248 



THE BEE-KEEPER'S REVIEW 



taken off in cool weather, it will be too 

 thick to handle to advantage, even if no 

 escapes are used. 



Artificial heat is the final analysis of 

 this problem, and its adoption is the only 

 thing that would allow of the adoption of 

 this system. Last year I heated up the 

 honey by means of a coal stove; this year 

 we are using a Perfection, kerosene oil 

 heater; and it /s perfection. It is the first 

 oil burning stove I ever saw that would 

 not smoke. It has a cylindrical wick, and 

 just above the wick is a round plate of 

 iron called the "flame spreader," and the 

 wick is turned up until it strikes this 

 '"spreader," when it can go no higher, and 

 it won't smoke and can't be made to do 

 so. One end of the honey house, or cel- 

 lar, is partitioned off making an "oven" as 

 we call it, large enough to hold 50 or 60 

 supers. We fill this up at night, light the 

 stove just before we go to bed, and turn 

 the wick part way up, so that the tem- 

 perature at the top of the room will stand 

 at about 100 degrees. In the morning 

 we re-fill the stove, turn it on full blast, 

 and go to extracting, taking the first su- 

 pers from the top of the room. As some 

 of the piles are lowered, more supers are 

 taken from other piles and added to these, 

 thus bringing more honey up into the 



heated "zone." As fast as there is vacant 

 room, more supers are brought in, and 

 sort of a routine is followed whereby one 

 always has hot honey to work; and more 

 a heating. It uncaps so easily, extracts 

 so easily, and strains so easily. 



We have two small pails filled with 

 water, and keep one of them constantly 

 on the stove, and the other by the un- 

 capping barrel. The uncapping knife is 

 kept in the one by the barrel, and, as soon 

 as the water cools it is exchanged for the 

 hot one on the stove. 



Perhaps this system of management 

 might be called the gentlemen's system. 

 It certainly is an easy, pleasurable, leis- 

 urely way of producing first-class ex- 

 tracted honey. There is no hurry, hurry, 

 hurry to get the honey extracted because 

 the bees are needing more room. There 

 is no shaking and brushing of angry bees 

 out in the boiling hot sun. Unless there 

 is a flow of dark honey following one of 

 light, there is no hurry whatever about 

 getting the honey off the hives. Even 

 when off the hives, it may be extracted 

 at leisure. 



Plenty of supers and combs, bee- 

 escapes and artificial heat are the Hutch- 

 inson combination — where am I making 

 any mistake ? 



EXTRACTED DEPARTMENT. 



5LLLCTING BRLLDING QULLN5 



The Choice May Better Be Made on the 

 Basis of Results Rattier Than Up- 

 on ttie Causes. 



Awhile ago I copied from Gleanings an 

 article by Mr. Holtermann in which he 

 enumerated a few of the things we ought 

 to know about bees that we might choose 

 our breeders wisely, and now Gleanings 

 has an article from Mr. C. F. Bender 

 calling attention to a very practical 



method of choosing our breeders, even if 

 we don't know so much about the whys 

 as Mr. Holtermann thinks necessary. Mr. 

 Bender says: — 



Mr. Holtermann's article on page 413 

 is a very clear statement of what we 

 ought to know about our bees, and don't; 

 but 1 rather doubt such knowledge being 

 of very great use in the practical breed- 

 ing of bees, even if we possessed it. I 

 should like very much to know which of 

 my queens produce the longest-lived 

 workers, which bees would fly furthest, 

 live on the smallest rations, resist unfav- 

 orable weather the best, carry the largest 



