720 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



THE NUMBER OF APICULTURAL PATENTS. 



The Official Gazette of the United States Pat- 

 ent Office for May 12, 1896, contains these par- 

 agraphs on the subject of bee culture: 



Bee Culture.— In tliis class 1001 patents have been 

 issued. The first movable-comb frame for bee- 

 hives was patented to Lang-strolh, No. 930O, October 

 5,1852; and improvements thereon, disclosing- sim- 

 ple and effective means for holding removable- 

 comb frames in the hive were patented to Heddon, 

 No. 327.268. September 29, 1885; to Shuck, No. 329,.541, 

 October 27. 1885. and to Danzenbalier, No. 547,164, 

 October 1, 1895. 



The first artificial comb foundation was made in 

 Germany about 1842. An effective improvement 

 thereon is the employment of a wire support em- 

 bedded in the foundation, and patented to Hether- 

 Ington, No. 208,595. October 1, 1878; reissued Novem- 

 ber 11, 1879, No. 8962. An artificial honey-comb was 

 made prior to 1853; and on January 29, 1889, No. 

 397,046, to As pin wail was patented one of wood, 

 from which the honey may be separated in a cen- 

 trifugal machine; and on August 30, 1892, No. 481, .578, 

 to Mason and Moskovitz was patented an improved 

 process for making a honey-comb from wax. 



I have before stated that the Patent Office is 

 divided into departments, each department tak- 

 ing agroup of subjects. Linked with bee cul- 

 ture is the industry of tobacco, the dairy, and 

 farm-gates. The examiner of this department, 

 I am informed, is the oldest man on the pay- 

 roll of the Patent Office— a Mr. Collamer. Of 

 the 1001 patents (a number that seems more 

 significant than accidental) the department has 

 seen fit to notice only a few, and that is the list 

 as above given. 



THE ANNUAL CKOP OF COMB AND EXTRACTED 

 HONEY FOR TJIE UNITED STATES. 



Some two years ago 1 made an effort to get 

 the manufacturers of seclion honey-boxes in 

 this country to make a report of their output to 

 Dr. C. C. Miller. My idea was that, if we could 

 get all of them to give to him the number of 

 sections they had made during the calendar 

 year, we could make a sort of estimate on the 

 amount of comb honey produced annually. 

 Still better, if manufacturers would give their 

 average annual output for a period of ten years 

 to some one person, that person could figure 

 very closely on the average annual amount of 

 comb honey produced during that period. 



Two years ago, when I tried to carry out this 

 scheme, one of the large manufacturers refused 

 to give their output. The consequence was, I 

 had to give up my pet scheme for a time. But 

 this year I have learned approximately the 

 number of sections that were made in the 

 United States during the past year. Making a 

 liberal allowance for the fact that sections are 

 under weight, so far as the amount of honey 

 they hold, it appears that the amount of comb 

 honey produced during this year in the United 

 States is somewhere about 25,000,000 lbs.; and 

 if there is as much extracted honey produced 

 as comb, then the total amount of honey pro- 

 duced annually in this country would be about 

 50,000,000 lbs., or 35.000 tons. While this esti- 

 mate may not be strictly accurate, it is far bet- 



ter than the rough guesses that have been made 

 from year to year, and far more accurate than 

 the government reports. 



Our stenographer thought I ought to deduct 

 something for sections on hand, not filled with 

 honey. There were thousands (and we might 

 say millions (of sections of last year's output 

 left over. These, by the law of averages, 

 would balance the number left on hand of this 

 season; but this year the number left over will 

 be less than last, because, as I have shown, the 

 season has been better. 



A queen's LONG CONFINEMENT. 



Some time ago, during the early part of the 

 basswood flow, just for experiment I caged one 

 queen by the EI wood plan. She was put into a 

 Miller cage, without food of any kind, and set 

 directly upon top of the frames. My object, of 

 course, was to prevent that colony from swarm- 

 ing, as there was every indication that it would 

 go for parts unknown in a day or two. Other 

 colonies were forestalled in their intentions by 

 a different procedure — generally by giving an 

 unlimited amount of room. 



Well, time went on and I had forgotten about 

 caging this queen. I had taken supers off from 

 this hive in the mean time, but did not examine 

 the brood-nest, as the bees seemed normal. I 

 ran across this particular colony, and there,very 

 much to my surprise, was the queen caged, as 

 lively as ever, having been confined there just 

 two months. The bees acted normal, and I 

 concluded that they must have raised a queen 

 in the mean time. Examination showed that 

 the combs were full of brood and eggs. They 

 had evidently regarded the caged queen as they 

 would one that they expected to supersede ; 

 otherwise it is doubtful whether they would 

 have fed her. Two courses were open to me. 

 One was to release the queen and let her take 

 her chances with her daughter ; but I conclud- 

 ed to put her into my pocket, thinking that, 

 perhaps, I should find a colony that would need 

 a laying queen before I got through. I accord- 

 ingly closed up the hive. 



The point that interests me particularly in 

 this is that this queen bore close confinement In 

 a little wire-cloth cage about ^ inch thick, 1 

 inch wide, and IX inches long. It goes to show 

 that, if we could in some way give the* bees and 

 queens proper food when sent by mail, they 

 would go through every time without loss. As 

 it is now, a large percentage sent out for export 

 die in the mails before they reach distant 

 points ; and even those that do get through are 

 more or less feeble. 



Well, I continued my rounds over the apiary, 

 when, toward the last, I began to think that I 

 should not find a place for my queen, because I 

 had only two more colonies to look through. 

 Sure enough, next to the last one was In a de- 

 cidedly bad way, having degenerated into fer- 



