204 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



get them in. Hold the pail under the 

 cluster and gently detach it from the 

 tree. It will fall into the pail, and the 

 queen being with them, as she almost 

 always will be, the cluster may then be 

 carried to the hive and turned down in 

 front of it. The bees will crawl from 

 the pail into the hive without further 

 trouble. 



If the swarm should alight on a tall 

 tree out of reach without climbing, and 

 one has no swarm catcher, one may be 

 improvised that will work very well. 

 Get any kind of a pole that will reach 

 them and is not too heavy to handle, 

 nor yet too light to support the weight 

 of the bees. Tie a white cloth around 

 the end and on this smear some honey. 

 Push this end carefully into the swarm. 

 They will begin at once to cluster on 

 the cloth-bound end of the pole, and 

 by carefully moving it and holding it a 

 little away from the tree one will soon 

 have the cluster on the pole and can 

 carry it where one pleases. The women 

 folks have to contrive methods suited 

 to their strength. A curtain pole that 

 held draperies between two rooms and 

 was about 12 feet long was the handiest 

 at one time ; a stout piece of scantling 

 at another. 



A frame with comb in it with a little 

 honey and brood will hold them in a 

 new hive. Lacking this, smearing the 

 inside with honey will usually keep 

 them. A queen-trap at the entrance is 

 a sure thing. My bees do not like a 

 perfectly new hive and will almost 

 always swarm out unless I use one of 

 these methods to prevent it. 



Glover, Vt. [Mrs.] J. W. Mathie. 



[The suggestions given above are 

 good. But if there should be any rob- 

 bers about, as there are sometimes, if 

 the bees swarm shortly after a heavy 

 rain, the honey may attract them. We 

 prefer a dry comb tied to the pole. If 

 this comb is of the same size as the 

 frames of the hive into which the 

 swarm is to be put, it may be inserted 

 into that hive at once. 



Similarly, to retain the bees and pre- 

 vent their deserting, the comb and 

 brood mentioned by our correspondent 

 will act efficiently. — Editor.] 



Using Last Year's Sections 



Last year being a poor honey year, 

 our supers were not filled as they 

 should have been, a good many sec- 

 tions had just a little comb made on 

 the foundation, and we thought we 

 would put these in supers this year, but 

 there were a great many where the 

 comb was all built and contains a little 

 honey. Would it do to put these in ? 

 Also, how does it work to put in the 

 section boxes, that we took honey out 

 of this year, where they are all clean 

 and nice ? 



I have one large colony that was all 

 right when I put them in the cellar, 

 and lately when the temperature was at 

 36 degrees they commenced piling out 

 and putting out dead bees. What do 

 you think was the cause? Amateur. 



The sections that had some of the 

 foundation drawn out but no honey in 

 them will be just as good as or a little 

 better than if they had never been on, 



provided they were not left on too long 

 last fall. If sections are left on some 

 time after bees stop storing, the bees 

 are likely to daub them with propolis, 

 and sometimes they varnish the surface 

 of the foundation so thoroughly that 

 the bees will not work them at all 

 afterward. 



Sections that have a little honey 

 stored in them should be cleaned out 

 by the bees in the fall, and then they 

 are excellent to use in the first supers 

 the next season. Such sections are 

 often called baits, because they bait the 

 bees up into the supers to begin work 

 sooner than when the super contains 

 nothing but foundation. But if the 

 honey be left in the sections over win- 

 ter, it is pretty sure to be candied, and 

 candied honey is objectionable in sec- 



tions. 



When the honey is cut out of a sec- 

 tion box it is all right to use again if 

 clean and nice. 



It is a little difficult to say just why 

 the bees should pile out with the cellar 

 no warmer than 36 degrees, if by piling 

 out you mean that they were in a clus- 

 ter outside the hive, unless consider- 

 ably excited in some way. But if they 

 came out and ran about the entrance, 

 throwing out their dead, there was 

 nothing strange about it with the light 

 shining in. Bees are dying ofif all 

 through the winter, and if it is light 

 enough the bees throw them out, and 

 even in the dark they do more or less 

 at it. Their quieting down when you 

 darkened the cellar would indicate that 

 the light caused the trouble. 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



Second-Hand Cans for Houey 



Those of our readers who remember 

 the investigation made by Mr. Pellett, 

 in Chicago, reported on page 188 of 

 our number for June, 1916, concerning 

 the sale of honey, probably remember 

 vividly that second-hand packages are 

 very objectionable to purchasers. In 

 the April number of the Western 

 Honey Bee, we find an article by J. 

 Edgar Ross, which gives great empha- 

 sis to the objections against second- 

 hand cans for extracted honey. As 

 Mr. Ross' experience is identical with 

 our own, we will quote what he says 

 on the purchase and use of second- 

 hand 60-pound cans : 



"In the spring of 1912 the eastern 

 bottlers of a much-advertised line of 

 honey were advertising second-hand 

 cases and cans. I had some corres- 

 pondence with them and they described 

 the cans as entirely free from rust on 

 the inside, cases in good condition, and 

 in nearly all cases free from marks to 

 indicate the producer's name. Where 

 they were so marked they specifically 

 agreed to have the marks scraped off 

 with a box-scraper. They said they 

 were not recommending them for 

 water-white honey, but assured me that 

 for the grade of honey produced in our 

 valley I would find them ' entirely sat- 

 isfactory.' I wired an order for a car- 

 load, 1300 cases, to be sent S. D. B. L. 

 (Sight draft on bill of lading). They 

 came very promptly, but to my surprise 

 I found that the bill of lading did not 

 permit examination. 



" If I had such a situation to meet 

 again I would wire for a permit to ex- 

 amine the goods, and before accepting 

 them and paying the draft I would get an 

 adjustment for those that failed to come 

 up to specifications. But there were 

 many things that I did not know when 

 I paid the draft and the freight and 

 hired a drayman to haul the cases to 

 my yard, taking it for granted that they 

 would be all right. The rush season 

 was just beginning, and beyond notic- 



ing that a number of the cases still 

 bore the placard of the Continental Oil 

 Company on the end, entirely innocent 

 of any marks of a box-scraper, I did 

 not inspect my purchase until time to 

 fill the cans. 



"Not even then, though I found a 

 surprisingly large percentage of the 

 cans unfit for honey of any grade, did 

 I realize how badly I had been stung 

 until the season was drawing to a close 

 and the manager of our association 

 was having some correspondence with 

 this same firm in regard to the sale of 

 honey. They enquired whether the 

 association used new or second-hand 

 cases, and added, " We would not care 

 to handle your honey if you use second- 

 hand cases." That, of course, was 

 enough to open the eyes of a blind 

 man. If honey in 'entirely satisfac- 

 tory ' cases was so unsatisfactory that 

 they did not care to handle it, there was 

 nothing left for me to do but figure up 

 my loss and forget all but the lesson. 



" The cases had cost me, laid down, 

 40 cents each. Of the 2600 cans, 312 

 were utterly useless. Some of these 

 were so rusty on the bottom that you 

 could push your hand through the thin 

 shell of remaining tin. Seventy-one 

 contained a thin liquid as black as your 

 hat and with an odor like a sewer. My 

 guess is that these had been rinsed out 

 to get all the honey, and from a tea- 

 cupful to a quart of the last rinse water 

 left in each can. This had turned to 

 vinegar and the acid had eaten the tin 

 and part of the iron from the inside of 

 the can. They were entirely unfit for 

 honey, but after cleaning them up I 

 sold them to a dealer in lubricating oil 

 for about enough to pay for the labor 

 of cleaning them. Ninety-four cans, 

 though in fair condition on the inside, 

 were so disreputable looking on the 

 outside that I couldn't insult my honey 

 by putting it into them, so the oil man 

 got them also. Two hundred and thirty 

 cans contained hard, dry chunks and 

 cinders of what had once been honey. 

 Some of these chunks were actually 

 burned into the tin, and they couldn't 

 be cleaned by any practical process. 



" I may go into the nursery business 

 some day. If I do, these will serve 



