f>U2 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



his starve in spring. Friend Case must have his 

 usual quantity in spite of the poor season. 



Mr. Stimson, of Lejden, who has 11:3 colonies, 

 could tell us a story about setting out too early. 

 The 1st of May was too early in that locality. He 

 winters, by burying in the ground; ro cushions to 

 keep out the cold when set out in the spring, and a 

 heavy storm coming on, found the poor bees unable 

 to keep their brood warm, and, as a consequence, 

 many hi\es were lost. 



It seems to me there have been of late, many ac- 

 counts of fertile workers. Is it because I have had 

 a job of that kind on hand, and so noticed it more? 

 I found and removed a fertile worker; gave them a 

 frame of eggs and larva?, and they started queen- 

 cells, but never finished them. I tried three times to 

 get them to raise a queen, and also kept them well 

 supplied with young hatching brood, but all of no 

 use; they persisted in having their own way. I have 

 not looked at them since my return home. Being 

 the doctor's bees, and not mine, 1 presume they are 

 nearly run out. 1 have been at work imder that 

 tent, and I think it is capital— no fuss, no robbing. I 

 really don't see how anyone can "keep house with- 

 out one." I have 27 colonies now; counted 19 in the 

 spring; have always been afraid of increasing too 

 much— more than the locality would support; but I 

 shall keep on till I reach 50 now, and hope I may 

 start next season with that number, notwithstand- 

 ing the old croakers say, '■'■Too many hccsltcpt here 

 now." They may just step out of the way with their 

 non-progressive ideas, and give me full swing. 



Poor season, this; no white clover; too wet and 

 cold in May and June; no surplus honey, but lots of 

 brood-rearing, till the last week in July; then a rush 

 for just one week, and I extracted in three days, 

 from 10 hives, upper stories, 430 lbs. It don't pay to 

 put on boxes in poor seasons; just be ready for ex- 

 tracting, and attend to that, is what this season has 

 taught me. Mrs. T. M. Squire. 



Redding, Conn., Oct. 'J, 1883. 



EXTRACTED HONEY -HO^V TO PIT IT 

 UP. 



WHY HONEY CANDIES, AND HOW TO PREVENT 

 CANDYING. 



EF the people want candied hones', and will buy it, 

 by all means give it to them; but if they want 

 pure liquid honey, who will say they shall not 

 have it? In this free, enlightened age, the people 

 have a right to their preferences, and it is the inter- 

 est of apiarians to cater to their tastes. We want 

 the people to consume honej', and more and more of 

 it. Honey for food and honey for medicine, is our 

 doctrine. I am glad that Mr. Dadant, after he failed 

 to get a market for his honey, because " our honey 

 had candied in glass jars, and then looked like lard 

 of inferior quality— all the customers wanted liquid 

 honey," succeeded in covering his candied honey 

 with tin, and getting a good market for it. All right; 

 let him and others go on and prosper on that line. 

 There is no doubt that there are multitudes of peo- 

 ple who still want liquid honey, and there is a wide 

 field open here for the small-fry bee-keepers. Our 

 home market is yet only in the incipiency of devel- 

 opment. Liquid honey in glass jars, warranted pure 

 with the producer's name on it, is the very thing to 

 do it with. I am able to sell all the honey I can raise 

 from my fifty colonies of bees, without going more 



than nine miles from home. But once, as an experi- 

 ment, when going away from home I took with me 

 some sample jars of honey. I showed them to the 

 grocerymen in some of the towns. They had "nev- 

 er seen any thing like it;" it was "beautiful;" it was 

 "so convenient to handle — no sticking nor daub- 

 ing." They smiled, and would be very glad to have 

 me send them a "few dozen jars as samples." They 

 thought they could " handle it." Before I took that 

 trip I was really afraid that, if I raised much more 

 honey, 1 should not be able lo sell it. 



Now, 1 know that the world is open before us, and, 

 if properly managed, consumption of honey will keep 

 up with the production. But each producer should 

 look well to his home market, and to the villages 

 around him. The first year that I had much ex- 

 tracted honey to sell, 1 took a sample to the stores 

 at the iron-works and factories, a few miles from 

 here. A few days after that, I made my first deliv- 

 ery. It was in Mason jars. While I was in the 

 store, by the time my money was counted down to 

 me, five different persons had each taken one jar of 

 honey. 



Mr. Heddon thinks that it is the cold and not the 

 air that makes honey candy. But my experience 

 for years proves that all honey, thin or thick, can- 

 dies in cold weather, if exposed to the air, or if the 

 air is not expelled from it before sealing it up; and 

 also that honey does tiot caiiclu in cold weather when 

 it is properly sealed up, either in the comb or in jars. 

 I have now in my honey-house (a small board build- 

 ing in which I never had fire), honey candied into a 

 solid mass, and I have some of the same lot sealed 

 up in glass jars in August, which is as clear as it was 

 the day it came from the combs, and I have no doubt 

 it would keep for years just as it is now. Light and 

 cold do not affect it, if the air is excluded. 



The most of my honey crop I put up this year at 

 from 140 to 150° of heat. It is all keeping nice y. As 

 an experiment, I put up some at 100, 110, 130, and 

 130° artificial heat. That put up at 100° shows con- 

 siderable signs of candying; that put up at 110° has 

 not changed so much, but it is not perfectly clear, 

 while all that was put up at 130° and above that is 

 perfectly clear to-day (Nov. 13). I also tried putting 

 up some by putting the jars into a box with a glass 

 cover, and letting them stand in the sun to warm up 

 before sealing them. The season here was not fa- 

 vorable for that kind of work, as in July, when I did 

 it, the weather was not hot, and it was so cloudy 

 that I could get only a few hours of sunshine in one 

 day. I am glad now that I did not have more favor- 

 able weather, because, if my experiment proves a 

 success this season, then we can succeed in that way 

 every year, and in all ordinary summer weather. 

 The greatest heat I got in my box was 110°. To-day, 

 one lot put in at that degree shows here and there in 

 the jar something like a small air-bubble, or grain of 

 granulated honey. Another lot, put up at the same 

 degree, is perfectly clear, and shows no signs of can- 

 dying. Why this difference? I can account for it 

 only in this way: That the first lot was filled, set in 

 the box, and sealed up the same day, and the air- 

 bubbles through the honey had not time to rise to 

 the top. The other lot was allowed to stand a cou- 

 ple of days in the box after they were filled, and the 

 honey had thus time to settle, and the air to rise, be- 

 fore they were sealed. That put up at 110° artificial 

 heat was poured into the jars after the honey was 

 heated, and it was not warm enough to expel the air 

 that was mixed with it, right away. The bees can 



