PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK 



AT $1.00 PER ANNUM. 



35th Year. 



CHICAGO, ILL., MARCH 21, 1895. 



No. 12. 



Cot;)tributed /V^ticles^ 



On Important Ajyiarian. Subjects* 



Extracting the Honey From Box-Hives. 



BY I. W. BECKWITH. 



I have not seen where any writer, treating on transferring, 

 has thought of extracting the honey ; and as I worked over an 

 old apiary the past season and extracted more than 1,000 

 pounds of honey from those old boxes, I will tell the readers 

 of the American Bee Journal how I did it. 



I cut four pieces of lath, a, a, a, a, the length of the 

 hive frames, and a cleat, b, one inch square and as long as the 

 width of the frames, and a small cleat, c, the same length, 

 and nail them together as shown in the illustration ; and along 

 the outer edges of the outside lath, drive some small nails 

 about 3 inches apart letting the heads project Jf inch. A 

 pair of these pallets will be needed, and if one has an assistant 

 two pairs will be required. 



I now cut the combs to fit the frames as nearly as prac 

 ticable, and lay a piece on the pallet so as to rest against the 

 cleat B, and if there is room I put another piece on the pallet 

 resting against the first piece. I now uncap the upper side of 

 these pieces and with a clamp, d, I fasten each piece by laying 

 the clamp across the piece near its upper end and hook it over 

 the projecting nails. The clamp should be narrow enough to 

 bind rather tightly on the comb. I then lift the pallet by the 

 cleat c, and set it in the extractor. After extracting I turn 

 the comb on the pallet, uncap and extract the other side. 

 Any thin board will answer for the pallets instead of lath, 

 but the lighter the better. 



For fastening these extracted combs in the frames I use 

 the clamp e. I do not know but bee-keepers generally have 



used such clamps, but as far as I know they use pegs, strings 

 and other devices equally unhandy. 



There is an abundance of wire suitable for making clamps 

 lying around here, that has been used in baling hay. The 



clamps should be just large enough to go over the outside of 

 the frames from top to bottom. As soon as the combs are 

 stuck by the bees, the clamps can be taken off and used again. 



Grover, Colo. 



The True Test of Purity of Queens. 



BY H. F. COLEMAN. 



The discussion recently going on in Gleanings, as to the 

 effect that a cross between a black drone and a 5-banded 

 Italian queen has upon the markings of the worker progeny, 



Mr. R. B. Leahy— Sec page 1S8. 



revives in my memory a bit of experience along this line. If 

 I remember correctly, I have more than once made mention of 

 it in the columns of the American Bee Journal, but as we soon 

 forget what we see in print, I will give it again, and more in 

 detail. 



When I began to Italianize my apiary I procured three 

 tested queens, one of which proved to be a fine breeder, show- 

 ing queens as fine in color and shape as any I have ever seen. 

 Of course, I reared from my best queen, and reared queens 

 for all my black colonies — 22 in number. At this time there 

 were no other Italian bees nearer than 12 miles of me, but 

 black bees were plentiful throughout the county. When the 

 brood from my young queens began to hatch, I was delighted 

 almost beyond measure. At least four-fifths of them produced 

 all 3-banded workers, and as that, according to bee-books, 

 was the test of purely-mated queens, I saw, or thought I saw, 



