THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



105 



be reversed. Below the wheel G, upon the 

 same shaft, is another wheel H, in the cir- 

 cumference of which are notches or cogs, 

 and into these cogs fit the links of a steel 

 chain that passes around similar wheels upon 

 the tops of the shafts passing through the 

 centers of the other comb baskets. It will 

 be seen that when one comb basket reverses, 

 all four must reverse. <Jnly one comb bas- 



DAGGITT, AUTOMATIC, KEVEESIBLE EXTRACTOE. 



ket is shown in the drawing, as the produc- 

 tion of all of them would make a confusion 

 of lines. To such an extractor should be 

 added a brake that can be operated by the 

 foot. 



It will be readily seen that reversing combs 

 upon their centers instead of at the edges will 

 will give a much smaller can. 



The use of bee-escapes is going to do 

 away with that most disagreeable part of 

 raising extracted honey — the brushing and 

 shaking of bees in the hot sun. Supers of 

 extracting combs will be brought into the 

 extracting room just as supers of comb hon- 

 ey are now brought in. Unless the honey is 

 left on until late in the fall, it never extracts 



more readily than when first taken from the 

 hives, before it has lost its natural heat. Of 

 course it would extract just as easily if 

 warmed, but if extracted at once the trouble 

 of warming is avoided. 



Just how extracting should be conducted 

 depends upon circumstances. With a large 

 apiary, or with out-apiaries, and basswood 

 yielding at its best, with a limited number 

 of supers and" combs, it would require a 

 " gang " of workmen to keep things cleaned 

 out. I should prefer an abundance of combs 

 and supers so that the honey could remain 

 on the hive a little while and the work be 

 done a little more leisurely. I should think 

 that three would ordinarily make a good ex- 

 tracting "team." One to get the honey off 

 the hives and return the empty combs, one 

 to uncap and one to run the extractor. With 

 an extractor such as is illustrated here, I 

 should suppose that one man could extract 

 as fast as two could uncap — perhai>s faster. 



By the way, it seems to me that inventors 

 ought to turn their attention towards discov- 

 ering some more rapid method of uncapping 

 combs. I believe they have machines in 

 England for uncapping combs. At least I 

 have seen them illustrated and described, 

 but I have an opinion that they are not prac- 

 tical. Mr. B. Taylor, who describes in this 

 issue an arrangement for leveling the combs 

 in sections kept over from the preceding 

 year, has tried uncapping sections of honey 

 in this same way, viz., by the use of heat. 

 He has tried using steam for heat, but says 

 that it does not give a suificiently high tem- 

 perature for the rapid uncapping of honey. 

 If we could discover some way of uncapping 

 combs as rapidly as we could pick up a comb 

 and press it against a heated surface, the 

 discovery would be of more importance than 

 an automatically, reversible honey extractor, 

 as more time is consumed in uncapping than 

 in reversing the combs by hand. 



I would be obliged for hints, suggestions, 

 and the relation of experience upon this sub- 

 ject with a view to giving in the May Re- 

 view a special discussion of this topic. 



EXXRMOXED. 



The "Old Reliable" is Fairly Booming.* 



There is no one who notices so soon the 

 presence or absence of editorial work in a 

 paper as the editor of a similar journal. I 



