308 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



bees started in the supers, as ther'; is 

 above an excluder; and a better grade 

 of honey, as most of the early honey 

 g^oes into the brood nest. I have a few 

 hives of this kind in which I have not 

 removed a comb from the brood nest in 

 two years, and have taken about 100 

 pounds of honey from each hive each 

 season. I believe that this is the hive 

 and the system for the man who has to 

 depend upon hired help." 



^)>MrxPffm' 



Uniting Bees. 



Often in the fall of the year it is ad- 

 visable to unite two or more colonies 

 into one, and the first question that 

 comes up is how to avoid fighting- 

 among the bees that are put together. 

 As I have never had any trouble from 

 this source, perhaps I can't help much 

 with my advice, but I can tell how I 

 have done the work successfully. Al- 

 most invariably" have I had all of the 

 bees qiieenless, except one colony, and 

 I have piled the hives one above the 

 other for two or three days, then put 

 the best combs intoonehive, and shaken 

 the bees from the other combs. 

 Often I have hung the combs of bees 

 side bv side, mixing them up promis- 

 ciously, and have had no quarrelling. 

 If those subscribers have had losses 

 from trying to unite colonies would tell 

 me exactly all of the circumstances, it 

 is possible that I might assist them. 

 Mv bees have always been Italians — 

 reuiemhpr that. 



The U. S, Chemical Standard for Honey. 



The Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington has published a chemical 

 standard for honey which reads as 

 follows: 



1. Honey is the nectar and sacch- 

 arine exudations of plants gathered, 

 modified, and stored in the comb b^' 

 honey bees ^Apis mellilica and A. 

 dot :ata);'\% laevorotatory, contains not 

 more than twenty-five per cent, of 

 water, not more than twenty-five hun- 

 dredths per cent, of ash, and not more 

 than eight per cent, of sucrose. 



2. Comb honey is honey contained in 

 the cells of comb. 



3. Extracted honey is honey which 

 has been sep.irated from the uncrushed 

 comb by centrifugal force or gravity. 



4. Strained honey is honey removed 

 from the crushed comb by straining or 

 other means. 



As honey dew is often gathered in 

 varying quantities, the following sup- 

 plementary statement was added : 



The standard does not in an^' way 

 exclude small quantities of honej' dew 

 from honey. We realize that bees often 

 gather small quantities of honey dew 

 that cannot be detected in the finished 

 product by chemical means, and does 

 not dama.t'e its quality. It is only 

 when rel.itively large amounts are 

 gathered that the quality of the honey 

 is impalrcil, and it fails to meet the re- 

 quirements of the standard. It is gen- 

 erally agrees that such a large amount 

 of honej'-dew is injurious to the quality 

 of the produ( t, which can not then be 

 properly regirded as honey. 



*^«X«Tt«'»1i^^^ 



No Danger of the Fall Honey Going Into 

 the Supers in the Spring. 



The American Bee Journal takes up 

 this subject, quoting from the Canadian 

 Bee Journal an item in which there is 

 an attempt to show that there is danger 

 of sugar fed in the fall, or of dark 

 honey getting into the sections the fol- 

 lowing sprin,'; This matter was first 

 started by the American Bee Journal 

 advising bee keepers to leave plenty of 

 sealed comt'S of dark honey in the 

 brood nest in the fall, arguing that 

 such combs <jf dark honej' would be 

 the equal, pound for pound, the next 

 season, witli light hone3'. 



Then the K'eview took up the matter, 

 and suggest'Hl that bee-keepers notice 

 next spring how much of this dark 

 honey went up into the sections. This 

 was done hecause there has such a 

 hullabaloo been raised against the 

 feeding of sugar for winter stores, for 

 fear some of the sugar might be carried 

 up into the sections the next spring. I 

 wanted them to notice that the dark 

 honey was not carried up, and, con- 



