1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



375 



Harry Crawford, a well-known comb-honey 

 man of Colorado. 



ally be full of brood and honey. A 

 flight hole is provided in the upper 

 hive body. This is lifted off and a 

 comb-honey super set in its place on 

 the lower hive body. On top of this 

 comb-honey super is placed a honey 

 board with the escape hole covered 

 with queen-excluding zinc. The up- 

 per hive body is then replaced on 

 top of the original hive with the su- 

 per between. There is then an op- 

 portunity for the bees to pass back 

 and forth between the two compart- 

 ments, but the small opening through 

 the escape hole covered with exclud- 

 ing zinc does not facilitate free 

 movement. The bees soon use the 

 flight hole in the upper body freely. 

 At the end of eight or nine days the 

 division containing the laying queen 

 is removed to a new stand and all 

 queen-cells cut from the queenless 

 portion. A virgin queen is given co 

 the colony remaining on the old 

 stand. If he has been too busy to 

 rear a sufficient number of young 

 queens, he usually finds enough ripe 

 cells to supply one to each new di- 

 vision. In this way it is easy to keep 

 down swarming till the beginning of 

 the main flow and also to build up 

 the new colonies in plenty of time 

 for it. He sometimes finds it neces- 

 sary to give the new divisions a sec- 

 ond story for brood rearing, in ad- 

 vance of the principal flow, later re- 

 moving it, somewhat after the plan 

 followed by Dr. Miller. 



This method of making increase in 

 advance of the honey flow would not 

 be practical in the clover region 

 where it is difficult to get the bees 

 up to sufficient strength in time for 

 the flow. This season Colorado bee- 

 keepers have enjoyed a good flow 

 from the third cutting of alfalfa, 



coming late in August and running 

 into September. 



Rauchfuss makes a practice of 

 placing full depth hive bodies over 

 his weak or moderate strength colo- 

 nies. In this way he secures a con- 

 siderable amount of honey in brood 

 combs. This is not extracted, but 

 kept for reserve to make sure that 

 all colonies are well supplied. He 

 calls attention to the fact that many 

 comb-honey producers lose their 

 best colonies every year because the 

 honey is all stored in the supers, 

 leaving the hive body for brood. 

 When the honey is removed the 

 amount left in the one hive body of 

 an 8-frame hive is not sufficient and 

 the bees die before spring for want 

 of stores. His plan of wintering all 

 colonies in two stories, with a large 

 reserve supply of honey, avoids this 

 danger. 



Herman Rauchfuss is probably the 

 most extensive comb-honey producer 

 in Colorado at the present time, hav- 

 ing about 1,800 colonies in thirteen 

 yards. It requires expert manage- 

 ment to run so many bees for comb- 

 honey and there are few men who 

 might not get some good pointers 

 from a man of such wide experience. 

 He has one apiary, in a protected 

 situation in the Platte Canyon, 

 which is used principally for the 

 production of bees. Full depth bodies 

 are given them for storage of honey, 

 and this honey is used in turn for 

 building up ether yards. In this 

 apiary swarms issue early, some- 

 times so early that snow storms oc- 

 cur later. He has had several swarms 

 there as early as May 1. On one 



side of this apiary is the Platte 

 river, which furnishes excellent 

 trout fishing; on the other side is a 

 beaver dam. It is needless to say 

 that visitors find much of interest 

 besides the bees in visiting this api- 

 ary. 



Until he sold his bees last spring, 

 A. J. McCarty was probably the most 

 extensive comb-honey man in Colo- 

 rado. McCarty sold 2,200 colonies 

 and leased the rest, and is taking a 

 well-earned vacation. However, he 

 is not content and will probably get 

 back to the bees another year. When 

 I visited at his home in Long- 

 mont, I found him a very agreeable 

 chap and a live one, when discussing 

 bees in general. He was exceedingly 

 modest about his own success, how- 

 ever, and when it was proposed to 

 tell something of his methods and 

 experiences, he made a counter 

 proposition, that we go with Prof. 

 Spangler to his cabin in the moun- 

 tains and spend the night up there. 

 This was too good a chance to miss, 

 and the invitation was eagerly ac- 

 cepted. Prof. Spangler has been a 

 teacher in the Longmont schools for 

 many years. Back east he would be 

 considered an extensive beekeeper, 

 with his three hundred colonies. He 

 has a cabin about thirty miles from 

 Longmont, not far from Long's 

 Peak. It is a wonderful drive along 

 the little stream that winds up be- 

 tween the high mountains on each 

 side, and no more interesting scen- 

 ery is to be found. If this was a 

 publication devoted to travel, instead 

 of bees, that trip to the Spangler 

 cabin in McCarty's big White car, 



D. W. Spangler's cabin in the mountains. 



