1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1017 



in their sections, their combs turn yellow, 

 and, if the honey-dearth lasts many days, as 

 it sometimes does, it requires a good harvest 

 to start them at work again in their sections, 

 and then those sections will never sell for the 

 highest market price. This can all be pre- 

 vented when there is a good feeder under 

 every hive, and tanks full of extracted honey. 



There must be many comb-honey produc- 

 ers who can throw some light on this sub- 

 ject; and, although I am out of this class, 

 and giving only my own mite of experience 

 when I produced comb honey. I should be 

 much pleased to hear through Gleanings the 

 experience of others. 



I repeat that, in order to produce comb 

 honey from extracted at any profit, it must 

 be done during hot weather while the bees 

 are gathering nectar from the Howers; and 

 the honey, before it is fed, must be thinned 

 with boiling water to about the consistency 

 of nectar. To feed thick extracted honey 

 out of season to produce comb honey is a 

 waste of both time and honey; and the small 

 amount of comb honey that is produced is 

 likely to granulate and became unsalable. 



This is one of those leading subjects which 

 should receive our attention until our mar- 

 kets are free from so much unsalable honey 

 as we often see. With the knowledge and 

 appliances for producing honey we now 

 have, no man is excusable for putting a 

 poor article on the market; and it is a duty 

 we owe to ourselves and each other to con- 

 demn this practice wherever we see it. I 

 can not see how locality can make much dif- 

 ference in this matter; but I can readily see 

 that, if honey is thinned to the consistency of 

 nectar with boiling water, it will have a 

 tendency to prevent its granulating; and if 

 fed to bees in this condition during the sea- 

 son when it is natural for them to build 

 comb and are gathering nectar from the 

 flowers, a short slim harvest can be changed 

 to a long rich one, for the bees will simply 

 be helped to carry out their natural instinct, 

 and success will be the result. 



Delanson,,N. Y. 



DOES IT PAY TO EXTRACT SEC- 

 TIONS? 



The General Problem of Unflnislied Sec- 

 tions. 



BY G. C. GREINER. 



As a rule, this question will have to be ans- 

 wered in the negative. It is too much fuss- 

 ing for the little gain derived fx'om the oper- 

 ation. However, there are exceptional cases 

 when it is not only desirable but in a small 

 way pi'otitable. 



During the many years of my bee-keeping, 

 conditions have occasionally been such that 

 I felt the desire to extract sections; but as I 

 thought it could not be done without running 

 too much I'isk of breaking the combs from 

 the wood, and, besides, not having any con- 

 venient rig to do the job in a satisfactory 

 way, I have never, until lately, made the at- 



tempt. I have always let my bees do the 

 extracting — that is, any unfinished sections 

 which I reserved for next season's bait-combs 

 I set out for the bees to help themselves. 

 This is an easy way to get these sections 

 cleaned out; but it has the disadvantage that 

 the colonies that don't need any feeding get 

 it all or nearly all, while those that are sore- 

 ly in need of stores get very little if any. 



We may take it for granted that no bee- 

 keeper would even think of extracting finish- 

 ed sections, or even such unfinished sections 

 as could be profitably disposed of as chunk 

 honey, or used otherwise to advantage But 

 some seasons produce a certain kind of un- 

 finished sections that seemed to be made for 

 the extractor. According to the peculiarities 

 of d liferent seasons' honey-flows, we have, 

 as mentioned in a previous article, two dis- 

 tinct types of unfinished sections. One kind 

 is partly built out, some not larger than the 

 inside of a hand, but all drawn out, filled 

 with honey, and every cell capped over, while 

 the other is all built and drawn out, filled 

 more or less with honey, but little, if any, 

 capped. The past season produced in this 

 locality, with the exception (jf very little fin- 

 ished honey (where bait-combs had" been sup- 

 plied) the latter kind. 



During the five days of white- clover hon- 

 ey-flow, lasting from "the 26th until the aoth 

 of 'June, honey was gathei'ed in such quanti- 

 ties that the comb-builders had all they could 



CL 



\ 



r^ 



>-^ 



FIG. 1. 



FIG. 2. — GKEINEK'S OOMB-KASKET RACK FOR 

 HOLDING SECTION.S IN THE EXTRACTOR. 



do to furnish storage for the incoming nec- 

 tar; and when the combs were built and 

 drawn out they were also filled with honey, 

 and about ready to be capped. Just then the 

 honey-flow ceased; and so complete was the 

 following failure that not the least progress 

 was made in sections for the remainder of 



