294 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 9, 



When the honey-yield is over, we begin extracting. If, 

 however, it becomes necessary to extract before the end of the 

 crop, it is of importance not to extract out of the supers that 

 contain fresh lioney, unless one wishes to be connpelled to 

 ripen the honey artificially. AVe know that it is the custom of 

 many bee-keepers, to ripen their honey by keeping it in open 

 vessels in a warm room, but we dislike this task, and much 

 prefer to have the bees do their own ripening, as they do it 

 more thoroughly than we can ever do it. Wo have never yet 

 had any trouble with unripe honey, except basswood, which 

 seems to be the most difBcult to ripen of all grades. We have 

 repeatedly extracted fresh-harvested honey of fall Powers, 

 and have never had any trouble with it. 



Honey which runs like water, is sure to be too thin to 

 keep. That which has been harvested a week is nearly always 

 ripe ; even if it is still unsealed. On the other hand we have 

 often known bees to seal their honey too soon, and in such 

 cases it may ferment in the cells and burst the capping. 



In my next I will give our method of taking the honey off 

 the hives. Hamilton, Ills. 



Wintering Out-Doors in a Cold Climate. 



BY DR. E. GALLUP. 



Paul Whitehead, on page 160, says that two of his colo- 

 nies froze to death. Now I was born in Canada, 65 miles 

 north of the Vermont line, where the mercury frequently 

 went down to 40- below zero, and remained so for six to ten 

 days in succession. We always wintered our bees on the sum- 

 mer stands. Our hives were straw and box hives. Sometimes 

 we built a cheap open shed over them, and sometimes we set 

 them on a bare plank without any cover whatever. In the 

 fall we raised them up on blocks at the corners of the hive an 

 inch high, to give them abundance of ventilation. They had 

 to be about 18 inches in heighth in order to have abundance 

 of honey above the cluster of bees. They never froze to death, 

 but always wintered in splendid condition, providing they had 

 honey enough. 



But when I obtained my first colony of bees, 1 lost all of 

 my new colonies for three winters in succession, by leaving 

 the hive down close on the bottom-board. You see 1 was 

 going to keep them warm. Not being ventilation enough, 

 the breath of the bees accumulated in the form of frost all 

 around above the cluster. Then every time the weather mod- 

 erated, this frost would melt and wet down the bees, until 

 they were all dead, with abundance of honey all around them. 



My old colony being in a straw hive, and the entrance 

 open at the bottom, and a 2-inch hole open at the top, they 

 had abundance of ventilation, consequently no frost accumu- 

 lated in the hive. 



We had no American Bee Journal then — in fact, we did 

 not know for years that there was any such a thing as a bee- 

 book. I well remember how eagerly I read and re-read a 

 small pamphlet by M. Weeks, of Vermont. He invented and 

 patented, if I mistake not, the Weeks Vermont hive. I used 

 several of them. It was a suspended box with a chamber in 

 the top for comb honey, with a slanting bottom, and the bot- 

 tom-board suspended by hooks and staples at the corners, and 

 a button at the rear to regulate the ventilation. By having 

 the slanting bottom-board, you see, a moth-worm would fall 

 on the bottom and roll out of the hive so quick that he would 

 break his neck. A great invention ! 



I notice on page 159, that John Napton says Dr. Gallup 

 says: " All bee-men in California are honorable men." If I 

 recollect rightly, I said: "So far as I know." Then he 

 rather insinuates that queen-breeders are inclined to be tricky. 

 Now, so far as I know, it does not necessarily follow that 

 queen-breeding should make a person dishonest, by any means. 



Santa Ana, Calif. 



No. 7. — The Production of Comb Honey. 



BY EMEKSON T. ABBOTT. 



Putting on thk Sections. — It is very important that 

 the first lot of sections be put on at the proper time ; for, if 

 they are not, the amount of honey secured from any given 

 colony will be greatly reduced. If put on too early, the brood 

 is apt to be chilled, or breeding retarded. If put on too late, 

 the bees will have begun making preparations to swarm, and 

 after they have done this it is very hard to get them to begin 

 work in the sections. I have read of a man who prayed, 

 "Oh, Lord, start us right; for when we get started we are 

 awful hard to turn !" The bees are very much like this man. 

 When they once begin to get ready for .swarming, they are 



" awful hard to turn." It is better, on the whole, to put them 

 on too early than too late. This is one of the things that can- 

 not be done by any set rule, but one must learn by experience 

 when the proper time has arrived, as the seasons vary so much, 

 as well as the conditions indifferent localities. For this local- 

 ity I have found the best time to be a few days before the 

 white clover begins to bloom. 



When the first lot of sections are about filled, they should 

 be lifted up, and another lot, fitted up in the same way as the 

 first, put under them. When the last lot are partially filled, 

 a third lot may be put under them. This process may be con- 

 tinued until there are four or five supers on the hive, if the 

 honey is coming in rapidly, and there is a prospect of it con- 

 tinuing to do so until there are all filled. Of course, one must 

 understand the nature of his honey-flow, and not put on so 

 many sections that they will not all be filled and capped over. 

 By watching the matter closely this may be guarded against. 

 It has been my experience that a good, strong colony will fill 

 two or three supers about as quickly as they will one", if they 

 are properly manipulated. 



After the honey is in the supers and capped over, the 

 longer it can be left on the hive the better it will be. Of 

 course, if a crop of dark honey follows closely on the light one, 

 or there is danger, owing to the lateness of the season, of the 

 the honey becoming soiled and darkened, it should be taken 

 off at once. 



When it comes to removing supers filled with fine, white 

 honey, with me a bee-escape is an absolute necessity. The 

 truth of the matter is, I am led to wonder why bee-keepers did 

 not think of this wonderfully convenient little "tool" (if I 

 may so call it) before. I am well aware of the fact that some 

 of our prominent bee-keepers do not use the escapes, but they 

 are to me none the less a necessity on that account. It is such 

 a satisfaction to slip one of these little "machines" under 

 three or four well-filled supers early in the day, and at night 

 find the bees all out, and the honey uninjured by having little 

 holes bitten in the cappings, as is sure to be the case if re- 

 moved by any other process. 



Having secured the honey crop, the next thing is 



PREPAKING IT FOR THE MARKET. 



Here is about as important a part of the work as any of 

 that which has gone before. It goes without saying that one 

 must first get the honey crop before he can place it on the 

 market, but he may about as well not have it as to place it on 

 the market in such a shape that the price which he is forced 

 to take will not pay for the cost of production. 



The first thing necessary is to see that the honey is care- 

 fully sorted. Then it should be thoroughly cleaned and put 

 into neat white crates. Another very important thing is, the 

 crates should be the same all through ; that is, the honey 

 should all be just what it appears to be on the face of it. 

 There is a great deal of talk nowadays about low prices and 

 slow sales, but the man who has an honest, clean, first-class- 

 article of any kind need not go begging for customers, even in 

 these times. 



If I did not dread the denunciations which I may cal> 

 down on myself from a certain class, I would say that the 

 cause of much of the so-called hard times may be traced to 

 negligence, ineiBciency, dishonesty and vice. The man who 

 spends most of his time loafing and drinking in the saloons 

 need not expect to find a very full larder when he goes home 

 late at night ; neither need he expect to sell the fruits of such 

 labor at a very high price. 



I was very much impressed with a statement I read about 

 a man's apples, the other day, in an article in an agricultural 

 paper. The writer said there was found on the top of each 

 barrel a slip which read, "This package was produced and 

 packed by John Smith, who guarantees that when you have 

 seen the top you have seen the whole." The man who makes^ 

 such a guarantee and backs it up by his goods will not have 

 to hunt very long for a market ; and, what is better, he will 

 have no trouble in keeping the market when he has once 

 secured it; that is, if the " top" is a number one article. 



We talk about laws for adulteration. Well, I believe in 

 them, if they are of the right kind, but I have seen honey on 

 exhibition at fairs faced as white as snow, while the crates 

 further back were filled with honey so black and dirty that it 

 was scarcely fit to eat. What kind of a law should be made 

 for the man who put that on the market? None. Nature 

 has made for him an inexorable law which decrees that he can 

 never sell goods twice in the same place. Let me quote again 

 from the agricultural writer referred to above: "Carelessness 

 is the costliest habit one can fall into ; and trickery, while it 

 may seem to succeed for a time, must cost more than it comes 

 to in the end." 



Now, Mr. Editor, this winds up my talk on " comb honey " 



