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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Mr. Townsend replies as follows— ' 

 Remus. Mich.. Feb. 5th, 1907. 

 Mr. W. Z. Hutchinson, 



Flint, Mich. 

 Dear Sir :- 



Yours of the 2nd inst, enclosing- Mr. H. 

 F. Strang's article for me to answer, is 

 received. Would say that I am surprised 

 and pained to learn that there is a feeling 

 existing- among bee-keepers, antagonistic 

 to the methods adopted by myself and 

 others who keep bees extensively. But, I 

 am using valuable space, so will try and 

 answer friend Strang as briefly as 

 possible. 



As to the charge that, with my system 

 of management, 1 do not get more than 

 half the honey that I could by a little 

 more attention to my bees, 1 would say 

 that I get all the honey that my territory 

 produces. Our bees are not neglected, 

 as some have the impression: they are 

 supplied with empty-comb-room every 

 minute during the honey season. Now if 

 Mr. Strang, or any one else, can work 

 qut a system that will double my 

 honey crop, no matter how much work it 

 v»>ould take to accomplish the results, he 

 would confer a great favor upon the bee- 

 keeping public. 1 am quite sure there is 

 no system, no matter how complicated, 

 that will produce even 1 per cent, more 

 honey than the one we follow. 



After knowing the above facts, it would 

 seem as if the question of whether 1 was 

 fully occupying the territory, where my 

 bees set, or not, is fully answered; inas- 

 much as we keep all the bees, in each 

 location, that that particular location will 

 support. 



Before leaving this subject, I want to 

 repeat, our bees are not neglected, as 

 many think they must be with our system 

 of management. 



Our hives and upper stories are all 

 practically new, being factory made, and 

 well painted, and our implements are all 

 up to date. 



As to the charge of allowing my queens 

 to have full sway through the hive at all 



times, thus consumingthousands of pounds 

 of honey, in breeding up a horde of con- 

 sumers after the season is over, 1 would 

 say that Mr. Strang has not followed me 

 very closely in my writings, or he would 

 not make this charge. It is like this : 

 We put our first upper story on early; 

 this gives the queen unlimited room, as 

 Mr. Strang says; then subsequent upper 

 stories are given on top. This first upper 

 story is given the 20th to the 25th of May; 

 this is 60 days before the honey is ex- 

 tracted, and you will see there is time for 

 three generations of brood to be raised, 

 and hatched, during this time. If we had 

 have raised our first upper story up and 

 placed the empty one under, we would 

 have coaxed the queen up to this story, 

 also, and the consequences would be, we 

 would hold the queen in the upper stories 

 until extracting time, and this system 

 would be a failure, should we extract 

 during the honey season. But the way to 

 do to not raise this horde of consumers, is 

 to put all the upper stories on top, then, 

 towards the close of the season, stop giv- 

 ing room. By this method two results 

 are secured. 



First, and the most essential, it gets our 

 honey finished up and capped, which is 

 necessary to the besst results in the pro- 

 duction of a good article of extracted 

 honey. Then, this allowing the bees to 

 become crowded, toward the close of the 

 season, also forces the queen below, for 

 want of room above to lay in; and we try 

 to let them get the upper stories so full of 

 honey that the bees put quite a con- 

 siderable in their brood-nest, so that 

 when we extract, the last of July, there 

 is but very little brood in the upper stories. 

 The fact is. the brood nest is much smaller 

 at the close of the season, than that of an 

 8-frame hive upon which a queen-ex- 

 cluder has been used, and no precaution 

 taken about their having plenty of honey 

 left for winter stores. This is my answer 

 to the charge that with my system 

 hordes of consumers are raised, at the 

 close of the season, to the detriment of 

 the bee-keeping fraternity. 



