J40 Cornell Extension Bulletin i6 



PRODUCE EXTRACTED HONEY 



More extracted and less comb honey should be produced. A pound 

 of extracted honey has more food value than a pound of comb honey. 

 From one-third to twice as much extracted honey can be produced to the 

 colony. The cost of production is less because of the economy in time, 

 labor, and materials; hence it can be sold much cheaper than comb honey. 

 There is much less swarming when extracted honey is produced. Colonies 

 that are too weak to or for other reasons will not store in comb-honey 

 supers, will often use extracting supers. In case of a light honey flow, bees 

 will store in extracting supers when they would not in comb-honey supers. 

 Less skill is required in the production of extracted honey, which fact 

 allows the use of unskilled help if necessary. Extracted honey can also 

 be shipped, handled, and stored to better advantage than comb honey. 



CONTROL SWARMING 



More honey will be obtained if swarming is controlled and no increase 

 is made. The producer of extracted honey can usually handle swarming 

 much more successfully than the comb-honey producer. In case natural 

 swarming is permitted or cannot be prevented, the old, or parent, colony 

 should be moved to a new location and the hived swarm should be set on 

 the old stand. This weakens the parent colony because the bees afield 

 return to the old stand, and this tends to prevent after swarming. At the 

 same time it strengthens the new colony. All supers that are on the 

 parent colony should be placed on the new colony. 



If the maximum amount of honey is to be produced, no increase should 

 be made except by the experienced beekeeper. It should not be made 

 just previous to or during a honey flow. Queens should be supphed 

 promptly to all new colonies formed by increase. It is probably best to 

 make increase from only a few colonies, using all others for production. 



GIVE PLENTY OF ROOM 



A third measure consists in giving super room in time and ample storagel 

 room as fast as needed. The present tendency is to give supers sooner 

 than was formerly recommended. As soon as a colony becomes strong 

 enough to have the brood chamber fairly well filled with a large amount ofl 

 brood and some honey, and when honey is still coming in and will probably 

 continue to, a super should be added. This sometimes happens during 

 fruit bloom, but usually not until white clover begins to bloom Just as 

 soon as one super is one-half to two-thirds filled and the prospects are c^ood 

 for a contmuance of the flow, new supers shbuld be added and the otherd 

 shifted so that the empty super will be next to the brood chamber and th^ 

 super that was next to the brood chamber will be on top of all the others 



