain sections— 

 give i a more uniform and better filling of 

 s-ctims than a solid separator or even a 

 fence, because the bees can pass laterally 

 from secti >n to section. I think there is 

 plenty of testimony on that point, that we 

 can produce if called on. 



I admit that there is a difference in bees. 

 Bat this does not enter into consideration, 

 as I view it, for we are not talking about 

 the nature of bees, but the effect of two 

 different appliance 3 on that nature as we 

 find it in the average strain. 



I was aware that the Colorado bee keep- 

 frs (largely users of beeway sections) and 

 C madian bee-keepers (largely users of 

 stven-to foot beeway sections) sell by the 

 piece and by the case; but this applies more 

 particularly to Colorado than to Canada, 

 where both the piece and weight methods 

 prevail. But conditions in Colorado are such 

 that there will be a better filling of sections 

 with the beeway or plain section than in 

 other portions of the United States. The 

 principal reason of this is that bee-keepers 

 can calculate pretty closely on the length of 

 the honey-flows, and the number of them, 

 provided there has been a good previous 



*I have just referred this statement to our honey-man 

 and he says I am entirely correct. He also adds that 

 we very often pet/rom the same man a mixed shipment 

 of beeway and no-beeway sections; that a much larger 

 proportion of the latter will grade fancy. 



snowfall on the mountains. In Canada the 

 selling-by-the-piece proposition is made the 

 more feasible because the sections are thin- 

 ner. The thinner the combs, up to a cer- 

 tain limit, the more uniform the weight. 



When I made the statement under consid- 

 eration I had in mind the aggregate of small 

 bee-keepers in various parts of the United 

 States. If a plain section is more get-at- 

 able to the bees to the extent of beeways 3 

 inches wider and more get-at-able by reason 

 of the horizontal slots from section to sec- 

 tion, then it seems reasonable to suppose 

 that those sections would be more uniform 

 in weight for the reason that the bees 

 would be less divided off into little rooms, 

 each room of bees building its comb sepa- 

 rate by itself; then when we go one step 

 further and use a Hyde-Scholl separator or 

 wire-cloth separator between the sections, 

 where the bees can pass laterally from one 

 section to another as over a brood-comb the 

 results are very much more marked in the 

 way of uniformity of weight. I am not 

 stating this from my own experience, but 

 from what I have actually seen in different 

 yards I have visited. 



You may be partly right in your explana- 

 tion as to the attitude of old-timers toward 

 plain sections; but is it not a fact that, the 

 older we grow, the less inclined we are to 

 adopt new devices? 



When you threw aside your old brood- 

 frames and hives because there was a differ- 

 ence of only I, you did not do it because the 

 new hives, § shorter, were actually better 

 for honey or for bees. You did it as a mat- 

 ter of convenience and economy— conven- 

 ience in getting supplies, and economy be- 

 cause regular goods could be purchased for 

 less money than odd- sized stuff; so that I 

 really do not see that this argument has 

 any bearing on the old-timer proposition. 



With regard to the matter of using paint 

 on your hives, did you not tell me once that 

 your unpainted hives would last as long as 

 you lived, and that you preferred them be- 

 cause you thought them warmer? 



Dr. Miller's article was sent in shortly 

 after the Dec. 15th issue was mailed; but 

 being crowde'i at the time for space, I have 

 held it until the discussion would be more 

 timely — toward the comb-honey season. 



-Ed] 



««»« 



STRONG COLONIES FOR THE PRODUCTION 

 OF EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Why it is a Mistake to Imagine that Weak 

 Colonies Will Do. 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND, 



In reading current literature on the pro- 

 duction of extracted honey, one is easily 

 led to believe that any old colony, in any 

 kind of condition, is good enough to produce 

 extracted honey. In reading the report of 

 the Texas convention, in the American Bee 

 Journal, where Mr. Milam says weak colo- 

 nies are no good for comb honey, they are 



