February, 1909. 



American liee Journal 



strung out in a long string, and it took 

 al! of 15 minutes until the tail-end had 

 arrived at the decoy hive. This swarm 

 proved to be vifithout a queen. 



My bees had good flights on 7 days in 



honey, and 320 pounds in one-pound sec- 

 tions, so I have reason to be well sat- 

 isfied. 



The other photograph shows a swarm 

 of bees that I found in the limbs of a 



Apiary of Jacob Wagner, E. Aman.\, Iowa. 



November and 8 days in December. On 

 December 6 and 7 we had zero weather. 



On December 29 I renewed the winter- 

 packing over the bees in 25 hives. That 

 is to say, I gave them new, heavy quilts, 

 and had the chaff packing out in the 

 sun, although there was but very little 

 dampness to be noticed. I have now my 

 exact number of colonies wintering that 

 I had when spring opened ; i, e., 30 colo- 

 nies to be run for extracted, and 4 colo- 

 nies for comb honey, in the coming sea- 

 son of 1909. 



Grand Island, Nebr. 



sour-apple" tree, 8 to 10 feet above the 

 ground. They were hybrids and very 

 gentle, and did not bother me in the 

 least while climbing to my seat where 

 the limbs formed a fork just about 4 

 feet from the cluster, with my face as 

 close as 2 feet to them, and my hand 

 still closer. Through failure to find a 

 better place, and for some other reason, 

 they selected this rather odd place for 

 their permanent home. They had built 

 6 combs, 10 inches wide, and 14 to 16 



were very thick with leaves, thus form- 

 ing a covering or natural roof, that must 

 have looked inviting to them. Well, I 

 thought it an uncommon sight, anyway, 

 so I decided right there to have it pho- 

 tographed, hoping it might find a corner 

 in the American Bee Journal in the in- 

 terest of its readers. 

 East Amana, Iowa, Nov. 3. 



"Thick Extracting Combs" 



BV E. D. TOWNSEND. 



On page 181 of the American Bee 

 Journal for June, 1908, under the above 

 heading, is an extract from the British 

 Bee Journal, referring to the spacing of 

 extracting combs iJ4 inches from center 

 to center, Mr. Richard M. Lamb say- 

 ing "he bought 100 wide frames, and 

 for a few seasons compared the work 

 done in them with that done in the 

 ordinary frame with the i5^-inch spac- 

 ing, and found the former sadly disap- 

 pointing." 



While there is usually a wrong as 

 well as a right way of doing things, I 

 cannot see from the quotation above 

 referred to, where Mr. Lamb made his 

 failure. It will be noticed that I'/i-inch 

 spacing from center to center of his 

 extracting combs is a success, lJ4-inch 

 spacing a failure as to quantity and 

 quality of honey produced — only a 

 fourth of an inch difference in spacing, 

 between success and failure. 



It is admitable that lyi inches, from 

 center to center, is nature's width of 

 spacing; that is, if a swarm is hived in 

 a box, without any guide in the shape 

 of a starter, their worker-comb will be 

 built about i^/i inches from center to 

 center, and this width spacing will hold 



A Successful Iowa Apiary 



BY JACOB WAGNER. 



I am sending you two photographs 

 that were taken for me some time ago. 

 One shows my apiary where I have 

 been keeping my bees over 25 years. 

 When I first started I kept them inside 

 the building you see in the picture in 

 the rear, but now have them outside, 

 and use one part of the building to 

 store away hives and other utensils 

 when not needed. The other part I use 

 to extract honey and do other work in 

 connection. The larger building to the 

 right is my shop, where 3 to 4 men are 

 working on benches doing cabinet and 

 carpenter work. 



I have found it more practical to keep 

 bees outdoors than inside. I have them 

 under an arbor of grapevines, which I 

 consider an ideal place for them. You 

 can notice the sidewalk and street just 

 outside the fence. This is one of the 

 most used thoroughfares at the place, 

 and in all these years, nobobdy has ever 

 been bothered by my Italians, which fact 

 surely shows that they are a rather 

 good-natured crowd. Some seasons I 

 have 50 to 60 colonies on the place, but 

 this season had only 15 colonies, spring 

 count, which increased to 26 and pro- 

 duced over 3000 pounds of extracted 



Mr. Wagner and His Sour-Apple Tree Swarm. 



inches long, which contained some brood 

 and a little honey at the time I discov- 

 ered them, which was in the latter part 

 of September. I suppose when they 

 started to work the limbs and twigs 



good in the surplus receptacle when no 

 starters are provided. 



Since i^-inch spacing of the brood- 

 frames has been so universally adopted, 

 some may have gotten it into their 



