THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



147 



No feeding with us is necessary 

 in the spring, unless the bees are 

 scarce of stores, in which case thej' 

 should be fed liberally till new 

 honey begins to come in. I used 

 to try to follow the directions of 

 some vvho write a great deal about 

 "equalizing brood" and "spreading 

 brood" and such like, but I have 

 learned better now. With good 

 healthy queens our bees will "equal- 

 ize" and spread their own brood 

 amazingly fast without any such 

 fussing. If I have weak colonies, 

 however, I put in division boards 

 during the early spring and help 

 them along in this way till the 

 weather becomes warm and settled, 

 and then they are given full sway 

 in the brood apartment. 



Up to this point of time bee cul- 

 ture in the south is easy and fair 

 sailing. But now comes the skilled 

 work, for it depends on skill and 

 good management as to whether we 

 get a half or whole crop of surplus 

 honey. I can now see how it once 

 was with me. I would have ray 

 bees in good trim when the early 

 harvest demanded laborers, and 

 then only get a half crop of honey. 

 The trouble was I lacked experi- 

 ence and fixedness of purpose. I 

 manage things differently now. I 

 take a practical look at matters in 

 advance. 8u[)pose my home mar- 

 I ket will take 1500 or 2000 pounds 

 of comb, besides extracted honey, 

 and this comb honey is consumed 

 by laboring people. In what shape 

 do they want it? Well, never in 

 "fancy" shape. They want hon- 

 ey — not "fancy" — for their cash. 

 Well, I produce this lot of honey 



in such size packages as those in 

 which I can get the largest amount 

 of good honey from the colonies 

 set apart for that purpose. And 

 after much experimenting in this 

 line I have adopted six-pound 

 packages. Don't cry out "fogy" 

 till you hear the whole story which 

 will be given in due time. 



Well, the six-pound boxes must 

 be ready and waiting. 



As my home market has not yet 

 been sufficiently developed to take 

 all the comb honey I find it profit- 

 able to produce, I wish to hold on 

 to my city trade, and for this pur- 

 pose I produce my comb in one 

 pound sections. And these must 

 be on hand and ready at a mo- 

 ment's notice. 



The balance of the crop will be 

 extracted, and as this should al- 

 ways stand for a while in open 

 vessels that the air may all escape 

 and the evaporation be hastened, 

 vessels for marketing can be ob- 

 tained at the leisure of the pro- 

 ducer. 



Having made up my mind as to 

 how much increase I want and pro- 

 vided the necessary hives and 

 frames, and taken an inventory of 

 surplus combs on hand, I am pre- 

 pared to make out a bill for the 

 amount of comb foundation I shall 

 most likely need, and this I order 

 early in the season before the press 

 comes, and when it can be pur- 

 chased at reasonable figures. 



I find nothing that pays better 

 than comb foundation both for 

 brood combs and surplus honey, 

 when used with proper judgment. 



Having everything ready we can 



