THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



627 



^mitat and Moxo. 



AN8WBR3 By 



James Heddon, Dowagiac, Mich. 



Extracted Honey Production. 



Mr. James Ileddon: Please describe 

 your ^a'-story box for extracted lioney, 

 in tlie Bke JouiiNAL. How wide in- 

 side, how big, etc. 



2. Is it necessary to glue sections ? 



3. Is glassed honey more preferable 

 than tin boxes for retailing extracted 

 honey in ? 



4. Is there any danger of loaf or 

 granulated sugar being adulterated, 

 and is ttie former any better for winter 

 food for bees than the latter V 



Sutton, N. H. r. M. Cheney. 



Answers.— To produce extracted 

 honey for sweet sauce, it should be 

 well ripened, capped over before ex- 

 tracted, and I prefer to store it in 14 

 story frames, otherwise the same size 

 of the hive below, and upon the tier- 

 ing-up system. 



2. Xot at all, if they are decently 

 made. 



8. I have never seen honey on the 

 market in tin receptacles, where it 

 ■could compete with that stored in 

 glass ; thougli tin is most advantage- 

 ous to the producer, consumers do not 

 like it. ' 



4. Sugar agents tell me that granu- 

 lated sugar has been adulterated with 

 grape sugar, but that there are re- 

 fineries that can be relied upon for 

 the pure article. I have little fears, 

 and see no difference between loaf and 

 granulated, though loaf is usually con- 

 sidered a little more refined. 



Why use a Honey-Board % 



Will ^Ir. Ileddon please answer, 

 through the Bee Journal, why he 

 uses the skeleton honey-board at' all '? 

 If the right bee space is observed be- 

 tween the brood frames and the bot- 

 tom of the case, is this second space 

 not worse than useless V 



C H. Dibbern. 



Milan, 111., Xov. 38, 18S3. 



Answer.— The objections to the 

 use of my honey-board are three: cost, 

 manipulation, and storage when out 

 of use. The advantages are : there 

 are less bees in the way when ad- 

 justing and removing supers, less 

 opportunity for robbers to get in their 

 work at that time, the sections are 

 much cleaner and freer from bits of 

 comb, and when taken from the hive 

 are never dripping from broken cells 

 which have been built between them 

 and the brood frames. It makes the 

 queen less liable to go above to lay, 

 economizes wax, by preventing these 



brace combs. When one case is 

 raised up and another one put under, 

 no braces are lifted with the under 

 sections, to be iinisbed out and at- 

 tached to tlie tops of those just put in 

 their place. This In-acing will not 

 take place between sections and each 

 other, but between the lower sections 

 and brood frames, if the honey-board 

 is not used ; hence, only one honey- 

 board is needed to each hive, and does 

 not have to be moved through all the 

 manipulations of the supers, only 

 when we work in tlie brood-chamber, 

 when it is as easily removed as a 

 cover. 



The honey-board has 9 slats, with 

 % spaces between them ; the centre of 

 each slat comes directly over the 

 space between the Ijrood-frames be- 

 low, and the centre of each top-bar 

 below is directly under the slots of 

 the honey-board. The outer edges of 

 the honey-board are bee-space higher 

 than the top siirface of the slats 

 which forms the second space. You 

 see that the supers of sections fit the 

 hive perfectly without any honey- 

 board, and the same with. You also 

 see by what method we cut off this 

 building of brace combs, and at the 

 same time give perfect egress to the 

 heat, odor and bees. 



After careful experiment of no 

 small dimensions, I can say that this 

 honey-board is no hindrance whatever 

 to the bees entering the sections. 

 With an upper set of combs for the 

 extractor, it is well-nigh a necessity, 

 and in either case worth many times 

 its cost and trouble. 



Section Racks & Double- WaHed Hives. 



I wish those who speak of their 

 honey racks, would describe them in 

 detail, or else advertise them for 

 sale, so that we could get them, 

 or at least a sample for trial. I would 

 also like to know which is the best 

 way to manage bees In the si)ring to 

 get the most comb lioney V Is it to 

 make them swarm early, and l)e ready 

 for white clover? or, to undertake to 

 stop them from swarming uirtil white 

 clover is over, which was the first of 

 July, this year, and tlieu divide them? 

 I have 8 colonies now, and I wish to 

 double them next year, it they winter 

 all right, which tliey will do on the 

 summer stands. I would like tokuow 

 if Mr. Heddon will tell us why he ob- 

 jects to double-walled hives, as we 

 contemplate making ours double, 

 more particularly to keep them cool 

 in summer than to keep them warm 

 in winter, as our winters are not very 

 cold, hardly ever below 10 degrees 

 above zero. S. M. IIicken. 



Delaware City, Del., Nov. 26, 1&S3. 



Answer.- How to manage bees in 

 spring to get the most comb honey. 



though a short question, would demand 

 too long an article for this depart- 

 ment. I will write on that, some future 

 time. Regarding double-wall hives, 

 they can be no cooler, nor as cool in 

 summer, as single-wall hives, shaded 

 with a board. This is plainly seen 

 when once thought of. 





M 



njn 



Bees Prepared for Winter. 



Bees are in very good condition this 

 fall. One is almost lost to know what 

 to do, as everybody seems to have a 

 different way of vi'intering bees. In 

 Simplicity hives, I turn over the bot- 

 tom boards, fill with sawdust, give six 

 good frames of honey, a division- 

 board on each side, the upper story 

 full of chaff, build a sort of straw- 

 stack over the whole, and give them a 

 good " letting alone " till spring re- 

 turns. C. Weckesee. 



Marshallville, O., Nov. 20, 1883. 



Honey Crop in Mississippi. 



I am moving my apiary of 800 colo- 

 nies 15 miles, and find it quite a job. 

 It has been a poor honey season here, 

 this year. 21,500 pounds from 172 col- 

 onies, spring count ; part comb and 

 part extracted. The worst that I have 

 ever had in this country. 



G. C. Vaught. 



Greenville, Miss., Nov. 16, 1883. 



My Syrian Bees. 



Heading, in the instructive article 

 on page 592 of the Bee Journal, by 

 L. C. Johnson,- entitled "The Im- 

 provement of Bees," whose experience 

 with the Syrian bees and queens is 

 so near like my own, I will give it to 

 the readers of the indispensable Bee 

 .Journal. On the 1st of July, 1SS3, 1 

 received a Syrian queen of Mr. Hen- 

 derson, of Tennessee. She was im- 

 mediately introduced into a very light 

 colony of Hybrids, by the smoking 

 method. I never saw bees multiply 

 so fast. As I did not wish to let them 

 swarm, upon the first appearance of 

 queen cells, I removed 4 full Langs- 

 troth frames of brood ; but this only 

 checked them for a few days. Soon 

 after, and while I was entertaining 

 company, I saw the Syrians in the air, 

 and, as they did not cluster soon 

 enougli to suit me, I took a pail of 

 water and threw some on them with a 

 cup as they they were circling in the 

 air, and they soon returned to the 

 liive. I then watched them for a 

 couple of liours, until I had time to 

 attend to them. I proceeded to divide 

 them, and found tivo frames with at 

 least 40 queen cells. I then cut out 

 the cells, and laid them down on the 

 cap of the hive ; before I had done I 

 saw one emerge from the cell and fly 

 out of sight, but it soon returned to 

 the place it started from. I soon 

 missed another, which was gone 



