Part 1

Produced by Tom Cosmas compiled from images made available by The Internet Archive.

Transcriber Note

Text emphasis denoted as _Italics_ and =Bold=.

Issued August 23, 1912.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

FARMERS' BULLETIN 503.

COMB HONEY.

BY

GEO. S. DEMUTH.

_Apicultural Assistant, Bureau of Entomology._

WASHINGTON:

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1912.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology, _Washington, D. C., April 16, 1912_.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled "Comb Honey," by Geo. S. Demuth, apicultural assistant in this bureau.

In view of the increasing demand for the finest grade of comb honey and a decrease in the amount of comb honey produced, it seems timely to present to professional beekeepers an analysis of the best practice as well as to point out some essentials to the production of maximum crops of the best grade. I recommend the publication of this paper as a Farmers' Bulletin.

Respectfully, L. O. Howard, _Entomologist and Chief of Bureau_.

Hon. James Wilson, _Secretary of Agriculture_.

CONTENTS.

Page

Introduction 5

Apparatus for comb-honey production 6 Shop and honey house 6 Hives 7 Sectional hives 10 Sections and supers 10 Bee way v. plain sections 10 Dimensions of sections 11 Supers 12 The method of support 12 Protection 13 Free communication within the super 14 The use of separators 15 Shallow extracting supers 16 Combination supers 16 Other apparatus 16 Preparing supers 17 Folding sections 17 Fastening foundation in sections 17 Manipulation of the bees 18 Securing workers for the honey flow 20 Building up the colony in the early spring 21 The production of gathering bees 22 Providing sufficient stores 23 Providing available brood-rearing space 23 Summary 24 Using available workers to best advantage during the honey flow 25 Swarming 26 Preventive measures 26 Control measures 27 Control of natural swarms 28 Using the removed brood to best advantage 29 What to use in the brood chamber when hiving swarms 32 Extreme contraction of the brood chamber when hiving swarms 33 Swarm control by manipulation 34 Taking the queen from the hive 35 Removing the brood from the hive 37 Separating the queen and brood within the hive 40 Manipulation of the supers 41 Caring for the crop 44 Removing the honey from the hives 44 Care of comb honey 45 Scraping propolis from sections 45 Grading comb honey 46 Packages for comb honey 46 Marketing 47

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page

Fig. 1. A 10-frame hive with comb-honey super and perforated zinc queen excluder 8 2. Perforated zinc queen excluder 9 3. Beeway and plain sections, unfolded 10 4. Plain section in super, showing method of spacing 11 5. Beeway section in super, showing method of spacing 11 6. Square and oblong sections 12 7. The T super 13 8. Super with section holder for beeway sections 13 9. Super with section holder for square plain section 14 10. Super with section holder for oblong plain sections 14 11. Combination super with wide frames for oblong plain sections 15 12. Bee-escape board for removing bees from supers 17 13. Drone and queen trap on hive entrance 28 14. Colony before swarming; supers in place 29 15. Brood placed in hive turned 00 degrees from old entrance 29 16. Hive with brood turned back to 45 degrees from old entrance 30 17. Hive with brood turned parallel to old entrance 30 18. Hive with brood placed on other side of old entrance 31 19. Arrangement of supers 42 20. Shipping cases for comb honey 47

COMB HONEY.

=INTRODUCTION.=

The present tendency in beekeeping is decidedly toward the production of extracted honey rather than of comb honey. The recent activity among beekeepers toward specialization, which necessitates the establishing of out-apiaries, and the rapidly increasing demand for extracted honey are among the factors bringing about this condition. Enormous quantities of honey are now used for manufacturing purposes, and this demand is, of course, solely for extracted honey.

If the general public finally becomes convinced of the purity and wholesomeness of extracted honey, this will become a staple article of food. Comb honey to command the higher price--proportionate to the greater cost of production--must justify the extra cost to the consumer by its finer appearance. The consumer of extracted honey is not concerned as to the straightness or finish of the combs in which it was originally stored, but by virtue of its appearance there will probably always be a good demand for the finest grade of comb honey where appearance is the chief consideration. Present tendencies therefore emphasize the desirability of producing comb honey of the most attractive appearance possible.

Well-filled sections of comb honey with delicate white comb and perfect cappings are obtainable only during a rapid honey flow of sufficient duration to insure their completion. The production of comb honey, the appearance of which is sufficient to justify its extra cost, requires a combination of conditions that are peculiar to rather limited areas, outside of which the beekeeper will find it decidedly advantageous to produce extracted honey.

Comb-honey production should not be attempted in localities where the honey flow is very slow or intermittent, where the character of the honey is such that it granulates quickly in the comb while it is on the market, where the honey is dark or "off color," or where honeys from various sources are mixed if these different sources produce honey of different colors and flavors. Local market conditions may of course in some instances be such as to make it seem advisable to produce comb honey in limited quantities in a locality that is not well suited to comb-honey production, but the beekeeper who produces comb honey for the general market should first be sure that his is a comb-honey locality. Even in the best localities during an occasional season conditions are such that it is not possible to produce comb-honey of fine appearance. Some comb-honey specialists find it profitable to provide an equipment for extracted honey for such an emergency. In some cases comb honey is produced only during the height of the season, when conditions are most favorable, extracting supers being used both at the beginning and close of the honey flow.

While the professional beekeeper is thus curtailing the production of indifferent grades of comb honey, bee diseases are rapidly eliminating the careless producers. From the present indications, therefore, it would seem certain that there must be a gradual elimination from the markets of all inferior and indifferent comb honey--grades that must compete directly with extracted honey. This should mark a new era in the production of the beat grades of comb honey in the localities that are peculiarly adapted to comb-honey production. The beekeeper who is thus favorably located will do well to consider the possibilities of future market conditions for a fancy grade of comb honey.

Tho following discussion is necessarily but a brief outline of modern apparatus and methods and of course can not in any sense take the place of the broad experience necessary in profitable comb-honey production. It is assumed that the reader is more or less familiar with the more general phases of beekeeping. (See Farmers' Bulletin No. 447. This bulletin also contains a complete list of publications of the Department of Agriculture on beekeeping.)

=APPARATUS FOR COMB-HONEY PRODUCTION.=

=Shop and Honey House.=

A building containing storage space for apparatus, a well-lighted and ventilated workshop as well as a honey room, is a necessity in comb-honey production. The arrangement and location of the shop and honey house will depend upon local conditions and circumstances. Tho usual mistake is in constructing those too small. In the North the shop and honey house is usually built over the wintering repository or collar. Since rats or mice would do great damage to the contents of such a storehouse, the construction should be such as to exclude them. If a concrete foundation is used and the sills are embedded in a layer of "green" mortar, no trouble of this kind should be experienced. If a series of out-apiaries are operated for comb honey, the supers, extra hives, etc, are usually kept in one building located near the home of the beekeeper. This serves as a central station and storehouse, the supplies being hauled to and from the apiaries as needed. This building may be supplemented by a very small building at each apiary, though in comb-honey production this is not really necessary.

The honey room should be so located that it will receive the heat from the sun, preferably an upstairs room immediately under the roof. When so located a small hand elevator should be installed for taking the honey up and down. The room should be papered or ceiled inside to keep out insects and to permit fumigation if necessary and should contain facilities for artificially heating in case continued damp or freezing weather should occur before the honey is marketed. The honey room should be provided with ample floor support for the great weight that may be placed upon it.

=Hives.=

A beehive must serve the dual purpose of being a home for a colony of bees and at the same time a tool for the beekeeper. Its main requirements are along the line of its adaptation to the various manipulations of the apiary in so far as these do not materially interfere with the protection and comfort it affords the colony of bees. Since rapid manipulation is greatly facilitated by simple and uniform apparatus, one of the fundamental requirements of the equipment in hives is that they be of the same style and size, with all parts exactly alike and interchangeable throughout the apiary. While the hives and equipment should be as simple and inexpensive as possible, consistent with their various functions, a cheap and poorly constructed beehive is, all things considered, an expensive piece of apparatus.

In this country the Langstroth (or L) frame (9-1/8 by 17-5/8 inches) (fig. 1) is the standard frame and throughout this paper frames of brood will be discussed in terms of this size of frame. The advantages of standard frames and hives are so great that the beekeeper can not afford to ignore them for the sake of some slight advantage of another size.

There is, however, a wide difference of opinion as to the number of frames that should be used in a single hive body. The wide variation in the building up of colonies previous to the honey flow in different localities and seasons, the race of bees, and the skill of the beekeeper are all factors entering into this problem, which make it improbable that beekeepers will ever fully agree on this point. The races that build up more rapidly in the spring are, of course, other things being equal, able to use to advantage a larger brood chamber than the races that are more conservative in brood rearing. It is also noticeable that within certain limits as the beekeeper's skill in building up his colonies for the flow increases, so the size of the brood chamber best adapted to his purpose increases. In other words, while the careful and skillful beekeeper may succeed in having large brood chambers well filled with brood at the beginning of the honey flow, the less skillful beekeeper under similar conditions may be doing well to approximate this condition with a much smaller brood chamber.

For comb-honey production the brood chamber should be of such a size that by proper management it may be well filled with brood at the beginning of the honey flow, so that the brood and surplus apartments maybe definitely separated. A brood chamber may be considered too large if by proper management it is not on an average fairly well filled with brood at the beginning of the honey flow, and too small if it provides an average of less room than the colony is able to occupy with brood previous to the honey flow. Unless the beekeeper practices feeding, a brood chamber that does not contain sufficient room for both winter stores and brood rearing during late summer and autumn may also be considered too small. It may be well to note that by this standard if the brood chamber seems to be too large the fault may lie in the management during the previous autumn, winter, or spring. Of course the brood chamber that is barely large enough for one colony will be too large for another in the same apiary or the character of the season may be such that all brood chambers may be too large for best results one season and too small the next, so an average must be sought. While by manipulation good results may be secured by the use of any of the sizes in common use, any great departure in either direction from the size best suited to conditions of a given locality necessitates an excessive increase in labor to give best results. There is at the present time a strong tendency toward the use of the 10-frame hive body as a medium-sized brood chamber which may be used as a unit of a larger elastic brood chamber when necessary.

The comb-honey producer is more exacting as to certain details of construction of hives than is the producer of extracted honey since it is more necessary for him to handle individual brood frames during the honey flow. The spaces[1] above and between the top bars of the brood frames must be accurate or they will be bridged with burr and brace combs and these filled with honey. Burr and brace combs make the removal and readjustment of the super and the manipulation of frames a slow and disagreeable task, to say nothing of the waste of material, which should have been placed in the sections in the beginning. The use of the slatted honey board (fig. 2), while preventing brace combs between itself and the super, does not prevent the building of burr and brace combs between and above the top bars of the frames. This trouble is largely eliminated by proper spacing. Most hive manufacturers are at present making the top bars of the brood frames of such a width that the spaces between them is from one-fourth to five-sixteenths inch with the same spacing above them. The difficulty, however, is in maintaining this spacing with any great degree of accuracy. Self-spacing frames[2] are a partial solution of this difficulty. In some localities, however, the ordinary self-spacing frames are so badly propolized as to render their removal from the brood chamber difficult as well as materially to interfere with the proper spacing. The advantages of such frames are then nullified, while their disadvantages are retained or even intensified. In such localities metal spacers having but small surfaces of contact are sometimes used. Some beekeepers prefer omitting the spacers entirely. However, some of the difficulties arising from the use of self-spacing frames are the result of carelessness on the part of the operator in not crowding the frames together properly when closing the hive after having handled the frames.

[1] A bee space, or that space to which bees are least inclined to put comb or propolis, is perhaps a scant one-fourth inch. In hive construction one-fourth or five-sixteenths inch is usually used.

[2] These are so constructed that the end bars are one-fourth or five-sixteenths inch wider than the top bars throughout a portion of their length or furnished with projections of metal fitted to the edges of the frame. In either case the adjustment is such that when the frames are crowded together in the hive the spaces between the top bars will be correct.

=SECTIONAL HIVES.=

The sectional hive in which the brood chamber is composed of two or more shallow hive bodies, making it horizontally divisible, offers some advantages, especially to the comb-honey specialist. Most of the ordinary manipulations can be performed readily with such hives without removing the frames. One of their greatest advantages in comb-honey production is the rapidity with which the apiarist can examine the colonies for queen cells if natural swarming is to be controlled by manipulation. They are also very elastic, the units or sections usually being of 5-L frame capacity, permitting a brood chamber capacity of 5 or any multiple of 5-L frames. Among the disadvantages of these hives are the extra cost owing to the greater number of parts necessary in their construction and the difficulty in maintaining proper spacing without the use of top bars on the frames heavier than would seem advisable in the middle of the brood nest.

=Sections and Supers.=

There is a wide variation in the style of sections and the supers designed to contain them. This, whole to some extent brought about by different local conditions, is largely due merely to the notions of individual beekeepers. Comb-honey apparatus could probably be standardized without sacrificing any really vital features.

=BEEWAY _v._ PLAIN SECTIONS.=

There are two general styles of sections in common use differing in the method of spacing--the beeway section in which the spacer is a part of the section itself (fig. 5), and the plain in which the spacer is a permanent part of the separator (fig. 4). Each style has its advocates and each offers some advantages.

Some of the advantages of the plain (fig. 3) over the beeway sections are: (1) They are simpler in construction, therefore costing less. (2) The edges being plain with no insets, the plain sections are more easily cleaned of propolis when being prepared for market and are especially adapted to cleaning by machinery. (3) By leaving the spacers in the super, sections of the same honey content occupy less space in the shipping case, thus reducing the cost of packages. (4) The plain section is adapted to an arrangement permitting freer communication lengthwise of the row of sections, especially at the corners (p. 15).

Some of the advantages of the beeway sections (fig. 3) are: (1) The honey is somewhat less liable to injury by handling. (2) Being wider at the corners where folded, they are stronger. (3) Some markets, being accustomed to the larger cases necessary to contain a given number of beeway sections, object to the smaller package containing the same number of plain sections, simply because it is smaller.

=DIMENSIONS OF SECTIONS.=

Sections of various dimensions are in use by beekeepers, but the sizes in general use are the 4-1/4 inches square and the 4 by 5 inches. Some producers prefer the 4 by 5 sections because of the more pleasing appearance of the oblong package (fig. 6). The standard widths of the 4-1/4 by 4-1/4 inches section are 1-7/8 inches in the beeway style and 1-1/2 inches in the plain section. The extra width in the beeway style is for the purpose of spacing and does not add to the thickness of the comb. The 4 by 5 is 1-3/8 or 1-1/2 inches wide in the plain style and not much used in the beeway style. The 1-3/8 width of the 4 by 5 section contains practically the same amount of honey when filled as the 4-1/4 by 4-1/4 by 1-1/2 plain or the 4-1/4 by 4-1/4 by 1-7/8 beeway, assuming of course that all are used with separators and filled under like conditions. Since there are well-defined limits as to the thickness of the combs most profitable to produce, the area of one comb surface in a section weighing about a pound is usually from 16 to 20 square inches, the exact size and shape being an adaptation to given space in the super. The thinner combs, showing more comb surface, have the appearance of being larger and a greater number can be accommodated on a given hive. Honey in such combs may also be ripened sooner and possibly better than in thicker combs. They, however, require more foundation for each pound of honey produced and a slightly greater amount of wax, in proportion to the honey, to complete them. Also the thinner the comb, the greater the difficulty with the sheets of foundation swinging to one side on account of uneven work on the two sides or because the hives do not stand level.

=SUPERS.=

The main points of difference between the various types of comb-honey supers are in (1) the method of supporting the sections, (2) the amount of protection afforded to the outside of the section and (3) the degree of free communication from section to section within the super.

=The Method of Support.=