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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



servants, and lie should avail himself 

 of the earliest opportunity to obtain 

 this beautiful spring crop. We should 

 have no arbitrary rules to govern us, 

 but each bee-kee|ier should take ad- 

 vantage of an early spring. He 

 should also become acquainted with 

 the honev-bearing tlora of his im- 

 mediate vicinity, and be ever ready to 

 reap to the best advantage. It is well 

 to keep a record of such plants, which 

 will give us valuable aid for future 

 reference. 1 kee)) a note each year of 

 the beginning and ending of every 

 bloom from which bees gather a 

 noticeable amount of honey. We 

 must be on the alert this month 

 (May), and see that the queen of each 

 hive has ample room to deposit eggs, 

 that the colony may not become de- 

 pleted and thus fall an easy prey to 

 the moth. Use the e.xtractor and re- 

 place the empty combs, or give them 

 frames of foundation in the brood 

 chamber, having raised the nearly 

 filled frames to the upper story ; and 

 if section boxes are used, take' them 

 off as soon as sealed and supply them 

 with empty ones containing nice thin 

 foundation very near the full size of 

 the bo.\. 



Bee Notes for June.— Tlie American 

 Agriculturist for June is received and 

 contains the following as its "Bee 

 Notes for June :" 



In all the Northern States, June is 

 the great honey month. The bees are 

 already bringing in this delicious pro- 

 duct from the raspberry, the white 

 clover and alsike clover, and before 

 the month ends, the basswood bloom 

 will bring the bees to the great honey 

 harvest of the year. Every bee-keeper 

 should ask and answer tor himself: 

 Shall we work our apiaries for comb- 

 bouey, or plan to get ali, or most of it, 

 as extracted honey V This question 

 was recently asked in a meeting of 

 one of the most wide-awake societies 

 of the country, and all but one an- 

 swered : work wholly for extracted 

 honey. Ttie utumimous opinion was, 

 that nearly d(nible the weight of honey 

 would be tlius obtained, which readily 

 sells at 1232 cents per lb., or more", 

 while the nicest comb honey is only 

 worth 20 cents, the general price be- 

 ing 18 cents. And this is not merely 

 local opinion. Three-fourths of those 

 at the National Convention last 

 autumn, follow this method. The ex- 

 tracted honey is intrinsically as good 

 as the comb honey, and is more nutri- 

 tious. The wax of comb is neither 

 easily digested nor nutritious. If 

 there is not a present market for ex- 

 tracted honey, one can be readily 

 created. 



The honey extractor is coming into 

 general use, and justly so. It is a 

 German invention, is comparatively 

 simple, and not very expensive, and 

 by means of this the honey is thrown 

 from the combs by centrifugal force, 

 when they are returned to the hive to 

 be tilled again. If taken from the 

 hive before they are capped over, it 

 saves work and time to the bees. If 

 uot removed for extracting before 

 they are capped, the caps are cut off 



with a sharp knife run over the comb. 

 Tliere are various machines now 

 made. They should be of metal, run 

 with gearing, be light and strong, and 

 so made that only the basket carrying 

 the combs is revolved, leaving the 

 can or reservoir stationary. They 

 should be large enough to leave space 

 below the basket for at least 100 lbs. 

 of honey. 



If we are to work simply for ex- 

 tracted honey, the hive may be very 

 simple, and either one story, or two. 

 I think better results are secured 

 from a one-story hive, though a two- 

 story one looks better. The late Mr. 

 Quinby, who had no superior as a 

 practical apiarist, once offered $50 for 

 a non-swarming hive. By a faithful 

 use of the extractor, almost any hive 

 becomes a non-swarmer— a point in 

 favor of extracting. 



When necessary to uncap some of 

 the cells, uncapping knives, made 

 with a beveled edge, are the best. 

 In extracting during the honey sea- 

 son, it is never advisable to wait for 

 the bees to cap the honey. If the 

 honey is kept in a diy, warm room, 

 and it should be kept in no other, 

 there will be no danger from souring, 

 even if the honey is extracted when 

 quite thin. We have frequently ex- 

 tracted during the honey season as 

 often as every other day, and with no 

 bad results. "We would not dare do 

 this, if the honey must be kept in a 

 cool room, especially a damp one. 

 The best place to keep extracted 

 honey is a room that is warmed up to 

 70 or SO degrees Fahrenheit, each day, 

 when the sun shines hot. Put the 

 honey in open barrels or cans; cover 

 with cloth that will keep out the dust, 

 but not prevent evaporation. In ex- 

 tracting, care shoidd be taken not to 

 take away so much as to starve the 

 bees the coming winter. The bees 

 can be fed, but that may be neglec- 

 ted, and so honey enough should be 

 reserved. Honey may be extracted 

 from combs with brood, and not 

 throw out the brood ; this requires 

 a very even motion. A sharp, sudden 

 jerk will remove most of the bees 

 from the comb ; the remainder may 

 be removed by using a bunch of 

 asparagus, a pine twig, or a quill 

 from the wing of a goose or turkey. 



If the market makes it more desira- 

 ble to work for comb honey, sections 

 should be used. Those ihi inches 

 square and holding one pound, are 

 the most prolilable as ttiey (ind a 

 ready sale. The sections may be 

 placed in a crate above the brood 

 chamber, or may be suspended in the 

 body of the hive in a wide frame. 

 Sometimes the bees are slow to go 

 into the sections above the hive. In 

 this case it is quite desirable to have 

 the sections so arranged that they 

 may be readily transferred from the 

 body of the hive to the rack above. 

 Tliey are put into the boiVy of the hive 

 until the bees commence to work in 

 them, and then are removed to the 

 rack above where the bees will con- 

 tinue to work. Putting a small piece 

 of uncapped drone-brood into the sec- 

 tions above, will sometimes induce 

 the bees to commence work there. As 

 the brood hatches out, the bees will 



fill the cells with honey, and no harm 

 is done. 



To secure a good yield of comb 

 honey, the colonies must be strong, 

 and to have them thus, and not be 

 bothered with swarming, requires 

 skill and care. A much more skilful 

 bee-keeper is needed to obtain the 

 best results with comb honey, than to 

 procure the best harvest of extracted 

 honey. 



A Standard Frame.— Mr. G. W. 



Demaree, in the American Bec-Keeper, 

 remarks as follows : 



While watching the drift and cur- 

 rent of the bee literature of the past, 

 I have noticed that the subject of bee 

 hives and " frames " has periodically 

 come up for discussion. There is 

 about the Langstroth frame a history 

 the most remarkable of anything con- 

 nected with the inventions of the 

 past, so far as they have come under 

 my observation. The Langstrotli 

 frame ushered in the great modern 

 system of bee-keeping, and has lived 

 through the stormy period of the past 

 20 years defying the inventive genius 

 of "the American people. Thousands 

 of efforts have been made to super- 

 sede it with something better, — with 

 a better frame for all purposes. But 

 not even a large minority of bee- 

 keepers have at any time been in- 

 duced to accept of anything as being 

 superior to the old" L. frame." I do 

 not say that the Langstroth frame will 

 never be superseded by an improved 

 one. I have much confidence in the 

 inventive genius of the American 

 people. I set no limit to what may be 

 done. The chief objection urged 

 against the Langstroth frame is that 

 it is too shallow and too long to win- 

 ter bees to the best advantage. There 

 is perhaps some truth in this, but it is 

 an argument similar to that used by 

 Mr. A. I. Root in favor of his " sim- 

 plicity bee hive," viz : that they stack 

 or pile up so nicely, etc. Well, I have 

 no use for a hive to pile or stack up, 

 neither do I have any use for a frame 

 that is good for nothing but to winter 

 bees on. What we want is a frame 

 that answers all purposes. 



Fertile Workers. — The American 

 Bee-Keeper gets off the following in 

 its April issue on this subject : 



" Fertile workers we believe to be a 

 myth, as we have been keeping bees 

 all our life and have never seen such a 

 thing as a fertile worker." 



From the above it would seem that 

 the editor of the Bee-Keeper doesn't 

 believe in anything except what he 

 sees. Following out this course of 

 reasoning, as he has never seen his 

 brains, he would be compelled to con- 

 fess that he has none. This may not 

 be very reasonable, but nevertheless 

 it is logical. Now, we know there is 

 such a thing as a fertile worker, be- 

 cause we have seen more than one of 

 them. Mr. Harrison believes there is 

 no such thing, because he has never 

 seen one. That is the difference. — 

 Bee-Keepers^ Instructor. 



