MY BEES. 135 



miles off had some bees, and actually got some 

 honey from them every year. I went to see 

 him, and found out that in that part of Jersey, 

 at least, bees do very little in the way of honey- 

 making from the end of June until the end 

 of August ; moreover, that if I want to get 

 them to make honey in the little boxes which 

 are sold by the grocers, I should have to en- 

 courage them by placing in each box a little 

 sheet of wax marked with the comb indenta- 

 tions. These wax " starters " are the invention 

 of a German bee-keeper. I also learned that, 

 in order to get the bees to do their whole duty, 

 a modern device, likewise the invention of a 

 German, known as an " extractor," would be 

 necessary. 



The extractor is simply a tin barrel contain- 

 ing a frame which can be made to whirl around 

 upon a central pivot. Into this frame the hive 

 combs, when they contain honey, are placed, 

 and made to revolve so rapidly that the honey 

 is forced out of the cone by centrifugal action 

 and trickles down to the bottom of the extract- 

 or. Before bees begin to store honey in the 

 little boxes in the top of the hive, they first fill 

 up such parts of the large frames as are not 



