Jan. 28, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



57 



absolutely clear, which we tell by holding up to the light, and 

 when clear there is no more heat applied. After done, it is 

 set in the stores and it will keep liquid four or five times as 

 long as it did the first time when it was put in before granulat- 

 ing at all : and I believe if liquefied that way by dry heat it 

 will keep longer. That has been my experience. 



Dr. Miller — Mr. Abbott is bringing in another thing 

 again. He is right, too. You heat honey up to i6o, I don't 

 care how quick you do it, get it to that and seal it up, and 

 that will keep a long while without granulating. He has it 

 sealed up and that counts in the case. He is right in that. 

 We have the three different things. We have to sum them 

 up. 



Mr. Whitney — Do you loosen the cap of the jar? 



Mr. Abbott — No, sir; we use corks. There is a label 

 put «n top and nothing is interfered with. It is just left 

 as it is. 



Mr. Baldridge — I have had a little experience in hand- 

 ling honey with the family trade. We ought to teach people 

 to use granulated honey. I have been trying to teach my 

 customers for the last three years to use granulated honey. 

 I sell all my honey by sample. I carry granulated and liquid 

 and I give them their choice, and in three years' time I think 

 my customers have selected about four or five orders of 

 granulated honey. I must have a queer class of customers 

 to teach. 



Pres. York — You are a poor teacher, perhaps I 



Mr. Baldridge — They won't buy it if they have their 

 choice. 



Mr. Whitney — I have a few customers who use graii- 

 ulated honey, or rather extracted honey, I should say, and I 

 have placed some of it in the stores at Lake Geneva, Wis. 



Pres. York — Granulated extracted honey? 



Mr. Whitney — Yes, sir. My best trade in extracted honey 

 want the granulated. They say, "We don't want the liquid 

 honey. Give us the granulated honey." 



Pres. York — Are there a lot of Swedes up there? 

 [Laughter.] 



Mr. Whitney — Not at all. The very fashionable trade 

 along the Lake, and I ship a good deal here to Chicago, gran- 

 ulated solid. They want it. I have sent it to Kansas City, 

 St. Louis, the slightly granulated. 



Pres. York — You haven't sent any to St. Jo, Missouri? 



Mr. Whitnej' — I believe I ought to. 



Mr. Niver — Mr. Baldridge and I are working along the 

 same line. I am working here in Chicago putting in gran- 

 ulated honey. I am right in a Swedish neighborhood, and 

 they tell me of that yellow Swedish honey. The.v say it is 

 the finest honey in the world. It doesn't suit my taste. A 

 good many prefer the granulated honey and I give them their 

 choice. 



Pres. York — Mr. Josephson has a sample here, and lie 

 asked me what kind it was. I couldn't tell except I called it 

 granulated Spanish-needle honey. It is heather honey. 



^Ir. Niver — The Swedish people like it granulated, and 

 use it like butter. I have quite a percentage of families that 

 take it that way from choice. 



Dr. Miller — While this is here, let me mention one point 

 in which it differs from any honey we have in this countrj'. 

 I am not .sure about Sweden. In some places the heather 

 honey cannot be extracted. 



Mr. Josephson — They can extract it, but the reason is 

 that they are very backward in bee-keeping. It can be ex- 

 tracted if it is done about three or four weeks after being 

 gathered, but if it stays in the cold it granulates right in the 

 hive, and it stays granulated if kept until the next year. By 

 this you can see whether they had honey the year before. It 

 will never go back to the liquid form. 



Dr. Miller — I understand the honey was always in that 

 shape even before extracted. The only way to get it out is 

 to press it. 



Mr. Josephson — They smash up the combs, and put it in 

 a strainer, then keep the honey three, four or five weeks in a 

 room where it is warm. 



F.\LL ITALIANIZING OF BEES. 



"Who thinks the fall a good time to Italianize a colony 

 of bees?" 



Pres. York — How many think so? Raise hands. Eight. 

 Mr. Smith — My experience is that you usually have 



young, vigorous bees for the spring work by Italianizing in 

 the fall. That has been my experience. You have better 

 results. 



Mr. Hutchinson— Mr. Smith has just about told it. You 

 have young, vigorous bees, and you will have more young 

 bees to go into winter with. That queen is right in her 

 prime, and that queen will build up quicker. You can get 

 queens cheaper then ; they arc easier reared in the best of 

 the season. I prefer to Italianize in the fall. 



Mr. Wilcox — How late in the fall in this State? 



Mr. Hutchinson — I wouldn't want to wait too late to rear 

 the queen. I wouldn't care if it was in October, but I 

 wouldn't want to rear a queen that late. 



Mr. Baldridge— It is a good time to Italianize in the fall 

 or any other time. 



Mr. Whitney— I didn't raise my hand, as Pres. York 

 didn't put the question on the other side, but my experience 

 has not been very flattering. I would think it might be a 

 good time to re-queen in the fall, provided you had a queen- 

 less colony and would be 'likely to lose them if you didn't 

 re-queen. Late in the season I got a couple of valuable 

 queens and I undertook to introduce them and they came 

 pretty nearly setting my whole yard wild trying to rob each 

 other, and they fought the colony of bees so frightfully that 

 they actually destroyed it. The colony killed their queen, 2 

 or 3 days after introducing, as they were so disturbed. I had 

 almost a similar experience trying another. It is the first 

 experience I ever had introducing queens in the fall, and it 

 seems to me that if they are introduced in the spring during 

 flight-time, or after that, she would be during her prime and 

 would have a .good colony of bees to go into winter quarters 

 with. It seems to me to be a much better plan. I have a 

 clipping here which says the fall is the best time to introduce 

 bees. I don't think so. That's what my experience taught 

 me. Perhaps I don't do it right. My experience was very 

 unfavorable. 



Dr. Miller — I raised my hand because I think the fall is 

 a good time. I doubt whether it is the best time. I doubt 

 whether I ever introduced a queen in the fall, but if I had a 

 queenless colony in the fall. I would think the fall was the 

 best time to introduce the queen rather than to hold that 

 colony queenless until spring. Whatever may be the dis- 

 advantages, there is this one advantage in introducing the 

 queen in the fall, that you don't interfere at all with the 

 honey crop as you may do by introducing a queen early in 

 the season. 



Mr. Abbott — The man that interferes with the honey crop 

 in introducing a queen doesn't know how to introduce a 

 queen. 



Pres. York — Don't know when? 



Mr. Abbott — Don't know how. Let me tell you how to 

 introduce a queen so it won't interfere with any honey crop. 

 The bee-papers have never found this out, and the people 

 who write bee-books. 



Dr. Miller — I thought I told them you said so ! 



Mr. Abbott — Put the queen on the hive and pay no at- 

 tention to the queen that is in there. After she is in there 

 let her lay all she can, and all she will, and when you get 

 one in, pinch the other queen's head off and turn that loose 

 and go on about your business. You can get five or six on 

 top of the hive, as many as you want, and let all six out. 

 There isn't any use of this fool nonsense, telling people to 

 make their bees queenless. It is like hundreds of other things. 

 It has been in bee-papers and agricultural papers until nearly 

 everybody thinks it is absolutely the way to do this, and you 

 can't do it any other way. and if a man once in a while tells 

 a different way, they will ridicule him and go on doing the 

 same thing. I would like to see Dr. Miller get up and say 

 that this nonsense stop, and we quit making colonies queen- 

 less a minute. That is, if we want to get use of the queen. I 

 should like to know what you mean. The best time for what, 

 or for whom? Do you mean the best time for the fellow who 

 has the queens to sell, or the best time for the colony of 

 bees, or the best time for the man's pocketbook? If you 

 m.ean the best time for the man who has tfiem to sell, why ■ 

 then that's a good time. He wants to get rid of them and he 

 would like to have some fellow think that that was the time 

 to buy them. If you mean the best time for the colony of 

 bees, then it would have to be a queenless colony; and if you 

 mean the best time for the man who is investing the money. 



