1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



279 



but an expert can readily detect a comb 

 honey that has been kept in a hot room for 

 three months from that w iiich has been, say, 

 a month off the hive. Witli this sUght im- 

 pairment of flavor, and very shght it is, 

 there is a barely percei)tible darkening of 

 the honey itself. Taking it all in all, the 

 experiment conducted on a large scale is 

 somewhat disappointing. It is almost a 

 case of between the devil and the deep sea. 

 A comb honey that is granulated to a great- 

 er or less extent is slow selling, and at very 

 moderate prices. If we stop the granula- 

 tion by the hot-room plan, and prevent 

 other honey from starting, we run the 

 chance of darkening and imi)airing slightly 

 its flavor. 



WHAT TO DO WITH CANDIED COMB HOfEY. 



We have been conducting some other ex- 

 periments in liquefying candied comb hon- 

 ey, running it through a capping-melter 

 machine, and, by the way, one of these ma- 

 chines is just the thing for this purpose. 

 The combs are cut out from the sections 

 and dropped into the capping-melters. The 

 candied honey and the Max melts up to- 

 gether. The combined product flows over 

 into a receptacle. A pipe connecting with 

 the bottom draws off the free honey while 

 the wax flows over the top. The thing goes 

 on automatically about as fast as a man 

 can cut the combs. 



Experience shows that if candied comb 

 honey can be sold for 10 cents to a certain 

 cheap trade, that it is better to sell it that 

 way than attempt to melt it up; but if it 

 won't bring 10 cts. then one can make near- 

 ly that figure by selling the honey in the 

 extracted form, and the wax, when melted 

 u]), at a combined figure that will net nearly 

 10 cts. Strangely enough, the honey that 

 runs through the capping-melters in this 

 way is of good color and body. The body, 

 however, is a little too good, that is to say, 

 the honey is very thick and waxy, and prob- 

 ably would not candy readily; but there is 

 a very slight impairment in the flavor — so 

 slight that none but an expert would notice 

 it; but when this .erstwhile candied honey 

 is run through the capping-melter in con- 

 nection with the wax, and put alongside of 

 honey that has been taken from the hive 

 and not heated, the consumer would notice 

 a slight difference in favor of the latter. If 

 they were kept separate he doubtless would 

 not see or taste the difference. 



B.SBY NUCLEI FOK THE REARING OF 



queens; w^hv some v'>r the pratt or 



SWA PTH MORE METHODS FAILED, 



On page 2So, in his regular department, 

 our old corrccponu:nt Mr. G. M. Doolittle 

 does not take very much stock in baby ;■,::- 

 clei for the rearing of queens. But the 1 jrm 

 of baby nuclei that he particularly con- 

 demns we do not think is now in use. We 

 tried out the Pratt (or Swarthmore) nuclei 

 (the kind he seems to have in mind) one 

 season, and proved that we could fertilize 

 queens on that plan; but as the little clus- 



ters of bees were too much inclined to swarm 

 out and cause trouble we finally gave them 

 up. The larger twin nuclei, capable of hold- 

 ing one-half to three-fourths of a pound of 

 bees in both sides have given excellent re- 

 sults. The baby hives are made of %-inch 

 lumber; have a double cover and a telescope 

 that slips down over the whole, reaching 

 two-thirds of the May down to the entrance. 

 The form of the hive is almost cubical; and 

 when there are two clusters of bees (one on 

 each side of a division-board yi inch thick) , 

 approximating 1000 to 1500 bees in each, ex- 

 perience shows that no cell or virgin is 

 chilled. It is very easy to determine when 

 this takes place. Yellow queens, if they are 

 chilled at any time in the cell or virgin 

 state, are apt to turn dark and look small. 

 The fact that some of the most prolific and 

 best queens we have ever reared have been 

 raised in these large twin baby nuclei goes 

 to shoM^ that they are the equal of the larger 

 colony or larger nuclei having the brood ^ 

 scattered over a much larger surface, more/ 

 exposed to the changes of temperature. A 

 small clustering-space of two or three thou- 

 sand bees in a cubical or compact double- 

 walled hive will keep as Marm as or warmer 

 than a much larger cluster in a long flat 

 brood-chamber having Langstroth frames. 

 By the M-ay, this frame makes a poor nu- 

 cleus. It is too large and too long. Our 

 large twin nuclei are used only during the 

 months from May to the first of September; 

 that is to say, during the hottest months of 

 the year. Before and after that time our 

 queens are reared in full-sized colonies. 

 A])parently Mr. Doolittle has much cooler 

 nights during the warm months than we 

 have. 



There were a good many fancy tricks of 

 the trade that the late Mr. Pratt was able to 

 work successfully that the rest of us who 

 practice queen-rearing on a large scale could 

 not make go. Mr. Pratt was a genius — a 

 wonder in his line. We have seen him 

 jjerform feats in queen-rearing that others 

 could not accomplish. On a large commer- 

 cial basis many of his ideas Mere impracti- 

 cal. In his mild climate he could do many 

 things that were impossible elscMhere. It 

 is not strange, then, that many Mho tried 

 to folloM' him failed. 



We presume that mc have criticised his 

 methods as much as any one; but M'hen we 

 saM' him actually do the stunts that he de- 

 scribed, M-e doubted no longer. As most 

 people lack either his special environment 

 or his consummate skill, it is a M'aste of time 

 and money for them to attempt to follow 

 some of his ideas, at least. For example, 

 his 50 or 100 bee baby nuclei M'ere imprac- 

 ticable in most localities. We could make 

 them Mork only during the very hottest 

 months of the year. At any time they 

 Mere liable to SMarm out, or, Morse yet, be 

 robbed out. Moreover, they had to be sup- 

 plied M'ith fresh bees every so often. We 

 exusrience none of these troubles Mith our 

 much larger double-Mailed tMin nucleus 

 hives. 



