220 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



have now tested It for five years, I call it a prood 

 honey-room. 



STIMULATIVE FEEDING. 



To-day (April 20) I have been feeding my bees, as 

 they seem to have very little to work on, till the 

 fruit-blossoms open. Not readily getting rye meal, 

 I fed them shorts. I also fed them a syrup made of 

 granulated sugar and water, taking a pound of 

 sugar to make 5 pints of syrup. As I have 175 colo- 

 nies (I sold one last week), and don't know of half a 

 dozen anywhere near me, I fed them in the open air. 

 To feed the shorts (for which they were, I think, 

 more eager than for the syrup), fused 8 hive-covers, 

 putting perhaps half a peck of feed in each. I 

 raised up one end of each cover by placing a small 

 stone under it, or, rather, by putting the stone un- 

 der it near the middle. In the course of half an hour 

 or an hour, the bees would have the meal all worked 

 down to the lower end of the cover. Then I turned 

 the cover around, so that the meal was at the upper 

 end, reversing it as often as the bees dug it down. 

 If I did not do this, the bees would soon have a sur- 

 face of coarse bran through which they could not 

 dig down to get what they wanted. After they have 

 worked over it all day, the remainder can be fed to 

 cattle or chickens. 1 have heretofore used ground 

 corn and oats, which is also eagerly taken, but have 

 never tried rye, which i3 said to be best. To feed 

 the syrup, I got 5 of the largest dripping-pans I 

 could get. Then I made for each a float by taking 

 strips of "n-lnch stuff an inch wide (for one I used 

 strips two inches wide, and it is as good, if not bet- 

 ter), placing them Y2 to ?i inch apart, and nailing 

 them together by a strip across each end, making 

 the whole float about half an inch smaller than the 

 bottom of the pan. Putting the float In the pan, I 

 put over each a piece of cheese cloth large enough, 

 when tucked down in the pan, to leave a couple of 

 laches hanging over the sides. Then I fill up the 

 pan with the syrup a little warmer than milkwarm, 

 and it is ready for work. To carry the syrup out, 

 and poifr in the pans, 1 use a common watering-can 

 without the rose. When the pan is perhaps half 

 emptied, I fill up with syrup quite hot, for that in 

 the pan has cooled, and, mixing with it some quite 

 hot, brings it to the right temperature. If 1 pour 

 the hot syrup directly upon the bees, it will scald 

 them to death very quickly; so I raise one corner of 

 the cheese cloth and pour the syrup rather slowly 

 under the cloth. To prepare the syrup, I put 10 lbs. 

 granulated sugar into a common kettle en the stove, 

 and fill up with water. When dissolved, I put about 

 a fourth of it at a time in the watering-can, which 

 holds six quarts, and fill up the can from the reser- 

 voir, and melt another kettle full as fast as it is 

 used up. To-day I have used about liO lbs. of sugar, 

 making about 30 gallons of syrup. Of course, I keep 

 the feeders in a sheltered place. 



C. C. Miller, 6T. 



Marengo, 111., April 30, 1883. 



I entirely agree with friend Miller in re- 

 gard to the care of honey, but I do not know 

 that I could have given all the reasons for it 

 as well as he has done. Never keep honey 

 in a cellar, and never keep it in any place 

 where you will find moisture condensed on 

 it. — In regard to the stimulative feeding, if 

 friend M. keeps it np just as he has describ- 

 ed, whenever there is a dearth of pasturage 

 I predict he will give us a greater report this 

 season, if it prove a fair one, than he did last. 



AN INSTRUMENT FORME VSURING THE 

 IiEN<iTH OF BEES' TONGUliS. 



SOMETHING NEW FROM FRIEND MARTIN. 



SEND you by this mail an electrotype of my in- 

 strument,— bees'-tongue register. I have oft- 

 en desired an instrument of the kind to test 

 the reaching power of certain swarms of bees in my 

 own apiary. I first tried to make a self-registering 

 instrument, the pointer to be operated by a float in 

 diluted honey. I could not make this work satis- 

 factoril3', as the specific gravity of the liquid used 

 at different times would cause a difference in the 

 record, if we wish to register a hundredth part of an 

 inch. I finally discarded the selt'-registcring idea, 

 and perfected the instrument I send you, which is 

 operated as follows: — 



jiiTiinvnnijHyDii 



HliLs'-TONGUE REGISTER. 



A glass feedmg-tube will be found by turning the 

 cover upon which the wire cloth is attached. Fill 

 the tube level full of diluted honey or syrup, return 

 the cover carefullj' to its place, smear a little honey 

 on the wire cloth and down along the base of the in- 

 strument. Set it level in the hive, and give the bees 

 access to it until they remove all of the honey they 

 can reach. Then remove and set it upon a level sur- 

 face and uncover the tube. Now turn the thumb- 

 screw in the center of the back of the instrument un- 

 til the ring that encircles the tube is on a line with 

 the extreme upper surface of the honey. The point- 

 er will now record the length of tongue upon the 

 dial in ICOth parts of ?.n inch, and even higher, if j'ou 

 read the record between the lines. When not in use 

 it is a good plan to keep it in the box in which it is 

 mailed. The test occupies but a few minutes of 

 time. 



This register is worked internally by an eccentric, 

 and can not possibly get out of order, or make mis- 

 takes. 



If we wish to breed for the reaching power of our 

 bees, this instrument will enable us to do so without 

 trusting blindly to the development of this quality. 

 A general trial with such an instrument will soon 

 teach us whether the large yield of certain swarms 

 is dependent upon this quality of our bees. It will 

 teach us whether climate makes a difference in the 

 length of tongue. It will also register the length 

 of tongue. It will, too, register the length of 

 the tongue of any honey-loving insect, from a fly to 

 a bumble-bee. I have made the register to the ca- 

 pacity of a full inch, with the expectation of the ar- 

 rival, ere long, of apis dorsata. 



John H. Martin. 



Hartford, N. Y., April 10, 1883. 



