1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



857 



not bring more than about half the price comb 

 honey in the sections does. From the above it 

 will be seen that, if a way could be devised 

 whereby the greater quantity of extracted 

 honey could be gotten into the same amount of 

 comb honey, a great gain could be made to the 

 apiarist. This idea has caused much excite- 

 ment in the past, and quite a few of to-day are 

 still trying it. I know of no better way to il- 

 lustrate what I wish to say than to give some 

 of my experiments conducted during the past. 



Some eighteen or twenty years ago the first 

 comb foundation of any amount was sent out; 

 and as the bees accepted it readily I thought 

 here was a chance to make a profitable business 

 by extracting my honey during the flow of 

 white honey, and "feeding the same back to the 

 bees later on. By the use of foundation, much 

 could be saved the bees by way of comb-build- 

 ing. Accordingly, after the harvest of white 

 honey was over, I prepared three colonies that 

 were strong in numbers in this wise: After 

 contracting the brood-nest so that only combs 

 full of brood remained, the first was given 28 

 two-pound sections (as that was the size I then 

 used), filled with foundation, together with 

 four sections filled with comb, as bait sections. 

 The second was given 21 sections, from one-half 

 to two-thirds full, for the bees to finish up, the 

 31 weighing, when put on the hive, 35 pounds. 

 The third was given 21 sections with only start- 

 ers in them, the same being a triangular piece 

 of comb, whose length was two inches on each 

 side. Each colony was fed all they would 

 carry, and a record kept of each. The first 

 feed, each took 15 lbs.; and, soon after, those 

 having the sections two-thirds full began 

 lengthening the cells and storing this fed 

 honey; and when they were completed ready 

 for market, I had fed 42 pounds of extracted 

 honey. Upon weighing the sections again, I 

 found they weighed 47)^ lbs.; so I had fed 43 

 lbs. to make a gain of 13K lbs. in the sections. 



Thinking that, perhaps, they would do better 

 on a second lot, I immediately put on 21 more, 

 weighing 34 lbs., and fed 39 lbs. to get them 

 finished. These were not filled so full, and 

 weighed only 46 lbs. when finished. So I fed .39 

 lbs. this time to make a gain of 13 lbs. in the 

 sections, the second trial. No. 1, with the 

 foundation, were fed till I had given them 1.34 

 lbs., when I took the sections off, having 22 

 finished, which weighed 49>^ lbs., and 8 unfin- 

 ished, weighing 13 lbs., so I had 62}.2 lbs. gross 

 weight in return for 134 lbs. fed. 



I find by my diary, from which the above is 

 taken, that the experiments with No. 3 were 

 never completed. After I had fed them .50 lbs., 

 or thereabouts, they went to building comb 

 quite nicely; but it soon seemed to become an 

 old story, and after a while they simply lived 

 out of the feed-dish, and did nothing else. 



Later on the papers gave out that, to succeed 



in this feeding-back process, the honey must be 

 thinned to about the consistency of the nectar 

 coming from the fields, so I tried this, and have 

 tried, many times since, experiments similar to 

 the above, varying them as new ideas were 

 suggested in the papers, or came to me from 

 my own brain, but always with about the same 

 results as given above. In all these feeding 

 operations I have ascertained this fact, that 

 bees fed in excess of what they consume in 

 feeding the brood become idle, as far as field 

 work is concerned, simply living out of the 

 feeder, not bringing in an ounce from the fields, 

 while those not fed will generally get a living, 

 and in some instances make a small gain in 

 their stores. If fed when honey is plentiful in the 

 fields, they will store no faster out of the feeder 

 than others not fed will from the fields; while 

 those storing from the fields work in the 

 sections with double the energy which those do 

 which are being fed. 



The experiments giv(?n above prove either 

 that I have not "caught on to the matter" or 

 that the doctrine of "feeding back "is a fal- 

 lacy; and, so far as my experiments go, answers 

 the questioner in the negative. 



Another thing is proven by these experi- 

 ments, which is, that the stories going the 

 rounds of the papers every little while about 

 comb honey being made by feeding glucose or 

 other sweets are merely newspaper canards; 

 for no one, at present prices, can make it profit- 

 able to raise comb honey other than by the 

 good old way of having the bees bring in the 

 honey from the fields; and no one is foolish 

 enough to go to the trouble and expense of 

 feeding sweets to produce comb honey unless 

 there is some doUar-and-cent profit in it. Peo- 

 ple who start such stories, to the injury of a 

 legitimate business, would do well to know 

 something of the nature and habits of the bees, 

 before putting sensational stories before the too 

 credulous public as facts. 



[These experiments, especally from the hand 

 of Doolittle. are interesting and valuable. If 

 our friend D. has ever given them before in 

 print in just this way I was not aware of it. It 

 is worthy of note in this connection, that a 

 good many other careful experimenters have 

 come to about the same conclusion; viz., that 

 feeding back doesn't pay. I know there are 

 some who think it can be made profitable, but 

 I have often wondered if they took account of 

 all the costs. 



If feeding back thinned honey is not a paying 

 operation, would the feeding of sugar syrup be 

 any more so? If that is true, then sugar- 

 syrup comb honey would not be produced to 

 any great extent before it would put the pro- 

 ducer of it in a bad plight financially. In other 

 words, the product would die its own natural 

 death. If there is any sugar honey on the mar- 

 ket anywhere in this country, I am not aware of 

 its existence. If it is to be assumed that it 

 would be sold under its real name, then it cer- 

 tainly is not advertised or quoted; and why? 

 Perhaps because it can not compete with nat- 

 ural honey from flowers.— Ed.] 



