154 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



March, 1918 



D 



C 



lur 



R. MILLEE 



asks, page 



89, if there 

 is any good rea- 

 son why one 

 should keep a 

 hive queenless 

 for 30 days in- 

 stead of 10 in 

 the treatment of 



European foul brood. I should say there 

 was, sometimes. All European foul brood 

 is not alike. While inspecting I find a great 

 difference in the character of European foul 

 brood. In some hives the larvae appear to 

 die young and are easily removed from the 

 cells', while in other hives the larvae die in 

 all stages of growth, from two or three days 

 old to those that have their growth and are 

 even sealed over, and when examined have 

 much the same appearance as American foul 

 brood, being changed into a sticky, stringy 

 substance, that bees can not readily remove 

 from the cells. Indeed (I hate to confess it) 

 I have been deceived again and again into 

 thinking it was American foul brood. Now 

 it stands to reason that when conditions are 

 such as I have described it will require 

 much more time than when the dead larvae 

 are small and easily removed and three 

 weeks or even four is not too long a time for 

 the colony to clean up, unless it is very 

 strong and particularly enterprising. 

 * » * 



Stancy Puerden informs us, page 91, that 

 honey contains vitamines, an important fact, 

 and "may be one reason why honey is more 

 desirable than sugar for the rearing of 

 brood. 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



1 



W^^^^^^^^ 



1U 



The United States Food Administration 

 advises against the use of sugar for frosting 

 cake. Somewhere in my travels I have 

 found granulated honey used for this pur- 

 pose, and it was entirely satisfactory. 



* » * 



Those beekeepers who are not too old to 

 learn can get more than the value of a year 's 

 subscription for Gleanings from the article 

 by H. H. Root on the art of rendering bees- 

 wax. I received some points of considerable 



value. 



* * * 



There are several good things that will, 

 I believe, come out of this awful war. One 

 of the least, perhaps, but one in which all 

 beekeepers are interested, is that honey will 

 be more extensively used and appreciated 

 than ever before. 



» * » 



I was interested in Mr. Coverdale's ar- 

 ticle on sweet clover, pngc 845. One great 

 difficulty about introducing it around here is 

 in getting a good stand of it. Is it because 

 of a lack of lime or bacteria in the soil? It 

 seems to grow well along the roadsides. 

 Would he recommend the use of scarified 

 seed when the seed is sown in the fall? 



C. V. Rice, on 

 page 104, quotes 

 Floyd Markham 

 as saying ' ' No 

 one can produce 

 fancy honey nor 

 even No. 1 in 

 sections that 

 have drawn 

 combs in them 

 from the season before," and asks the con- 

 sensus of opinion in regard to drawn comb 

 in sections. Let me say that I think Mr. 

 Markham 's assertion quite too strong. We 

 have in such sections produced honey that I 

 doubt very much if Mr. Markham could tell 

 from that built on new foundation. I cer- 

 tainly could not if they had not been marked 

 with a pencil. I will grant that old drawn 

 comb will not, as a rule, result in as nice 

 looking sections since the wood is likely to 

 be somewhat stained. To secure best results 

 it is necessary to clean thoroly and cut down 

 the old comb to within about % inch of the 

 center or septum. We use a special knife for 

 this purpose and like it much better than B. 

 Taylor's method of melting. We shall use 

 several thousand such sections of old comb 

 this year, 



* * * 



I and my helpers undertook the job of 

 salvaging nearly a hundred cases of comb 

 honey for ^ large city dealer. It had been 

 shipped from several producers, and was 

 badly broken. It was then re-shipped to me 

 to prepare for market. This was a sticky, 

 mussy job if ever there was one, but I shall 

 get out of the mess some 30 cases of un- 

 broken sections, a thousand pounds of liquid 

 honey, 40 or 50 pounds of wax, and not a 

 little information as to how some people 

 pack their honey for market. One producer 

 had marked everything "not less than 11 

 oz. "; another "not less than 12 oz. "; while 

 another had risked his reputation in marking 

 "not less than 14 oz. " Some sections were 

 not marked at all. Some cases contained both 

 white and dark honey. Sonie sections labeled 

 "white clover" contained buckwheat honey. 

 Some had been put on the hives without 

 separators and were badly bulged, while oth- 

 ers had been used with too narrow separators 

 and the comb built out beyond them, making 

 it too thick for the carton, so the ingenious 

 producer had shaved it off. There were 

 some unfinished sections packed in with 

 those that were finished and all supposed 

 to be No. 1 honey. Some combs were old 

 and dark but all went into the same grade. 

 Indeed, there was no attempt to grade it. 

 As I worked away at it for two or three days 

 "I looked on and received instruction" as 

 the wise man remarked a long time ago. 



* -x- * 



The severe cold of late December and 

 January may cause the loss of many colonies 

 of bees in New England. 



