THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



205 



extract it without serious damage to the 

 brood, many successful men could not be 

 induced to invade the brood nest. 



Then there is the point of frequent and 

 close extracting. 1 feel that this ought 

 not to be passed without a warning. Mr. 

 Facey with his good judgment and years 

 of experience may manage it all right, 

 but the great mass of producers can not 

 or do not. 1 know Mr. Facey is not ad- 

 vocating the extracting of green honey, 

 but the average bee-keeper who goes to 

 extracting the honey "clean," every seven 

 or twelve days will get some unripe honey. 

 I know Mr. Facey says it must be done 

 with caution and with care, but it will do 

 no harm to bear down upon this point. 

 The market for extracted honey never 

 suffered such a blow as it received from 

 the extracting of unripe honey. 



This point that close extracting is an 

 encouragement to the bees to put forth 

 greater efforts is one well worth consid- 

 ering. I expect that the bees are thereby 

 stimulated to greater exertions, but I 

 wish Bro. Facey, and others, would tell 

 us just how much Let us suppose that 



a ten-frame colony has its comb full of 

 brood and honey, and an upper story of 

 combs is placed upon it at the opening of 

 the main honey flow. This upper story is 

 soon filled and the combs partly capped 

 over. Suppose now we remove those 

 combs and extract the honey, returning 

 the combs, will the bees then work with 

 greater energy, and store more honey 

 than they would had we simply raised up 

 that story and placed a set of empty 

 combs between it and the brood nest ? 



Where the white honey harvest is fol- 

 lowed by a dark honey flow, the last ex- 

 tracting of the white honey must be 

 rather close, or else some of it will go 

 over into the dark honey. It is well- 

 nigh impossible to prevent a little of the 

 white honey being left in the combs if the 

 dark honey flow follows right close upon 

 the heels of the white harvest. Better 

 have some of the white honey go in with 

 the dark than vice versa, or to extract 

 any honey that is not thoroughly ripened. 



I feel strongly upon this subject of well- 

 ripened honey, and I trust Bro. Facey 

 will pardon, perhaps agree, with all that 

 I have said upon the subject.— Editor.] 



Keeping- Colonies Strong- and Prevent- 

 ing- Swarming. 



E. F. ATWATER, 



As the profitable production of comb 

 honey depends on keeping a large force of 

 bees in each hive, during the flow, we 

 have several methods of doing this more 

 or less successfully. The best plan one 

 season may be only second-best the next 

 season, or some details may need chang- 

 ing. Let us suppose that the bees have 

 bred up well, as is usually the case, a 

 short time before the flow arrives, and 



that we are 10 to 20 days from the flow. 

 If everything is promising, and we want 

 some increase, we can use the Rauchfuss 

 or Aikin method. Put most of the brood 

 in the lower story of the hive, on this a 

 queen excluder, on this a second story, 

 A'ith one frame of bees, brood and the 

 qu3en, the balance of the combs empty or 

 contdining some honey. 



Brood rearing will leap ahodd in this 



