THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



279 



those spots farthest from the septum, 

 ami, fortunately, the easiest to uncap. 



The one comb left is hardly lit to 

 extract, and is the odd comb that 

 saved the bees from being crowded 

 and idle ; the 6 will make just 3 pairs, 

 and 3 whirls, and contain a very good 

 article of nearly ripened honey. Of 

 the ripened condition of tliis" throw'' 

 much will depend upon the stage of 

 the blossoming, and state of the at- 

 mosphere. Blossoms yield the thin- 

 nest honey at first, and richest at the 

 close, even to the " strippings." One 

 tiling is sure, you cannot wait till the 

 honey in the super is all sealed, with- 

 out losing the filling of a second 

 super, unless you adopt the tiering up 

 plan, spoken of at first. 



Sometimes you will find brood in 

 all stages in your super coinbs. There 

 is a slow, continuous motion of the 

 crank that will throw out the honey, 

 but not the brood, and this motion, 

 which only experience can teach, 

 must be adopted for broody combs. 



I very frequently receive letters and 

 postal cards inquiring if drone comb 

 IS not best for sections and super 

 frames, to which I always answer. No. 

 One of the blessings that comb foun- 

 dation has brought to us, is the fact 

 that by filling the brood frames of the 

 hive full of it, we get rid of a class of 

 consumers called drones, and at the 

 same time get almost complete con- 

 trol over fertilization. In doing so, 

 we are working against the instincts 

 of the bees, and the queen, anxiously 

 looking for drone cells, will be sure to 

 go into your surplus department to 

 deposit eggs if you have drone foun- 

 dation above, and a proper lack of it 

 below. Experience must drive every 

 drone foundation mill back into type 

 metal. 



As soon as your extractor contains 

 all it will holcl below the frame, draw 

 off at the gate, into one gallon stone 

 crocks, which should be piled up on 

 each other about 6 to 8 feet high. If 

 pieces of wood 7ijx3^x6 inches are laid 

 across the tops of the crocks (2 to each 

 crock), the spaces thus made will al- 

 low of a circulation of air that will al- 

 low of improvement of the honey as 

 it stands. The honey house should 

 be dry and airy, and thoroughly 

 screened against bees and flies. Do 

 not forget that you will have a damp 

 air in a cool room. Cool air (as in 

 double-wall houses), like a cool pitcher 

 of ice- water, drains dampness. \Vith 

 this third article of general remarks, 

 I will close what I have to say about 

 extracting honey, for the present. 



In regard to marketing it, I have 

 never adopted a course that I think as 

 good as the one laid down in Dadant's 

 book. 



The uses for extracted honey are 

 encouragingly on the increase. It is 

 already used as a table food, confec- 

 tionery, in medicinal syrups, manu- 

 facturing tobacco, wines, liquors, 

 mead, metheglin, soda water, print- 

 ers' rollers (entirelysupplantingsugar 

 syrup), cakes, pastry, preserving fruits 

 in natural state, jellies and jams, 

 medicinal syrups, ointments, salves 

 for sores, cures for asthma, indiges- 

 tion, see •' Honey as Medicine ;" lico- 

 rice, egg-foam, vinegar, rose honey, 



table syrups, and many other pur- 

 poses. 



And now in closing let me say, while 

 you should not build "air castles" 

 and dream of " cisterns full of honey," 

 you should know that just at rare in- 

 tervals during good honey seasons, 

 the gathering i)owersof some colonies 

 are great; that Ilosraer reports 53 lbs. 

 of extracted honey in one day ; Gallup 

 60 lbs., and I had 30 lbs. gathered in 

 the same period of time, all from the 

 basswood — the bee-keeper's friend. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



For tho American Bee Journal. 



Rearing the "Best," Bees. 



W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



I have been much interested in the 

 " best bees " controversy, and cannot 

 refrain from a few remarks on the 

 subject. In all this broad land there 

 is probably not one bee-keeper who 

 does not wish for the best bees, the 

 difference of opinion being in regard 

 to which are the best bees, and how to 

 obtain them. 



As to which are preferable, the 

 light or the dark Italians, I will say 

 that I have tried both, obfiaining them 

 from a dozen different sources, and I 

 unhesitatingly pronounce in favor of 

 the dark, leather-colored Italians. I 

 consider the light-colored bees a 

 trifle easier to liandle, but the dark 

 bees are so much more energetic, and 

 store so much more honey, that I am 

 more than willing to overlook any of 

 their little outbursts of temper. 



My experience with hybrids is as 

 follows : I commenced bee-keeping 

 with black bees in box hives, but the 

 bees did not long remain in box hives. 

 Located within a mile of my place 

 were two Italian apiaries, and one- 

 half of my young black queens mated 

 with Italian drones. From what I 

 had read I expected that there would 

 be some " fun " in handling these hy- 

 brids, but, to my astonishment, they 

 proved to be more amiable than the 

 blacks. I have seen some pure Ital- 

 ians that were more irascible in ttieir 

 disposition than were the hybrids. In 

 the fall I sold three of these hybrid 

 colonies, and with the proceeds bought 

 queens and Italianized my whole 

 apiary. The next year I bought an 

 imported queen, reared queens, and 

 Italianized all the black bees within 

 three miles of my apiary. Of course, 

 some of my young Italian queens 

 mated with black drones, and they 

 produced hybrids that— -well, I took 

 back all that I had ever said about 

 book-makers not knowing what they 

 were talking about when they said 

 that hybrids were " cross." To go 

 back a little, the three hybrid colonies 

 that I sold, those having the 

 black queens mated with Italian 

 drones, outstripped my Italians. Of 

 course, I attributed this to the differ- 

 ence in location (the locality really 

 was an excellent one), but the next 

 year the owner of the hybrids had his 

 whole apiary Italianized, and since 

 then, a period of three years, he has 

 never had the yield of honey, nor in- 



crease of colonies that he had the first 

 year with the hylftids. 



Will Mr. Ileddon, or any one else 

 who knows, say whether these hybrids 

 can be bred in-and-in, and their good 

 qualities be preserved at the same 

 time, or must the strains be kept up 

 by a continual crossing of the pure 

 races ? 



Mr. Editor, you may have different 

 views from myself upon the " dollar " 

 queen business, but when you say : 

 "The 'best bees' will have just the 

 requisite number of stripes, whether 

 it be one or a dozen," we agree ex- 

 actly. 



Rogersville, Mich. 



For the American Bee Jonm^ 



More About Bellows Smokers. 



J. H. MAKTIN. 



Every bee-keeper, if familiar with 

 the history of the smoker, is ready to 

 accord to Mr. Quinby the honor of 

 putting iipon the market the first bel- 

 lows smoker. Every subsequent or- 

 iginal inventor found the bellows, the 

 valves, the flre-tube and the wind. It 

 is a mystery to not a few, what subse- 

 quent inventors could claim as origi- 

 nal. The mystery is explained by the 

 claim that some punched a hole and 

 let in air, where air could not get in 

 before. Mr. Bingham has enlarged 

 this hole to a space between the bel- 

 lows and fire-tube, and there you 

 have the original smoker. We have 

 no doubt but that this point can be 

 legally protected by a patent, for as 

 trivial things have often been passed 

 upon as improvements, and worthy 

 of a patent as this. For instance, an 

 inventor imi)roved letter envelopes by 

 inserting a thread across tfie end of 

 the envelope, one end of the thread 

 projecting so as to be taken between 

 the thumb and finger and the envel- 

 ope easily torn open. 



Another inventor grasped the bril- 

 liant idea that a knot in the end of the 

 thread to give a firm hold, was a great 

 improvement, and applied for a pat- 

 ent, which was granted upon the 

 ground that it was an improvement 

 over the previous method. Now sup- 

 pose our last inventor of the knot had 

 proclaimed himself as the only origi- 

 nal inventor of the envelope for let- 

 ters, he would have been no more un- 

 reasonable than for the inventor who 

 punched the hole to claim that he is 

 alone the original inventor of the 

 smoker. Neither can any one claim 

 to be the inventor of the first success- 

 ful smoker, for we used one of 

 Quinby's first smokers and it was a 

 great success for a new invention. 

 Since then we have used various so- 

 called improvements, some of which 

 were no better than the first Quinby.- 



We wish to exercise due charity for 

 all, and accord honor for all improve- 

 ments where honor is due, but when 

 the man who tied the knot in the end 

 of the thread claims to be the original 

 inventor of all envelopes, we have a 

 right, as a letter writer, to protest 

 against so broad a claim. 



Hartford, N. Y. 



