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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 6, 



led. Two or three robber-cloths (such as Dr. Miller describes 

 in his " Year Among the Bees") made from coarse gunny- 

 sacks, or any sort of coarse cloth with a stick or slat nailed at 

 each end, and which are used to keep the honey-supers out of 

 reach of robbers. A Bingham honey-knife, a smoker, a half 

 dozen home-made brushes of asparagus tops or soft grass, I 

 believe, will complete the outfit. 



Let me here remark that a brush made of feathers, 

 woolen goods, or other animal material, will not serve the pur- 

 pose as well as a vegetable brush, as the bees evidently recog- 

 nize the difference, for they are not prone to get angry from 

 being rudely treated with a vegetable brush — probably owing 

 to the fact that they are accustomed to hunting for a living 

 among the grasses and the stems of plants, while all connec- 

 tions with animals are to them of a disagreeable nature. 



But what need have we of brushes ? Have we not the 

 bee-escape? We have had this implement for so short a time 

 tbat we are not yet fully aware of its usefulness. I must say 

 that for our part we were very slow in adopting it, and that. 

 we considered it at first as one of the many catch-pennies with 

 which so many beginners are enticed into spending their 

 money. The bee-escape, however, proved to be more than we 

 had anticipated, and we now have some 200 of them in use. 

 But, in some cases, the bees do not all abandon the supers, 

 and a brush is always useful. 



We do not usually extract any honey until the crop is at 

 an end. About a week after the cessation of the honey-flow 

 is a good time to begin. On the evening previous to the ex- 

 traction, we put on the bee-escapes. We use the Porter, 

 which has so far with us proven very good. These escapes 

 are fitted into a tight honey-board with a bee-space both above 

 and below, and this is put on by gently smoking the bees, 

 lifting the supers and placing the escape-board between this 

 super and the brood-chamber. The next morning there are 

 but few bees left in any of the boxes. We have seen a few 

 instances when there were no bees left, but this is the ex- 

 ception. 



There are two or three advantages in putting on a bee- 

 escape. First, you get rid of the greater part of the bees. 

 Then, if there are any brace-combs, or burr-combs, between 

 the super and the brood-apartment, these are all broken, and 

 the bees clean them of whatever leaking honey there may be, 

 quietly and without danger of robbing. There is also a great 

 advantage in not disturbing the colony, since all, or nearly 

 all, the bees have left the super of their own accord. 



As fast as the supers are removed from the hive, they are 

 placed in one of the tin pans, and each comb removed in turn 

 and transferred to another super, so as to get rid of all the 

 bees that may remain. The supers are then carried, or 

 wheeled, to the honey-room. We use a light wheelbarrow 

 with springs, for which we think we must give credit to Mr. 

 Root. This is a great labor-saving implement when one has 

 to remove some 1,500 to 1,800 pounds of honey in a day. 



If there is no honey in the fields, the work must be done 

 very carefully, avoiding to leave any of the combs exposed to 

 the reach of robber-bees at any time, and the robber-cloths 

 are very useful to keep the supers thoroughly covered while 

 they are handled and transported to the honey-room. 



In the honey-room it takes a man with nimble fingers and 

 a dextrous hand to uncap all the honey that two persons can 

 bring him from a well-stocked apiary ; but if he has a quick, 

 watchful assistant, he may be able to uncap combs enough to 

 run out some 1,500 pounds of honey in an ordinary day. 

 There are many combs which are not sealed at all, unless the 

 season has been a very prosperous one, and these are soon dis- 

 posed of. The combs are then fitted back in the supers, to be 

 returned to the bees in the evening, unless the crop of honey 

 is still continuing, when they may be returned to the hives as 

 fast as extracted. But if the returning of the supers, sticky 

 with honey, causes any uproar in the hive, it is much safer to 

 keep all until evening in the honey-room, when, with the help 

 of everybody, the supers may be put back in a very short time, 

 and the bees have all night before them to cleanse them and 

 put them in such shape as to be able to defend them against 

 intruders. 



We always return the supers to the hives, even if there is 

 no probability of their being again filled that season, because 

 they are in better shape to be preserved through the winter. 

 The combs out of which honey has just been extracted are 

 always more or less dripping with honey, and even if they 

 were only sticky with the sweet nectar they would be apt to 

 attract insects, mice, or to sour, for honey has a strong hygro- 

 raetric properties, and attracts moisture much as salt does; 

 so that, in damp weather, its volume increases when it is ex- 

 posed to the air, and combs, which were only " sticky " when 

 the weather was dry, become actually "leaky" in damp 

 weather. 



The receptacle in which you place your honey must de- 

 pend to some extent upon the shape in which you expect to 

 market it. If one could tell just in what shape the honey 

 would be sold, it would be best to put it up in that shape at 

 once. But as the retailer may want it in all sizes of packages, 

 from a 60-pound can down to a one-pound bottle, it is gen- 

 erally best to put it up first in large receptacles. 



The shape of honey-packages, and the care to be given 

 the honey, also the rendering of the cappings, with a consid- 

 eration of the different grades of honey, will be treated in a 

 subsequent article. Should some points lack in clearness in 

 the methods heretofore given, I shall gladly reply to any 

 queries that may be made. Hamilton, III. 



Dequeeniug — How One Bee- Keeper Does It. 



BY C. H. CHAPMAN. 



'Tis with a sense of mingled " regret, remorse and shame " 

 that I think of my supposed-to-have-been-brief report for 

 1894, on page 78, as I supposed that all bee-keepers knew 

 full as much, or more, of dequeening than I, and surely more 

 of rearing queens. I have waited long and anxiously for some 

 person of ability to take the matter up and give an article on 

 dequeening, but "how vain a thing is hope !" 



First, I will say that this mode of management is not my 

 own, but just how or where I caught the idea, or to whom the 

 credit is due, I am unable to say, but I think it is due to Mr. 

 P. H. Elwood, of New York. 



To prevent an undesirable amount of increase, requiring 

 extra outlay of capital and labor ; to increase the income from 

 what I already have, by keeping my hives, during the short 

 honey harvest allotted me, crowded to the uttermost with 

 bees, I resort to dequeening nearly all colonies. 



On page 168, Mr. W. W. McNeal wishes to know " about 

 how many colonies figured in the experiment." Ninety colo- 

 nies were dequeened, 10 worked by division, and 12 by nat- 

 ural swarming. I have worked thus for three or four seasons. 



On page 296, F. L. Thompson gives in brief Mr. Aikin's 

 method of dequeening, in which I think he is somewhat mis- 

 taken in the way Mr. Aikin secures his young queens, for 

 such queens would be poor indeed. 1 wish Mr. Aikin would 

 give us an article on this theme. 



Now to the work : Get all colonies as strong as possible ; 

 see that all the queens have one wing clipped ; have a goodly 

 number of queen-cages in readiness ; allow the swarm to issue 

 the same as in natural swarming, cage the queen, remove every 

 queen-eel I, let the swarm return, take the very best possible care 

 of the queen, and in seven or eight days again remove every 

 queen-cell, and leave your bees hopelessly queenless for four 

 or five days. This is the key to use every time, for if the 

 queen is returned when the last batch of cells is removed, 

 swarming will be pretty sure to follow in a few days. Hope- 

 less queenlessness seems to cure the swarming-fever. Is it 

 not all plain and simple ? 



For cages, take old sections, cut a thin board, bore a %- 

 inch hole through it, cover with a button, tack it in one side 

 of the section ; cut wire-cloth 5x6 inches, bend down over the 

 other side, and your cage is done. Now with a small funn^, 

 waxed and sanded inside, you can run in bees at a rapid rate 

 by shaking a lot of bees off a comb on the ground. Set the 

 funnel over them, and through the hole in back of the cage 

 run in 50 or so of bees with the queen ; turn the wire-cover 

 side down, invert and insert a vial of honey fixed so the bees 

 can suck the food, remove to some cool room, and your queen 

 is always ready. 



Now for the queens : Select such colonies as you wish to 

 rear queens from, and mark them (any way you please). 

 When the swarm issues, let the bees return, lenvliuj all Vie 

 queen-cells ; at your leisure examine to ascertain how many 

 good, large queen-cells you have, form your nuclei, give each 

 a cell, and you will have queens as good as the best. Never 

 give a dequeened colony anything but a good laying queen. 



To me it is necessary to have all hives numbered, so that 

 a simple, accurate account of everything may be kept. Then 

 with a piece of clean section and pencil ever ready, nothing 

 is left to memory. Perhaps it is well to return the queen to 

 her own. as then she will be less likely to be for an undue time 

 removed and perish. If you have young laying queens use 

 them in place of any queens that do not please you. To re- 

 turn your queens, simply smoke them in at the entrance. 



If all is not plain, please say whereing it lies, and I wilt 

 try again. Soliciting friendly criticisms, I close. 



Cohoctah, Mich. 



[Perhaps Mr. Aikin will describe his method of dequeen- 

 ing, for the benefit of the readers of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal. — Editor.] 



