1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1089 



wood is the freest yielder we have in Michi- 

 gan; but since it happens that these condi- 

 tions are rarely right we do not put much 

 dependence on basswood, especially as it is 

 being cut so fast for lumber. 



I use, and advise that beginners use, full 

 sheets of extra thin foundation in the sec- 

 tions, and I think that these sections should 

 be built between separators. To do this it 

 is absolutely necessary to know the location 

 in order to tell when the main l3ow begins, 

 and thus get the sections on at this time. 



When the season is over— that is, a week 

 after the tiow stops — and the bees are through 

 capping their white honey, every super should 

 be removed from the hive, no matter whether 

 full or not. If there is a fall How, the supers 

 should be put on again when this commences, 

 but not before. Many leave their partly till- 

 ed supers (left over from the white honey- 

 flow) on the hive during the dearth of hon- 

 ey between the white-honey flow and the 

 buckwheat flow. During this time the bees 

 tear out a great share of the unused founda- 

 tion in the sections. This is the worst time 

 of the year for the bees to propolize, and 

 this and the mutilated foundation leave the 

 sections in any thing but a desirable condi- 

 tion for the buckwheat flow. 



This is the kind of honey we have to com- 

 . pete against when we ship our honey to mar- 

 ket. If only the people who produce this 

 stuff were hurt theie would be less reason to 

 complain; but every one who produces hon- 

 ey for sale is affected; one has only to look 

 at the honey quotations co see how things 

 are going, for the quotations usually read, 

 "Market overstocked with low grade honey. ' ' 



I have told you heretofore that bees would 

 bring up honey from below, and cap and flnish 

 sections for a week after the honey has ceas- 

 ed coming in from the fleld. Taking advan- 

 tage of this fact we leave our comb honey on 

 the hive until the end of this period. If this 

 is the end of the flrst (or white) honey-flow, 

 escape-boards are put in under every super 

 in the yard; and when free from bees the su- 

 pers are removed to the honey-house, and 

 sorted. Those that are tit for the market are 

 cased up, and the rest either "fed back" to 

 be tinished or the honey extracted. In the 

 latter case these partly tilled sections can be 

 used for baits for the fall tiow if there is a 

 fall flow; if not, they are stored away until 

 the next season, when they are used. 



I hate to be compelled to record the fact 

 that three-fourths of the comb honey produc- 

 ers practice the slovenly way of leaving their 

 comb-honey supers on the hive clear through 

 the season— that is, those partly tilled supers 

 at the end of the white-honey flow are left 

 on the hive to be tinished up with buckwheat 

 honey. This makes a bad mess. The white- 

 honey part of the section will be travel-stain- 

 ed, and covered with propolis. Then sec- 

 tions containing two kinds of honey are never 

 satisfactory. This practice is especially un- 

 desirable when there is an interval of three 

 or four weeks between flows, as with the 

 light and dark honey-flows in the northern 

 States. 



It is necessary that the comb-honey pi'o- 

 ducer should have an extractor. It need not 

 be so elaborate an aftair as the extracted- 

 honey producer would require; but, never- 

 theless, good comb honey can not be produc- 

 ed without one. Each kind of honey should 

 be produced by itself as much as possible. 

 The bees should never be allowed to com- 

 mence a certain honey-flow unless all the 

 honey of a pi'evious flow has been extracted 

 from the sections so they can commence anew 

 and do good work. It is impossible for the 

 bees to tix over an old job and make a satis- 

 factory new one. 



There is plenty of missionary work for the 

 bee- journals along this line. As the season 

 advances, this class of bee-keepers should be 

 told, step by step, how the season is pro- 

 gressing, whether the clover is early or late 

 in maturing, and when it will probably be- 

 gin to produce honey in the ditterent loca- 

 tions; then when the indications are that the 

 season will close, the most important part 

 of all is to impi-ess upon the readers the ne- 

 cessity of taking oft" comb honey at the prop- 

 er time. 



If this class of bee-keepers would only eat 

 all the dirty honey they produce there would 

 be no particular occasion for writing on this 

 subject, for then they would hurt no one's 

 business but their own; but this is not the 

 case, for no one can deny that such honey 

 tinds its way on the market. 



Remus, Mich. 



DEEP HIVES VS. SECTIONAL HIVES. 



A Reply to Mr. Datlant's Article. 



BY J. E. CHAMBERS. 



Mr. Editor:—! note on p. 485 Mr. Dadant's 

 reply to my article, p. 181. He has acknowl- 

 edged most of the points of superiority in 

 favor of sectional hives; but I should like to 

 take exception again to some of his argu- 

 ments. 



First, Mr. Dadant says that it seems from 

 my article "that the shallow hive is of such 

 great advantage that it is forcing the manu- 

 facturers to handle it in spite of themselves." 

 Just so, Mr. D., but not in the sense you have 

 implied. These manufacturers are business 

 men who do not handle goods from a purely 

 philanthropic motive, but for the dollars that 

 are iu them. If there are dollars to be got- 

 ten, most of them are willing to let their pre- 

 conceived notions and even their prejudices 

 slide a little to one side, and they supply the 

 goods that are called for. 



Seconil, Mr. Dadant goes on to relate the 

 experience of Mr. Heddon in trying to intro- 

 duce his shallow hive, or, rather, divisible- 

 brood-chamber hive. Granted that all this 

 is fact, does it prove any thing? I think not, 

 for I know of many good things that have 

 never been taken hold of by the crowd. But 

 I deny that Mr. Heddon ever made one-tenth 

 the effort to put his hive befoi-e the public 



