XQOS. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



25 



supplied with plenty of empty comb 

 in the brood nest; and for that rea- 

 son you are sure of having very strong 

 colonies when your honey harvest 

 commences in earnest, and the shorter 

 the season the greater will be the dif- 

 ference in the returns. I have fre- 

 quently seen seasons when hives op- 

 erated for extracted paid a fair inter- 

 est when your comb honey colonies 

 would fail completely. 



One season our apiary of twenty- 

 six colonies averaged two hundred 

 pounds to the hive. Out of the twen- 

 ty-six colonies, three failed complete- 

 ly, as their queens, in spite of all the 

 stimulating we could do, turned out 

 worthless, and before they could be 

 replaced the season was over. To 

 counterbalance that side, we had one 

 colony we felt sure gave us nearly if 

 not quite four hundred pounds. 



We have found trouble in getting 

 Italians to go up into the boxes. They 

 ire much more reluctant to do so than 

 he old black bee, but in working for 

 ;xtracted, it is so easy to raise a 

 )rood comb up into the second story 

 ind the problem is solved. How many 

 imes you will find instead of working 

 n boxes the brood chamber will be 

 ound full of honey instead of brood, 

 nd very often forcing oflf a swarm, 

 am reminded of an incident that 

 appened some years ago. A gentle- 

 nan who owned several colonies invit- 

 d me over the river to visit him and 

 icidentally look at his bees. Upon 

 pening them, we found them in about 

 le condition we speak of, that is, 

 ives full of honey, but very little 

 rood. I explained the trouble and 

 hen he asked me what I would ad- 

 ise him to do, I simply pleaded ig- 

 orance. I said, "If they were mine 

 would extract some of the combs, 

 it you have no extractor." He want- 

 1 to know if he removed some of 

 e combs, if the bees would not build 

 ;w comb. I thought not, and if they 

 d it would probably be drone comb. 

 It even if they did that would do no 

 >od. I advised him to buy a cheap 

 'tractor as the only way out that I 

 |uld see, but I am not quite sure but 

 thought I was a drummer for some 

 )ply house. In consequence, they 

 ^nt into winter quarters few in num- 

 rs, and I was told they all died be- 

 \e the winter was half over, from 

 le unknown cause, as the hives 



were full of honey. How often we 

 have heard that same story. 



One objection advanced against ex- 

 tracted honey is the trouble of dis- 

 posing of such great quantities. Well, 

 it is easier to dispose of fifty or even 

 a hundred pounds of comb honey than 

 it is four or five hundred of extracted. 



But when we had our honey crop 

 nicely put away in half-barrels, coated 

 inside with beeswax, we found the 

 disposal of it in a great measure a 

 matter of education. In the first 

 place, we had a neat circular nicely 

 worded, illustrated with suitable wood 

 cuts, explaining the modern process 

 of extracting honey and giving the 

 names of a few of our prominent citi- 

 zens who had witnessed the process, 

 together with a cordial invitation to 

 all those interested to call and see for 

 themselves. This we found always a 

 drawing card. 



Now as to the charge or assertion 

 that extracted has to be sold at a very 

 low price: We find no trouble in get- 

 ting fifteen cents per pound for small 

 quantities, and within a few days I 

 have had comb honey, as clear and 

 white as I have ever seen, in small 

 frames, sell at eighteen cents. Too 

 cheap, you will say, and so say I. It 

 is worth more — much more, in propor- 

 tion, for while your little workers have 

 been making the comb and depositing 

 that pound, they would have given 

 you, at a very low estimate, from three 

 to five times that much extracted. Do 

 your own figuring. Now, in conclu- 

 sion, I will say candidly, for myself 

 I would not know how to keep bees 

 without an extractor of some kind, and 

 I feel sure that those of us who work 

 for comb honey and have used an ex- 

 tractor in connection with the other 

 will bear me out in this. Not wishing 

 to monopolize all our time, and 

 thanking you for your kind attention, 

 I will step aside. 



AMERICAN APICULTURE. 



Present Conditions and Future Pros- 

 pects Analyzed. 



By J. E. Johnson. 



THE EDITOR of the Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Review has often urged me 

 to "keep more bees." The ad- 

 vice seems good, and I have acted up- 

 on it to the extent of increasing my 



