186 



NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the head off. We keep on doing that 

 until we are through. Then we have 

 three or four or five barrels full of 

 cappings that are partly drained. 

 While we are doing our other ex- 

 tracting those cappings keep dripping 

 off and the honey goes to the bottom 

 of that barrel. We take the top of the 

 cappings and put them away til they 

 are almost dry. We thus have the 

 cappings that are almost dry when tlip 

 season is at an end, and there is very 

 little honey wasted. The honey we 

 get is all good. We wash the cappings 

 and use them for vinegar or wine mak- 

 ing — that is the honey that is diluted 

 out of the cappings. I think it is a 

 great deal better than to try to melt 

 the wax because then you color your 

 . jioney and hence give it a little taste. 

 ' Mr. Poppleton — My practice is very 

 similar to Mr. Dadant's; I have raised 

 extracted honey almost as long as he 

 has and perhaps in nearly as large 

 quantities. I use almost the same ap- 

 paratus in the way of decapping cans, 

 but I run them through a solar wax 

 extractor and get every ounce. I don't 

 lose a thing. That honey that goes 

 through there is clear. I keep that in 

 barrels by itself and send it off, and 

 never have a dealer dock me a farth- 

 ing for that kind of honey. It is not, 

 of course, on an equality with the fine 

 w^hite clover honey. If you are docked 

 anything in the price of that up here 

 it is simpjly one or two cents a pound, 

 just a small amount of money. There 

 is a great deal more honey in those dry 

 combs than anyone would think till 

 they test them. I save from two to 

 three barrels every year of that kind 

 of honey. I would decidedly prefer the 

 solar wax extractor. 



(Mr. Dadant — Mr. Poppleton's meth- 

 od is very good, but I want to warn 

 the bee-keepers against this, if you 

 melt your cappings in a solar extrac- 

 tor, your wax is more or less sticky 

 with honey, and if you have foul brood 

 you run the risk of shipping foul brood 

 when you ship that beeswax. There- 

 fore, if you follow Mr. Poppleton's 

 method be sure to render your bees- 

 wax by hot water afterwards ; that 

 is, in case you have foul brood. 



Mr. Barber — We have been using one 

 of those capping melters from Root's, 

 and the first three hours I worked it 

 I thought it was a pretty fine 

 thing. I took some of the honey into 

 the house for dinner, and couldn't tell 



the difference between it and the ex- 

 tracted. We turned off the heat partly, 

 and when we went back again the 

 old combs in that screen filled up 

 with what had got in before getting 

 kind of cold, and in a little while I 

 went down and said, Henry, what 

 is the matter with that thing? He 

 said, nothing; he didn't' melt fast 

 enough he guessed. I said, There is 

 something the matter with it, and I 

 came to the conclusion that this 

 sieve had filled up with old combs and 

 had not melted. So I put on more 

 fire, and in an hour or so I went out 

 and I got two or three gallons of honey 

 of a pretty dark color, r didn't dare 

 to feed it to the bees. If the melter 

 is handled all right, it works all right. 

 Mr. Lommedieu — il find by mixing 

 the cappings up with the honey, and 

 not draining the honey out of the 

 cappings, but using a stick like a po- 

 tato masher and mashing the cappings 

 all up thoroughly, that it only takes 

 two or three minutes, and by dump- 

 ing them on to a coarse cheesecloth 

 strainer they will be practically pretty 

 near dry by the next morning. If 

 you want to finish the job you can 

 set them to drain into something. It 

 works all right for me. 



Dr. Bohrer — There is a reptile in 

 the country, in Kansas, that destroys 

 a great deal more ibees than the birds 

 do, and that is the toad. If anybody 

 knows how to shut them out of the 

 hive by an inexpensive method I 

 would like to know what it is. I 

 have caught great big ones as big as 

 my fist right at the end of the hive. 

 Mr. Quinby, in a work of his which 

 I have, recommends putting a broad 

 board around the ,apiary; but if one 

 has a large apiary it would require 

 quite a large number of boards to 

 put them right around to shut the 

 toads out. That they will reduce a 

 colony in a few days and reduce them 

 very materially, is a fact. I don't 

 know of any other plan than to kill 

 them, and I don't like to do it be- 

 cause they catch a good many insects. 



Question — In preparing bees for win- 

 ter, would it be a good plan to remove 

 the center comb to make room for 

 bees to cluster? Answer — No. 



Question — Which of two colonies at 

 beginning of honey flow, if six weeks 

 before one should have , plenty of 

 stores, the other given same amount 

 during the six weeks, equal amount 



