378 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



boarded at New Smyrna, where they 

 had eleven barrels of it. The candied 

 honey looked like white sugar, and I ! 

 liked it better than sugar to put into ' 

 coffee. 1 must say that il is lovely in 

 Florida in the winter. 



I lost 2o colonies out of 100, this 

 spring. The ones I buried I have lost 

 the most of. I have got enough of 

 burying bees, for the present. 



rranklinton,o* N. Y., June 2, 1886. 



rsiciflc Rural Press. 



Proictioii of Coil] Honey. 



WM. MUTH-KASMUSSEN. 



Although comb honey is now sold 

 cheaper than ever before, it will al- 

 ways remain more or less a luxury, 

 and it is somewhat to the interest of 

 the producer to keep it so, by present- 

 ing it to the public in the most con- 

 venient and most attractive shape. 

 The old-fashioned way of offering for 

 sale a whole capful of honey, built in 

 irregular shape, is past. jSI obody wants 

 so much at the time, nor wants to be 

 bothered by the dripping and daub- 

 ing consequent upon cutting out 

 piece after piece, not to speak of the 

 difficulty of keeping it protected from 

 dust and insects. aSfeither is the 

 fashion of putting comb honey into 

 tin cans or glass jars and surrounding 

 it with liquid honey a proper way of 

 doing it. 



The comb honey of to-day is pro- 

 duced in small square frames, called 

 sections, weighing, when Hlled, 

 from one-half to two pounds each, 

 according to their size. Of these, the 

 one-pound section is the most popular 

 and most common in use. The regu- 

 lar Langstroth wide frame holds eight 

 of these one pound sections, while the 

 " three-quarter Langstroth," or cross- 

 wise Langstrotli wide frames liold six 

 sections each. This isthe style I use. 



In order to compel the bees to build 

 the combs of an even thickness and 

 weight, and to prevent them from 

 bulging the surface of the combs, 

 which would cause them to rub 

 against each other and leak, when 

 packed for shipment, two strips of 

 tin, called separators, are nailed on 

 one side of each wide frame. These 

 separators are not wide enough to 

 interfere with the free passage of the 

 bees into the sections. To start and 

 guide the bees in building their combs, 

 a piece of thin comb foundation is 

 fastened under the top side of each 

 section. In my experience it is a 

 mistaken economy to be saving with 

 the foundation. I use full sheets, 

 coming within J-g inch of the sides, 

 and 14 inch of the bottom of the sec- 

 tion, and after one year having had 

 nearly all my sections, below weight, 

 because I only used narrow strips of 

 foundation as starters, I shall never 

 again use less than full sheets for that 

 purpose. 



Some bee-keepers succeed in pro- 

 ducing straight combs without sep- 

 arators, but as it requires an extra 

 amount of care, and is by no me;ms a 

 sure thing, there is no doubt that the 

 majority will prefer to use separators, 



even if they add a little to the ex- 

 pense of the outfit. The comb foun- 

 dation is fastened in the sections by 

 means of a small implement, called 

 the " Parker foundation fastener," or 

 by some similar device. 



When the sections are filled the 

 division-board is removed, and frame 

 after frame lifted out. The sections 

 are taken out of them and new sec- 

 tions inserted in their place, as long 

 as their is a prospect of getting them 

 filled. The sections are then taken to 

 the honey-house, where they are 

 cleaned of propolis, assorted, labeled 

 and packed in cases for shipment. 

 Some bee-keepers pile the sections in 

 a small, close room, or in a large box 

 and fumigate them at certain inter- 

 vals with brimstone, in order to kill 

 any moth-worms which may hatch in 

 them ; and where there is a large crop, 

 which it may take considerable time 

 to dispose of, this is probably the best 

 way. 



Independence, CH Calif. 



Storing Honey— Swarming.— Noah 



Field, Spencer,? N. Y., on .June 7, 

 1886, writes : 



I had a large swarm on Junel. I 

 put a box on the parent colony when 

 I took them out of the cellar, and it 

 is about full of honey. The box will 

 hold 8 or 10 pounds. Yesterday there 

 was a large swarm settled on the 

 slanting bottom -board of anew empty 

 hive, that I had placed in the end of 

 the wagon-house for the next swarm, 

 and it is now half full of bees. 



Local Convention Directory. 



1886. Time and place of Meeting. 



July 6.— Hill County, at Peoria, Tex. 



H. A. Goodrich, Sec, Massey, Tex. 



July I6.-Marshall Co., at Mnrshalltown. Iowa. 



J. W. Sanders. Sec, LeGrand, Iowa. 



Aug. 31.— Stark County, at Canton, O. 



Mark Thomson, Sec Canton. O. 



Sept. 4.— ShebovEan Co., at Sheboygan Falls, Wis. 

 Mattie B. Thomas, Sec, Sheboygan Kails, Wis. 



Oct. 7.— Wis. Lake Sbore Center, at Kiel, Wis. 



Ferd Zastrow, Sec. Millhome, Wis.) 



Oct. 12— 14.— North American, at Indianapolis. Ind. 

 F. L. Douaberty, Sec. Indianapolis. Ind. 



Oct. 19. 20.- Illinois Central, at Mt. Sterling. Ills. 

 J. M. Hambaugb, Sec, Spring, Ills. 



Dec. 1, 2.— Michigan State, at Ypsilanti, Mich. 



H. D. Cutting, Sec, Clinton. Mich. 



|»~ In order to have this table complete, Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetings.— Kd. 



sa^SM^'^M&>M 



WtM'%£ TTtltRW^X' 



Fine Season So Far.— E. L. Moore, 

 Boonville,© Mo., on June 8, 1886, 

 says : 



We are having a fine season here 

 for bees. I had 10 colonies in winter 

 quarters, and they wintered well. 

 All have swarmed ; the first two 

 swarms were cast on May 19 ; the last 

 on May 30. I mean prime swarms, as 

 1 return all second swarms to the old 

 colonies. I have taken about 100 

 pounds of surplus comb honey, and 

 have over 150 pounds now being 

 capped, with .500 sections being 

 worked in. Have taken 49 pounds 

 from one hive up to this date. White 

 clover is in abundance. I now have 

 18 colonies, having sold two swarms, 

 and I expect to get 600 pounds or 

 comb honey ; and if the sea.son con- 

 tinues for one or two months yet, I 

 will expect 1,000 pounds of surplus 

 comb honey. 



Bees Doing Well.— J. W. Sanders, 

 Le Grand,© Iowa, on June 10, 1886, 

 writes : 



So far we have had a fine season for 

 the bee-work. All report that bees 

 are doing well for so early in the sea- 

 son. The white clover is now coming 

 in its prime, and bids well for a great 

 yield of honey, for the crop is im- 

 mense, and of large growth. The 

 weather is now dry and hot, but gen- 

 erally heavy dews. 



Sour Honey.— B. Losee, Coburg, 

 Ont., on June 7, 1886, writes : 



On page .346, L. Reed says : " On 

 May 7. upon going into the bee-yard I 

 noticed bees on the outside of several 

 hives, and the ground literally cov- 

 ered with bees crawling in every 

 direction." His bees were over-fed 

 with sour honey. I found the same 

 effect after feeding granulated honey 

 made into syrup, fed outside the hive. 

 Some colonies became perfectly de- 

 moralized, as it were. Some of the 

 bees remained out all night, but most 

 of them recovered the next day with- 

 out any bad effect, apparently. 



Good Prospects.— W.B.McCormick, 



Uniontown,? Pa., on June 8, 1886, 

 writes : 



We are having the greatest honey- 

 flow ever known in this county. 

 White clover is in full bloom, and 

 very abundant. The weather is all 

 that could be desired. I had 4 swarms 

 yesterday, making 28 in all. The bees 

 seem perfectly ciazy. I wish I knew 

 how to prevent so much swarming. 

 Tiering-np does not seem to have any 

 effect. Some of my first swarms have 

 their boxes nearly filled. I took off 

 some very fine two-pound sections 

 yesterday. I think 1 am good for 

 1,.500 pounds this season. 



Bee-Keeping in Nebraska— Ants.— 

 4— Henry Patterson, (40—39), Hum- 

 boldt,©, Neb., on June 1, 1886, writes : 



To-day our hearts are delighted 

 with the hum of the bees, as they 

 bring home their mighty loads of 

 sweets from the clover. Nebraska is 

 destined to be to the Union as June 

 is to the year. Persons that never 

 were in the West cannot picture the 

 beauty of this country with its bound- 

 less prairies tilled by the most ener- 

 getic farmers of the country. The 

 honey resources are not yet thor- 

 oughly tested, but so far as tried bee- 



