648 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Oct. 10, 1901. 



'• wooTiLANii APiARV'' OF ('. G. HEAi.T, — See pajje C44. ~l 



bees daily, we can have in that hive, barringf accidents, if 

 the hive is properly managed, 108,000 bees on the stage of 

 action right in the honey harvest, when their productive 

 power is the greatest ; and at such a time such a number of 

 bees are a host to roll honey into the sections, with the 

 combs all filled with brood below : and this rolling of honey 

 into the sections means the rolling of money into the bee- 

 keeper's pockets, from which come the necessities, comforts 

 and luxuries of life. 



Experience has shown the men who are advocating an 

 eight- frame I,angstroth hive that such is the best, as this 

 keeps the frames full of brood, and puts honey into the 

 sections. 



Again, suppose a colony of bees having a good, prolific 

 queen is given 30 Langstroth frames, using but eight to 

 start with, and adding two or three at a time, as the bees 

 can occupy them, until the 30 are all in, it will be found 

 that such a queen will lay from 4500 to SOOO eggs daily, dur- 

 ing the best part of the egg-laying season, and die of old 

 age or exhaustion when from 12 to 18 months old ; while 

 with the eight-frame brood-chamber she will give as good 

 results in comb honey each year, and live from three to four 

 years. With the large hive the bees are quite likely to get 

 the start of the queen, and commence to store honey in the 

 brood-combs before entering the sections at all, and in such 

 cases the bees seem loth to go into the sections, but con- 

 tinue to store honey in the brood chamber in preference to 

 going into the sections, thus crowding out the queen with 

 honey, in the combs which ought to be occupied with brood, 

 till we have, as a result, very little section honey in the fall, 

 and a colony in poor condition for winter. Besides, it is 

 well to remember that all queens are not equally prolific, 

 and while 20 percent of our queens would keep the brood- 

 chamber of a ten-frame Langstroth hive properly supplied 

 with brood to give the best results in section honey, the 

 other 80 percent would not be prolific enough to do so ; 

 hence, in the majority of the hives in the apiary, we should 

 have a condition working against our best interests, which 

 could not be overcome by the extra amount of comb honey 

 produced by the 20 percent, whose queens were prolific 

 enough to work in these ten-frame hives to advantage. 



For these reasons it would seem best to adopt a size of 

 brood-chamber which any and all queens, that are worth 

 keeping at all, would have occupied with brood at the com- 

 mencement of the honej'-flow, thus securing the best yields 

 of surplus section honey at all times. 



Because a queen may lay 5000 eggs daily by using 

 plenty of comb-capacity and coaxing, it does not neces- 

 sarily follow that it is to the best advantage of the apiarist 

 to accommodate or even coax a queen to bring her fullest 

 laying capacity to the front at any time. Queens, in any 

 well-regulated apiary, are among the smallest part of the 

 expense incurred, while labor, hives and combs go toward 

 making up the largest part of the same. 



For these reasons I claim that the capacity of the queen 

 should rather be above the capacity of the brood-nest than 

 below it. so that all combs may be fully occupied with 

 brood before the honey harvest arrives. Unless this is 

 the case, the outside combs continue, in most cases, to be 

 dead capital (honey) from year to year. However, all our 

 questioner (or any one else) has to do is to use part ten- 

 frame and part eight-frame hives in the apiary, when a 

 little time will satisfy him which is the better for his 

 locality. Onondago Co., N. Y. 



i % The Afterthought. » \ 



The '* Old Reliable " seen through New and Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. HASTY, Sta. B Rural, Toledo, O. 



ANCIENT HONEY IDEAS. 



Glad to meet the Pythagoras and honey story with as old 

 a date as 1575, and in a shape that can be believed. 

 Undoubtedly scholars might live on bread and honey indefi- 

 nitely. And Dr. Muffet, of 1575, thought honey, good for 

 rheumatism. And in the house in which I live a man with a 

 lame back thinks he must leave off eating honey of which he 

 is very fond. " Many men, etc." The ancient doctor is right, 

 that the healthfulness of honey is improved by heat (that is, 

 by heat properly adjusted); but he is wrong to go to such 

 extremes as to deny the healthfulness of all unheated honey. 

 I wonder what he means by honey " puffed out of the comb." 

 Some verbal error has crept in very likely — otherwise it sounds 

 like some anticipation of the extractor. In "straining" 

 honey the last obtained is not as good as the first, and I guess 

 that is what he is really at. Page 555. 



BEES E.TECTING THE WATER OF NECTAR. 



I hardly know whether or not it is worth while to pitch 

 into Prof. Cook some more about his positive opinion that bees 

 never eject the water of nectar while on the wing. Where 

 shall they eject waste water then ? in the hive? or shall they 

 go to the Washington Monument to leave it ? His argument 

 about the impossibility ot the thing is just too awfully thin. 

 Tbe water of our own blood holds lots of things in solution ; 

 but for all that nature can get it out very quickly it there is 

 too much of it, or if something has got to come out that will 

 not come unless much water comes along. If nectar had a 

 less percentage of water than the blood of the bee, then we 

 could see that the problem of getting the water away from 

 the sugars and throwing it outside might be a difficult one. 

 It is probably rare for nectar to have such a low percentage 

 of water. Through a wide extent of very thin membrane, 

 viade a-purpose, the water of the blood and the water of the 

 nectar equalizes rapidly. Then the water in the blood is 

 largely in excess of what it should be, and the proper organs 

 go to work throwing it out as fast as they can — nominally 

 urine, but practically pure water. But of course thafs only 

 the way it looks to Prof. Hasty when he looks at it in a hasty 

 way — he never even made the observations himself, merely 

 accepted them from others. Page 548. 



ORDINARY AND EJIERGENCY QUEEN- CELLS. 



What's the matter with "ordinary cells " as a term to> 

 designate queen-cells built when a queen is being superseded, 

 and swarming cells also? The Boiler is right, page 558, 

 that " swarming cells " is an exceedingly inapproprtate term 

 for the former. I didn't think I had any quarrel with " pre- 

 constructed" and "post-constructed:" but "ordinary" and 

 " emergency " might please non-literary brethren somewhat 

 better. Well, yes — six letters shorter, and no alphabetical 

 hair parted in the middle, ought to count as something with 

 all of us. 



ALFALFA HONEY AND FLAVOR. 



Perhaps it is only poor rhetoric (in the Saturday Evening 

 Post) but it's hardly accuracy to say that alfalfa has a " cer- 

 tain degree " of sweetness not found in the other clovers. 

 Say, rather, alfalfa honey has a character ot its own distinct 

 from the others; or say it often excels in the (juantity of its 

 yield, if that is what is meant. Page 558. 



BROWN SIIG.\R FOR BEES. 



Some of W. K. Morrison's theorizing in favor of brown 

 sugar for bees sounds well ; but the matter is rather import- 

 ant, and the present impression of intelligent bee-men is 

 nearly unanimous the other way ; so t guess we must call for 

 experiments and experience before we all reverse judgment. 

 Page 558. 



SNEAK-THIEVINO DCRING A HONEY-FLOW. 



It i.s something in the nature ot a shock to be told that 

 quiet sneak-thieves prey heavily on strong colonies in the 

 midst of a honey-flow. Very likely they could, as bees in 

 flush times are quite tolerant; but the first thing we want to- 

 know is whether it is • - any great extent a fact. I don't 

 believe it is in my yard. If a bee did start out to work on 



