140 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. RKPORT OF THE 



honey flow, was a good one, and where 

 white clover or basswood was plenti- 

 ful, I should certainly produce comb 

 honey, and advise every one else to 

 do so. But if you are in a locality 

 where the honey is principally of a 

 dark color, I would produce extracted 

 honey, because the dark extracted 

 honey sells for only one cent less than 

 the light extracted in all wholesale 

 markets; while there is about a differ- 

 ence of four cents in comb honey be- 

 tween the dark and the white, and 

 where there Is much dark honey, you 

 can scarcely make a success of pro- 

 ducing the best white honey, for the 

 reason that your supers and the honey 

 inside of your hives is more or less 

 mixed with dark honey, and if the 

 bees do not consume every pound of 

 it in rearing brood in the spring, some 

 of it will find Its way into Vhe supers 

 to shade the color of your honey. 

 Therefore, if your honey Is pretty 

 dark, produce extracted honey. If It 

 Is pretty nearly or all white, produce 

 It In the combs. 



Mr. Whitney: Isn't It a fact that 

 from fifty to a hundred per cent more 

 honey can be produced In extracted 

 form than in the comb, and although 

 extracted honey brings a little less 

 price, more money really can be real- 

 ized, even though It Is white clover 

 honey? 



Mr. Wilcox: I am of the opinion 

 that I can pnoduce and market two 

 pounds of extracted honey as cheaply 

 as one of comb. The average yield 

 depends upon the season. In a poor 

 season, you will get more than two 

 poimds of extracted to one of comb. 

 In an extra-good season the difference 

 will not be so much, perhaps forty to 

 fifty per cent more extracted honey 

 than comb. It depends upon the lo- 

 cality and the season. 



Moths and Bees. 



"Do moths ibother the bees that 

 stand in the shade rmore than in the 

 open ?" 



Mr. Whitney: My strain of bees are 

 not bothered with moth at all, either 

 in the shade or open. They are three- 

 banded Italians, and will take care of 

 moth very quickly. I have never seen 

 any difference between the shade and 

 the open. 



Loss of Young Queens. 



"What causes loss of young queens 

 before mating?" 



Mr. Stanley: There might be a num- 

 ber of causes; might be a storm come 

 up; might have your hives too close. 

 That is a hard question to answer. 



Mr. Wilcox: That doesn't answer 

 the question. This is before mating; 

 not at the time of mating. 



Mr. Horstmann: How does anybody 

 know they are lost before they leave 

 the hive? They have got to leave the 

 hive to be lost. 



Mr. Stanley: Unless you handle 

 them so much that you kill them in 

 handling the combs. 



Mr Horstmann: Whoever wrote 

 that question might give it to us a 

 little plainer. 



Miss Candler: I asked the question.' 

 I have been trying to rear queens and 

 the queens were lost. They were vir- 

 gin queens, about twenty-nine or so, 

 and they were all right a few days 

 before in the hive. 



Mr. Horstmann: How long after the 

 queens were hatched until you noticed 

 that they were lost? 



Miss Candler: Just a few days. 



Mr. Wilcox: Is eight a few? 



Miss Candler: All the way from 

 three days to two weeks that I could 

 not find them. 



Mr. Horstmann: In that case I think 

 they were lost In the air. The young 

 queens go out sometimes when they 

 are from three to four days old, and of 

 course a young queen is more clumsy 

 than an ordinary bee, and they are 

 more apt to be picked up by birds. 

 Sometimes they get lost by entering 

 the wrong hive, but they are mostly 

 lost, I think, by birds picking them up 

 in the air. 



Mr. Whitney: One yeear I lost five, 

 and we had a pair of kingbirds that 

 had a nest near the apiary, and I 

 charged it to those kingbirds. I don't 

 know whether they were guilty or not, 

 but I borrowed a shotgun and killed 

 them both, and after that I didn't lose 

 any more young queens. 



Mr. Moore: Isn't it a fact that if 

 you have nuclei for queen-rearing ar- 

 ranged in a row so that they look 

 alike there is danger of their being 

 lost? Isn't it important to set them 

 around in irregular form for the guid- 

 ance of the queen returning? 



Mr. Horstmann: I believe almost 

 everyone rearing queens does that. I 

 always try to change mine. I never 



