THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



175 



Opening of the Harvest and the 

 Management in Out- Yards 



V. FACEY. 



1 N a great many, or perhaps nearly all, 

 i localities in the north, the surplus sea- 

 son opens up with the blooming of white 

 clover. Bees should now be strong; most 

 of- them occupying two stories, some 

 three, but others only a single story. Per- 

 haps half the battle of our summer's 

 campaign has been won. Our forces are 

 strong, energetic, and ready for business. 

 In reality, however, we have only reach- 

 ed the place that shall test the stuff 

 whereof we are made. We have reached 

 the place wherein the next few weeks 

 will determine whether we are able to 

 lead or perhaps compel our forces to vic- 

 tory, and the extent of that victory or 

 whether it shall all mean defeat and dis- 

 appointment. There are few localities in 

 the North wherein even the worst sea- 

 sons will mean uniform defeat, if the bees 

 are handled so as to take advantage of 

 every opportunity, or uniform success in 

 the very best season if they are unintel- 

 ligently handled. Therefore, at this time 

 every step should be carefully weighed; 

 all prejudices dispensed with; all our 

 knowledge of the habits of bees, their 

 capabilities and possibilities must be 

 brought into play. We must always be 

 ready to learn from ourselves and others; 

 and we must often dare to do some things 

 judicially that may fail, that we may 

 reach eventually the greater success; for 

 bee-keeping, as yet, is only passing 

 through its period of development. In 

 securing our honey crop, we desire to se- 

 cure, first, the best honey possible, sec- 

 ond, the largest crop possible. 



EXTRACTING ALL KCNEY AT THE OPENING OF 

 THE FLOW FROM CLOVER. 



White clover honey is the very nicest 

 honey we produce, and so susceptible to 

 deterioration by other honey that 1 make 



it a practice at the commencement of the 

 yield to remove all the darker and stronger 

 flavored honey of the spring months from 

 the entire colony, both from the upper and 

 lower stories. This honey is very useful 

 > for feeding for stimulating purposes, and 

 for spring feeding, but can not be put up- 

 on the market if the bees had any stores 

 from sugar syrup which may have been 

 given them for stimulating purposes, or 

 may have remained over from syrup given 

 them for winter stores the fall before. 



If this work is properly done it does not 

 damage the brood in the least. The 

 weather is warm, or rather, hot, and the 

 honey throws out freely, but we must not 

 try to clean the combs too thoroughly, 

 since the two secrets of saving the brood 

 undamaged is first to use only speed 

 enough, and, second, not to clean too 

 closely. With the Novice extractor, old 

 style, giving from four and one-half to 

 five turns of the handle was all that was 

 permitted. It takes about six days for 

 myself and two helpers to go over my 

 bees in this way. 



THE STIMULATING EFFECT OF EXTRACTING 

 HONEY. 



It may seem strange to those who have 

 never tried it, but colonies extracted clean 

 in this way will manage to put into their 

 hives at least one-quarter more honey 

 for the next extracting, than if they had 

 not been touched. It seems to put an ex- 

 tra vim into their work, and if we extract 

 some, and leave others, we can pick out 

 nearly every one of the extracted ones, if 

 we go to them about two hours after- 

 wards, by the way they are rushing in 

 their honey. Another advantage is that 

 the bees fill the upper stories with honey 

 first, while the queen is busy filling the 

 lower story, so we commence our hone" 



