June, I 



American Hee Jonrnal| 



dissolved in seven pounds of warm 

 water. 



"Seven days later, on October nth, 

 the day the convention was held, the 

 colony weighed only five pounds more 

 than before feeding. 



"I may say here that a few days later, 

 when I took the colony from scales, 

 I found that it had lost one pound more, 

 making a net gain of 4 pounds from the 

 S pounds fed. 



"I know by examination that brood- 

 rearing had stopped before I fed, and 

 on October 12th there was no young 

 brood in the hive. 



"Why was there so much greater loss 

 in this feeding than in the feeding by 

 Mr. Latham? 



"I may not be able to explain in a 

 satisfactory way, but let us look at 

 the different conditions. 



"I fed a thin syrup in warm weather. 

 (We had warm nights as well as days 

 at that time.) 



"Mr. Latham fed a much thicker 

 syrup later in the season (the latter 

 weeks of October) and in much cold- 

 er weather. 



"It is true that thin syrup, say about 

 one part sugar to one part water, when 

 taken by the bees in warm weather 

 undergoes an important change. To 

 say the least, it becomes more like 

 honey. One important thing about it is 

 that it will not candy readily. 



"But I have found that in this local- 

 ity this change costs. I have fed in 

 this way many times in the last fifteen 

 years, and always with a large loss. 

 "On the other hand, if we feed a 

 thick syrup late in the season, we have 

 simply sugar syrup transferred un- 

 changed to the combs. This will candy 

 quickly, and I can readily believe there 

 will not be much loss in the process of 

 transferring. 



"In this case of feeding by Mr. La- 

 tham, with his bees fixed as warm as 

 I know he would fix them, I think his 

 bees did something towards changing 

 the syrup. But for wintering my own 

 bees I had rather have four pounds of 

 stores from thin syrup fed in warm 

 weather than eight pounds from thick 

 syrup fed late, unless something harm- 

 less to the bees had been put in which 

 would prevent candying. 



"I should also want some assurance 

 that a large portion of the late fed 

 stores were capped over." 



Strange Case of Robbing. 



No. 29, although it had no feeder 

 on, was flying fast, and, from the way 

 the loaded bees were falling in the 

 grass, I suspected it was robbing from 

 a neighbor's apiary. After a time I felt 

 pretty sure its source of supply was 

 nearer home, and getting some flour, 

 threw it in the entrance, and inside of 

 2 minutes I found they were helping 

 themselves at hive No. 10 at the op- 

 posite side of the yard. Back of these 

 colonies are strong nuclei headed by 

 Carniolan queens, but the bees of No. 

 29 all have a yellow band, showing a 

 cross of Italian. The strange thing 

 about the robbing was that although 

 the bees of No. 29 had free access to 

 hive No. 10, )-et the bees of No. 10 



would pounce upon any other intruder 

 that would come along. 



The way an occasional bright Italian 

 would get treated when it came nosing 

 around proved this conclusively. I 

 threw a lot of wet grass in front of No. 

 10, and as a "counter-irritant," a feed- 

 er was placed on No. 29, the object 

 being to give them something to do at 

 home. About an hour afterwards the 

 grass was taken away and I went to 

 dinner, but when I came back the same 

 game was quietly going on. You could 

 hardly call it "robbing," the bees of No. 

 10, judging from their actions, looked 

 upon the inmates of No. 29 as being 

 especially privileged, and paid no at- 

 tention to these whatever. 



As I had to go away in the afternoon, 

 a friend helped me to change the hives 

 around, i. e.. No. 10 was placed on the 

 stand of No. 29 and vice versa. They 

 seemed so knocked out by the change 

 that I felt sure everything was all right 

 now. Next morning I was still of the 

 same opinion till about II o'clock, when 

 I discovered that No. 29 had got lo- 

 cated all right again, and was once more 

 helping itself out of hive No. 10 at the 

 opposite side of the yard. What did I 

 do now? As I had to go to the Cashel 

 yard that day, in disgust I threw No. 

 10 on the wagon and took it with me. 

 It was placed down in a yard of over 

 80 colonies, right in the middle of the 

 day, and it would fight anything that 

 came near it. Why they acted as they 

 did before moving is a mystery to me. 

 — J. L. Ever, in Canadian Bee Journal. 



Acid in Thick Sugar Syriip. 



It is more or less generally held as 

 sound doctrine that the best way to feed 

 sugar syrup — if it must be fed — is to 

 feed quite early equal parts of sugar 

 and water; but if fed late it must be 

 thick, and acid must be added to pre- 

 vent granulation. Now comes J. L. By- 

 er, in Gleanings, saying: 



"You will pardon me, and I assure 

 you there is no intention of being impo- 

 lite, when I say that all such assertions 

 as far as wintering results are con- 

 cerned (in our locality), are so much 

 'bosh.' 



"Upon what do I base such a broad 

 statement? I answer, from practical 

 experience, and result of feeding thou- 

 sands of pounds of two-to-one syrup to 

 hundreds of colonies during different 

 years, without the loss of a single col- 

 ony so fed. The only severe winter 

 losses we have experienced were caused 

 by the presence of honey-dew in the 

 hives, and the labor factor is the only 

 thing that keeps me from feeding every 

 colony, every fall, with this dreadful 

 tivo-to-one mixture. With colonies so 

 fed I would not give five cents a hive as 

 insurance against winter losses. Un- 

 der certain conditions, in exceptional 

 cases, thick sugar syrup will granulate, 

 but so will good clover honey. Can 

 either you or the good doctor make the 

 positive assertion that, under like con- 

 ditions, syrup that was fed thin will 

 never granulate?" 



It is hard to understand just why 

 there should be such difference, but 

 clearly there is a decided difference in 

 result between Mr. Byer and others 



who say that with late feeding or heavy 

 syrup, granulation has occurred. Mr. 

 Byer, however, has used only 2 parts 

 of sugar to i of water, and where 

 granulation has occurred has it not al- 

 ways been with 25^ parts sugar to I of 

 water? Possibly others than Mr. Byer 

 might find it all right to use his pro- 

 portions for late feeding. 



Thick Extracting Combs. 



Richard M. Lamb, in the British Bee 

 Journal, referring to the spacing of ex- 

 tracting combs i.>4 inches or more, as 

 practised and advocated by E. D. Town- 

 send, says he bought 100 wider frames, 

 and for a few seasons compared the 

 work done in them with that done in the 

 ordinary frames with the 1V2 inch spac- 

 ing, and found the former sadly disap- 

 pointing. It may be well for some even 

 on this side the water to consider his 

 objections. He says: 



"i. Our climate is not so suitable, be- 

 cause not so stable, for the production 

 of thick combs as the American. 



"2. A super with ij^-inch or 2-inch 

 spacing will not be taken to so soon as 

 another with l^-inch space. 



"3. The combs in tne former will not 

 be worked with such an even surface, 

 and the bee-keeper will be compelled to 

 adopt the wasteful practise of running 

 his uncapping knife deep. 



"4. The colony will not be so soon 

 ready for another super, but maj pre- 

 pare to swarm. 



"5. The same super with 8 frames 

 will be completed in most seasons a 

 week later than that with ten frames. 



"6. The quantity of honey harvested 

 will be less — in a fair season probably 

 the proportion of two supers to three. 



"7. The quality will be inferior as re- 

 gards density. Compare both as soon 

 as they are sealed, and notice the dif- 

 ference. 



"8. The super which is first finished 

 will catch the early market ; that with 

 thick combs never, though it may later 

 catch a judge's eye. 



"Granted that time is saved in hand- 

 ling, uncapping, and extracting 8 

 frames instead of 10, to which we may 

 add the cost of 2 sheets of foundation, 

 must we not also fairly reckon the time 

 gained in 2, 4, 5, and 8, in order to de- 

 cide which are the more profitable — 

 thick or thin combs?" 



Getting Sections Built Solid for 

 Shipping. 



To get sections built solid to the 

 wood, some have used a piece of foun- 

 dation of full size, fastening it with hot 

 wax on all sides. Others have used 

 split sections, the section being split in 

 two parts, a sheet of foundation pressed 

 between the two parts, and the project- 

 ing sheet trimmed away at the outside. 

 H. H. Root discusses the two kinds, 

 and then Dr. Miller replies as follows in 

 Gleanings : 



"Split sections, as compared with put- 

 ting in foundation with hot wax, are 

 well discussed by H. H. R., p. 18. Par- 

 don the egotism if I suggest something 

 better than either — bottom starters. 



"First, let me say that the objection 

 to the appearance of split sections, if I 



