The trouble with the “glutted” honey market comes, not from the use of the honey extractor, or the over-production of honey, but from a lack of proper knowledge and means of creating a demand. As a rule we do not consider it best to extract honey from combs containing unsealed larvæ, but one must be governed by his knowledge of and experience in this business.
We could not be hired to do without the extractor for many reasons.
We should be pleased to hear from Mr. Dadant on this subject, as he uses the extractor extensively.
A few days since while we were busy at the desk, Mr. Alley called us out into the apiary to witness a swarm of bees issuing from a hive that was provided with one of his drone traps. It was very amusing and interesting to watch the honey-laden bees rush pell-mell out through the perforated metal entrance giving conclusive evidence that the perforations were amply large to freely admit a worker bee laden either with pollen or honey.
Soon the queen unable to force her way through at the entrance passed into the trap. As soon as the majority of the bees had passed out we removed the drone trap, fastened it to the end of a long pole and rested it against a small tree near by. In a short time the bees, discovering their queen in the trap, clustered upon it.
When the bees had become quiet we removed the trap to a convenient shady spot near by and laying it on its side placed over it one of the swarming boxes, covering the box with a board so as to cover the wire cloth and make it dark within the box.
We then left the swarm in that condition for about six hours in order to experiment with it and learn whether the queen would force her way out.
In the early evening we examined the swarm and found that the queen was out among the bees in the swarming box, and found that as the trap was laid on its side the bees that filled the trap formed a bridge over which the queen could pass through the wire tube through which she passed into the trap.
This is a valuable feature of the trap because if one cannot always be at hand to attend to the swarms, the queen after about six hours will find her way back into the hive again, thus preventing either her loss or that of the bees.