1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



83 



supposing that they were of standard authority, would be led 

 to think that some of the things that were generally agreed 

 upon by the best bee-keepers were things to be carefully 

 avoided if any degree of success was to be had. Now I don't 

 believe it will make an iota of difference to the bees or their 

 work as to what way the corners of the hive are fastened 

 together. But the beginner, reading your article would be 

 likely to put down— Mem : Mustn't have dovetail joints if I 

 want to get any honey. 



Of course you have a right to use beveled joints between 

 the stories of hives, but it seems a pity to have that recom- 

 mended to beginners when it has been so largely discarded by 

 its former friends. The same thing may be said as to loose- 

 hanging frames, but as you don't express yourself very fully 

 on that point perhaps you don't mean to approve them. 



On the whole, I like your vigorous way of expressing 

 yourself, but, for the sake of those who are looking up to 

 you for guidance, 1 wish when any of your opinions run 

 squarely athwart those of men whose opinions you and I 

 respect, you would just label such opinion — "This is one of 

 my notions." Marengo, 111. 

 ^ w 



The Production of Extracted Honey. 



The third In a series of articles on tbe subject. 

 BY CHA8. DADANT. 



Before the invention of the pound section, and of the 

 honey-extractor, among other methods, I used mainly boxes 

 with suspended frames six inches deep, hanging lengthwise of 

 the hive, but divided into two parts united together by the 

 top-bar and which could be separated instantly. These half 

 frames, when full of honey weighed about three pounds each, 

 and we used to pack them in crates with glass at both ends. 

 At that time our main sales were made on the St. Louis 

 market, and I used to accompany the crop by boat ; the 

 Packet trafBc being much more important then than it is now, 

 my shipment was usually much admired by the passengers, 

 and I, several times, sold quite a great deal of honey to the 

 captain and officers of the Packet. 



When I began producing honey for extracting, I found 

 these 6-inch supers very convenient. I filled them with old 

 drone-combs, of which, every spring, we had a quantity to 

 render that had been removed from the brood-chambers of 

 different hives, or that were cut out in transferring bees in 

 box-hives to movable frames for we used to buy box- 

 hives of bees, every spring, to replace the colonies of Italian 

 bees in movable-frame hives that we sold every season. 



The reader will notice that we have always made it a 

 point to remove the drone-combs from the brood-apartment, 

 as much as possible. This may be done most readily when 

 transferring bees, whether from box-hives or other hives, as 

 all the combs are handled one after another. This is a matter 

 of graat importance in practical bee-keeping. 



Most of the drone-combs that we thus placed into our 

 surplus cases are now good yet, I could say that they are even 

 better to-day than formerly, as they have been filled and 

 emptied so many times that their dark cells have been 

 brightened up by the trimming of them with the honey-knife, 

 and the reiterated repairs by the bees. During these repairs, 

 the bees constantly add to their strength, so that a comb, no 

 matter how many times it has been filled and emptied, becomes 

 constantly better and stronger for extracting purposes. 



There is however a drawback to the use of the drone- 

 combs even for supers, it lies in the fact that they afford an 

 unprofitable chance for the queen to deposit drone-eggs, during 

 an irregular honey season. During a good and strong honey- 

 flow, the bees usually fill these combs with honey almost as 

 soon as they are placed on the hive; but if there is a succes- 

 sion of several rainy or cold days — in short, if the honey crop 

 is irregular from some cause or other, there is some danger 

 ■ that the bees may empty some of these combs, and that the 

 queen may visit them and fill them with eggs, thus producing 

 a number of undesirable idlers. For this reason, it is better 

 to fill the frames of the supers with comb foundation, or 

 worker-combs. 



At the time when we began extracting, comb foundation 

 was not yet in use, and good worker-combs were too valuable 

 in the brood-chamber to be recklessly used in the supers. 

 That is why we made use of these drone-combs ; but we are 

 slowly replacing them with worker-combs in our apiaries, 

 though we must acknowledge we are somewhat reluctant in 

 breaking up combs that have done such good service for 20 

 years or more. Some of these combs have certainly been run 

 through the extractor 40 or more times. 



These shallow 6-inch frames proved as good as deeper 

 ones, if not better, yes, I will say better than the latter. Bees 



are more speedily driven from a shallow super than from a 

 deep one; the combs are more readily handled ; there is less 

 chance for brood in the honey-combs, for they dislike to place 

 their honey far from the brood, and as they usually begin 

 filling from the top, they will often breed in the lower part of 

 a 9-inch frame that they have begun filling with honey, even 

 if they have to forsake the lower story for this. A shallow 

 frame being quicker filled, if another story is needed and 

 placed on top of this, there is but little danger of the queen 

 laying eggs in the latter, as it is then separated from the 

 brood by the already filled 6-inch frame, and the queen 

 scarcely ventures that far from the cluster. 



The reader will thus see that these shallow supers agree 

 better with the bees' instincts than the tiering up of two or 

 three full frame stories. 



During the first years, I used to extract honey from the 

 brood-combs of the hive, but I soon found that such a practice 

 was attended with a great many inconveniences. The supers 

 containing surplus honey may be removed from the hive very 

 fast — faster, in fact, than a single comb from the body, so the 

 bees are less disturbed or excited by the removal of a whole 

 upper story than by the selecting and taking of a few combs 

 out of the brood-apartment. The hive not remaining open 

 long during the removal of the super, very few robber-bees 

 are likely to enter it, if there are any about, and most of my 

 readers doubtless know how they follow the bee-keeper when 

 he opens the hives during a time of scarcity of nectar in the 

 flowers, as is usually the case after the honey crop. There- 

 fore, all risks of robbery are avoided. 



Whenever we extracted from brood-combs, and notwith- 

 standing the greatest care, we have always seen a few larvae 

 displaced, and even thrown out of the combs and floating 

 above the honey ; the milky food, on which they were lying, 

 being also mixed with the honey, if the cells of brood were 

 unsealed. True, one may extract honey from brood-combs 

 without such accident, if the honey be not too thick, but there 

 is always some danger of this annoyance. 



When combs containing brood are emptied they must be 

 returned to the hives without delay, because the bees are 

 greatly disturbed by that empty space in their brood apart- 

 ment, and also because the larvae might suffer from the tem- 

 perature, which is lower in the air than in the brood-nest. 

 Supers without brood are not subject to these inconveniences, 

 and may be retained till evening, or even till another day. 



We have also noticed that, when the white honey of the 

 June crop is left in the hive, the bees winter better upon it 

 than upon the darker grades, for this white honey is less 

 mixed with heterogeneous elements than the dark honey of 

 autumn, and especially than honey-dew and fruit or sap 

 juices. It is therefore preferable to sacrifice a small quantity 

 of merchantable honey, to obtain a better wintering of the 

 bees, by leaving it in the brood-combs. 



As perhaps some of my readers are not fixed upon this 

 question, of the quality of the food in wintering bees, I will 

 say that it is the importation of bees from Italy which has 

 demonstrated to me the influence of this quality, on their 

 health, during a long confinement. For several years I 

 imported queens from Italy without success. They were sent 

 in small boxes containing comb honey, and, most of the time, 

 they had died, after soiling the inside of the boxes, as bees do 

 too often after a hard winter. The difference in the quantity 

 of excrement and in the odor of it, when a part of the bees 

 had arrived alive, led me to ask my shipper (Giuseppe Fiorini), 

 to supply parts of each shipment consisting of 26 queens, 

 with different grades of honey and with syrup made of good 

 sugar. The result was, as I had anticipated, that the boxes 

 containing white honey, or sugar syrup, had lost but few bees, 

 while those that were supplied with dark honey, heath honey 

 especially, had lost all, or nearly all the bees; in some cases 

 the queen alone remaining alive on arrival. Some of the 

 healthiest looking lots were preserved by me for experiments, 

 after the queen had been removed, and some of the bees in 

 these were still alive six weeks later. This experiment dem- 

 onstrates that the poor quality of honey is one of the main 

 factors in the loss of bees during long winter confinements, 

 and that it is a good precaution to leave in the hives all the 

 spring honey that is contained in the brood-chamber, instead 

 of extracting it, and to keep the emptied surplus cases on the 

 hives to store the fall crop, if any be gathered. The differ- 

 ence in price between the two grades is largely compensated 

 by the better wintering of bees. 



My readers will bear in mind that we use large hives ; 

 a surplus box covering only eight frames being altogether too 

 small to contain the average harvest of a strong colony, when 

 this surplus box is only 6 inches deep. Small hives are en- 

 larged by piling up two or three full stories one upon another. 

 We have said why we disliked them. Yet some bee-keepers. 



