1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



227 



IS OUR PLAN OF WORKING FOR COMB HONEY 

 AGAINST NATURE ? 



" Say, Doolittle, is it not against the very 

 nature of bees to have so many ' traps ' by 

 way of separators, T tins, queen-excluders, 

 etc., in the production of comb honey ? " 



" Possibly. But what are you trying to 

 get at ? " 



"Just this: Do not these things lessen 

 our yield quite materially, and place the 

 bees to a great disadvantage above what 

 they were with the large open boxes, hold- 

 ing from 15 to 25 pounds, of our fathers ? ' ' 



"When I first began bee-keeping comb 

 honey was not put up as at the present day, 

 as a part of the boxes used were made to 

 hold 15 to 20 pounds, as you have just said, 

 while the smallest boxes then made in this 

 locality held fully six pounds. Some of these 

 had glass sides while others had only a small 

 piece of glass over an auger-hole, so that 

 the owner of the bees could see through 

 this glass to tell when the combs were com- 

 pleted, or when the honey was ready to take 

 off. As time passed on, the thought origi- 

 nated in some enterprising bee-keeper's 

 head that honey would sell better if stored 

 in smaller boxes than those weighing six 

 pounds, so we soon had the four-pound 

 glass box, having four corner-posts and 

 glass on all four sides. These were very 

 tasty, and took well in the market, as the 

 customer could see the honey on all four 

 sides, the same being very attractive and 

 captivating to all who saw it." 



" I never heard of such a box. It must 

 have been quite a pretty sight. ' ' 



" It was. But bee-keepers were not con- 

 tent, so that the next we had was the Har- 

 bison box, or one holding three pounds, the 

 same having glass on two sides. This box 

 was used the same as its predecessors had 

 been; namely, with the glass sides separat- 

 ing each from all others, while it was made 

 long enough to hold only one comb, which 

 was 2 J inches thick when completed. ' ' 



' ' Did you find this as good as the larger 

 ones ? ' ' 



" With this box I had very little success, 

 for the bees seemed very loath to work in 

 it; and when they did so they would often 

 tiy to put in three combs, which made it in 

 very poor shape for market. For this rea- 

 son I decided that it was not in accord with 

 'nature' for the bees to be cut up in such 

 little clusters (as the boxes were glassed 

 before placing in the hive) and have their 

 combs as thick as 2i inches. Consequently I 

 went back to the six-pound box again, and 

 left the matter of small boxes to others. ' ' 



"And you found you were right, did you 

 not?" 



' ' We shall see. When the two-pound sec- 

 tion with separators was introduced (these 

 were the first sections in reality), I consid- 

 ered them as being still worse than any pre- 

 ceding them, for it seemed to me that the 

 bees were divided into still smaller clusters 

 than before. ' ' 



" That is the way I reason, exactly." 



"So did I; but one night while lying 

 awake thinking on the subject I believed 

 that I saw a difference between this way of 

 using boxes and the old way, where glass 

 was used on both sides of the box; for in 

 using separators the bees were not, proper- 

 ly speaking, divided into little clusters as 

 before." 



"Why not?" 



' ' Because, as the separators lacked i inch 

 of coming within reach of either the top or 

 the bottom of the box, the bees and warmed 

 air could pass from one to the other, to a 

 certain extent, just the same as if no tin 

 were there. But I feared that the tin would 

 be a hindrance after all, so I went slowly the 

 first year." 



' ' What was the result with those you 

 tried?" 



' ' Greater than from hives worked in the 

 old way, on an average ; but as I used only a 

 few hives I feared I was not sure in the mat- 

 ter, so I tried only about double the number 

 of the year before, the season following, 

 working the rest of the apiary with the six- 

 pound box as before. At the end of that 

 season I found that the sections with separa- 

 tors gave me the largest yield again, and 

 the combs in these sections were simply per- 

 fect, and sold in market for two to three 

 cents per pound more than did the six-pound 

 boxes." 



' ' Well, from that I suppose you adopted 

 the sections with separators for the whole 

 apiary? " 



' ' No. I still had fears in the matter, so 

 the next year I workedabouthalf each way; 

 but when fall came, and I found that sections 

 were still ahead as to yield, and the same as 

 to price, I could hesitate no longer, and 

 adopted sections entirely for the future. ' ' 



"Do you still use the two-pound sec- 

 tions? " 



"No." 



' ' Did you find that the bees worked as 

 well in the one-pound section with separa- 

 tors as with the two? " 



"Yes. But I was very loath to make 

 this change, not so much on account of fear- 

 ing that the bees would not do as great 

 work in them as because this change would 

 very nearly, if not quite, double the work of 

 getting a thousand pounds of honey ready 

 for market as was required with the two- 

 pound sections. There was double the num- 

 ber to make, handle, scrape the propolis 

 from, and crate; and I never could see 

 aught but a mistake, on the part of bee- 

 keepers, in rushing into these one-pound 

 sections in advance of any call for the same 

 from the consumer. It was simply a mat- 



