MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 125"Take off each super when it is full." Now, will you please tellme how totake care of the honey after taking it ofif, until I cansell or eat it? If I take the super off and put it, no matter where,the ants get at it.A. Keep the honey in a warm, dry, airy place. If warm anddry it doesn't matter so much about being airy. A place wheresalt will keep dry, and where it never freezes is a pretty goodplace. One way to keep it from ants is to have it closed in somethingso tight-fitting that ants cannot get to it. That's a hardthing to do, especially with a large quantity. An easier way isto put it on some kind of platform supported on four feet, eachfoot resting in some old dish or can kept supplied with some kindof oil or water. Perhaps you can kill off the ants. If you cantrace them to their nest, you can give them a dose of bisulphideof carbon, or gasoline. You can wring a sponge out of sweetenedwater and put it where the ants will collect on it, then dipants and all in boiling water, repeating the performance untilyou have used up the ants. This last you must, of course, do beforethe ants begin on the honey, for they may prefer the honeyto a sweetened sponge.Honey, Kind to Produce.—Q. I have been running my apiaryfor chunk honey, but find that I can find a sale for quite a lot ofextracted honey. I have a few nice, straight combs on mediumbrood-foundation, wired. What would be the storing capacity ofone colony with 1-inch foundation-starters, one colony with fullsheets of medium brood-foundation, as compared with a colonywith full-drawn combs; that is, if a colony with full-drawn combscould fill 20 frames, about how much could the other respectivecolonies fill, everything else being equal? I expect to use fullsheets of thin surplus for chunk honey, and full sheets of mediumfor extracting. I ask these questions simply to have some ideaas to how much foundation of each kind to buy this season.A. I don't know. If you want me to guess, I'm willing to domy best at guessing. I must premise that by saying that theanswer depends somewhat upon the flow. If a short and veryheavy flow is on, the fully drawn combs will have a much greateradvantage than they will have in a light and long-continued flow.In the former case, while the colony with full combs stores 20pounds, the colony with one-inch foundation-starters will storefrom 10 to IS pounds, and the colony with full sheets of thin sur-"plus from 12 to 17. With medium brood-foundation it ought to dojust a little better than with thin surplus.In the case of the long, slow flow, while built combs give 20,