164 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Review of the Bee Journal of Feb. 20. 



JAMES HEDDON. 



The Bee Journal for Feb. 20 cou- 

 tains more tban a usual amount of 

 what seems to me most vahialile mat- 

 ter. In these days, when there is so 

 much worthless apicultural literature 

 afloat, is not such a number truly re- 

 freshing ? I feel as though I could 

 not file away this number into tlie 

 Emerson binder without commenting 

 upon some valuable articles. 



Bro. Rutherford's showing that the 

 mother bee is in no proper sense a 

 queen, but that the worker bees gov- 

 ern as one mind, is to the point, and 

 and will, no doubt, shed light to the 

 minds of many beginners. 



Bro. Hutchinson's article on separa- 

 tors is very close to our own experi- 

 ence, as many well know. 



Bro. Secor's article on " Marketing 

 Honey," suits me first rate, and 1 

 think the point made about selling 

 cheaply about home, to keep your 

 field clear of otlier bee-keepers, is 

 well taken. I have done just this for 

 years. We must expect, however, 

 that as long as our agricultural papers 

 are so liberally contributed to by so 

 many writers who tell the farmer that 

 "bees work for nothing and board 

 themselves," that it costs merely noth- 

 ing to raise two or three hundred 

 pounds of honey annually, that there 

 will be some dupes with whom to 

 whet an apetite for honey, is to start 

 into the bee business. I try to coun- 

 teract this sentiment as far as pos- 

 sible by such essays as the one I wrote 

 for our Southern Michigan Farmers' 

 Institute, and which I have presented 

 to many brother bee-keepers for the 

 same use. 



Bro. Enas tells us how far his bees 

 go for nectar. This article alone is 

 worth more to me than the yearly price 

 of the Journal. How many miss it 

 by dividing their colonies up into dif- 

 ferent apiaries, only four miles apart ! 

 May it not prove ten miles more like 

 t lie right distance ? We want to have 

 Bro. E., and as many others as can, 

 tell us what difference there is in the 

 accumulation of stores between the 

 long and short flights, under what 

 conditions bees will fly long distances 

 for nectar, and all about these impor- 

 tant topics to the practical producers. 



Next our old friend, W. J. Davis, 

 and Bro. Poppleton discussed the 

 question—" Is proliflcness desirable in 

 queens V" How dare you take such 

 a stand ¥ Eight or ten years ago, at 

 one of our Kalamazoo conventions, I 

 was ridiculed for taking the same posi- 

 tion. We want no more proliflcness 

 in tlie queen than her combs will ac- 

 commodate. We do want as much. 

 My claim has always been that the 

 cheapest and best way to get is to use 

 smaller hives. It seems to me strange 

 that some bee-keepers do not see that 



tlie capital which produces our bees is 

 one dollar's worth of hive, two dollars' 

 worth of comb, five dollars' worth of 

 honey out of "our field," and two 

 cents' worth of (lueen (queens cost 

 merely nothing when not rearing and 

 holding them for shipment, — the col- 

 onies producing them only as they 

 require them). 



Looked at in this light, of what 

 value is extra prolificness V Should it 

 be found that such superior prolific- 

 ness in numbers should go hand in 

 hand with inferior qualities of each 

 individual bee (which is one of the 

 rules of nature), thus it would follow 

 that it would be a serious damage. It 

 costs just as much, after once started, 

 to bring into beinginferior as superior 

 stock. I have entertained these views, 

 and have put them before the public 

 from time to time for more than 12 

 years. 



Now let us see if Bro. Ackerman is 

 going astray on the hive question. I 

 do not like the Simplicity hive for I 

 do not consider it " readily movable " 

 as Bro. A. does (See proposition No. 1, 

 page 118). Of course the above is a 

 comparative term. The large chaff 

 hive is " readily movable " as viewed 

 by the building mover, but for the 

 ladies or men of light-muscle, or in 

 fact any man who wishes to do quick 

 and sharp work, the Simplicity can 

 hardly be called " readily movable." 

 We think our hive is— now let us com- 

 pare. The Simplicity has % inch sides; 

 ours has ?^. It has J^ top and bot- 

 tom, heavily cleated; ours has % inch, 

 lightly cleated. the bottom only using 

 one front cleat, it being nailed perma- 

 nently to the hive. I do not consider 

 any hive " readily movable " with a 

 detached bottom-board, which forces 

 one to take hold under it when lifting 

 the hive. Bro. A. does not seem to 

 understand our objections to the 

 "telescoping principle." When the 

 stories are so arranged that you can 

 place them less than bee-space from 

 each other (up and down), and enough 

 sidewise so that the right side and 

 back end of tlie upper story is just off 

 from the right side and back end of 

 the lower one, then you can move it 

 side and endwise about an inch when 

 it comes to place without the possi- 

 bility of crushing any bees except 

 where the edges of the four boards 

 crossed each other. This method of 

 adjusting stories, so far as I know, 

 never has been, and I think never will 

 be excelled. 



The telescoping principle prevents 

 this movement. It seems strange 

 that any person of experience should 

 fear the " inclemency of the weather" 

 through a joint made by placing one 

 straight edge on top of another, with 

 bees inside to hermetically seal it at 

 once. We have never experienced the 

 least injury by it. Mr. Langstroth 

 had reference to the space above, be- 

 low, and at the ends of the brood- 

 frames. We have discovered from 

 actual experience that bees suffer 

 very much more by heat during the 

 honey flow when their surplus recep- 

 tacles has another case outside of it. 



I used, last season, just such wide 

 frame supers as Bro. A. mentions in 

 article 4, viz : one-story on the tiering- 



up plan. Of course the super had no 

 outer covering over it. We do not 

 like it as well as our case, which uses 

 no wide frames nor separators. He 

 says with our .S-frame brood-chamber, 

 that it is not possible for us to insert 

 wide frames in said chamber. We 

 think that with 8 or 10 frame brood- 

 chambers that it cannot be " possible" 

 that we shall ever use wide frames, or 

 undertake to raise comb honey in the 

 brood-chamber. With our system and 

 arrangement there is no need of it, 

 and we are glad of it, because there 

 are serious objections to such a pro- 

 cedure. 



JMust we use wide frames and di- 

 vision-boards and surplus honey in the 

 brood-chamber in order to best get 

 along with a 10 Langstroth frame 

 hive y If my hives were 14 inches 

 wide, I should put in division-boards 

 that would never come out, and when 

 I made new ones, I should nail the 

 ends to the division-boards, saw off 

 the extra length of the end pieces, and 

 have an 8-frame hive and done with 

 it. It was not without experiencing 

 the draw-backs connected with the 10- 

 frame hive that I changed to the one 

 of 8 frames. 



Dowagiae, Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Marketing Extracted Honey. 



W. H. S. GROUT. 



I disagree with Mr. Buchanan in re- 

 gard to extracted honey. I have had 

 13 year's experience in the article, and 

 have produced no comb honey since 

 the days of large boxes, and feel no 

 inclination to do so. 



The chief obstacle in selling extrac- 

 ted honey, arises from taking it from 

 the hive before it is sufficiently cured. 

 When I first began taking honey in 

 this manner, it was extracted once in 

 3 days, and have gradually lengthened 

 the time until now. I let it remain 

 until the bees are through gathering 

 from basswood. The quality and body 

 has vastly improved, as also has the 

 home market, until I no longer need 

 to place it on sale in towns near me, 

 and, after selling 2,700 lbs. before it 

 had time to candy much last year, 

 people came nearly every day for a 

 month or two for more ; I could eJisily 

 have sold 5,000 lbs. more if I had had 

 it, and the retail stores are anxious to 

 have it on hand now. The sales have 

 vastly improved, and it is taking its 

 place with comb honey, and costs the 

 consumer less. 



I use loinch hives, and am to no 

 expense for fixtures, sections, founda- 

 tion, etc., having extra combsulTicient 

 for all my hives, if well spread. Allow 

 me to say to Mr. Youngman, that 

 much wax can be saved in this man- 

 ner. I use 18 combs to the hive, and, 

 when the honey is extracted, the hives 

 average 75 lbs. of honey each, and the 

 cappings fill a common milk pan, 

 yielding about 1 lb. of nice wax each. 

 The proportion of honey strained from 

 cappings last year was 800 lbs., out of 

 a total product of 3,000 lbs. 



It seems to me that the labor is 

 much less in running an apiary in this 



