extracted honey on a large scale two extracting supers may suffice for each colony.  When the one next to the brood chamber is filled it is extracted at once, the top one taking its place next to the brood.  The extracted super when empty is then given back to the bees and placed on top.  When the second super is filled the process is repeated.  This process of extracting honey requires a period of four or five weeks.  All supers are removed at the end of the honey flow.  The last full super, however, should not be extracted but saved for the feeding of light colonies in the fall and spring.

The easier way to produce extracted honey is to have enough supers, say three or four for each colony.  The first is added during the dandelion or fruit blossom flow as soon as the colony is strong enough to readily enter into it.  When this super is nearly full and the combs can be seen through the top bars to whiten, another super is added next to the brood chamber, and the partly filled super is raised.  When this second super begins to get well filled, a third and a fourth super is added on top.  In the latitude of Minneapolis it is not advisable to insert a super next to brood chambers after July 4th, or two weeks before the end of the honey flow, because such procedure would result in a large amount of uncapped honey.

Comb honey should not be produced where the honey flow is slow and intermittent.  Weak colonies will not produce comb honey profitably.  In making up supers only A 1 sections should be used, with full sheets of extra thin foundation and three-eighths inch bottom starters of thin foundation.  Care should be taken to fasten the foundation very solidly, else heat and weight of bees will cause it to drop.  One or more bait sections should be used in the first comb honey super to induce the bees to enter into it more readily.  Bait sections are the half finished, unmarketable sections of the previous season.  One to four are used near the center of each super.

(To be continued in June No.)

[Illustration:  THE HOME OF THE LADY SLIPPER—­MOCCASIN FLOWER.

THE MINNESOTA STATE FLOWER.]

While it is not the intention to publish anything in this magazine that is misleading or unreliable, yet it must be remembered that the articles published herein recite the experience and opinions of their writers, and this fact must always be noted in estimating their practical value.

THE MINNESOTA HORTICULTURIST

Vol. 44 JUNE, 1916 No. 6

The State Flower and State Flag of Minnesota.

E. A. SMITH, VICE PRES.  JEWELL NURS.  CO., LAKE CITY.

The material in this paper has been gathered from several sources, part of which has never before been published.  It is presented not so much in the spirit of criticism as it is in the spirit of making the best of a mistake which the writer believes occurred when the moccasin flower was designated as the state flower of Minnesota.