1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



103 



She had commenced to lay about 6 days before we 

 made her acquaintance, or that of her family rather. 

 Have you any Italians that beat this black queen, 

 for early breeding and energetic business habits? 



I am afraid I shall weary your patience, but I 

 must tell you of something I never read of. I was 

 watching" a bee load up with propolis that had been 

 thrown down on a box from some old frames hang- 

 ing-overhead. He daubed a quantity of it on his 

 legs in the usual way, then gathered up about half 

 as much in his mouth, and struck a bee-line for the 

 apiary. 1 watched a few minutes, and saw another, 

 or the same bee, repeat the trick. T. 0. Marsh. 



New Madrid, Mo., Jan. Ill, 1S79. 



THURBER s DEFENCE. 



Tiie following is taken from the N. V. 

 World: 



"Messrs. H. K. & F. R. Thurber & Co., who a little 

 more than two month* ago succeeded in landing 

 200,000 lb?, of honey in England by one shipment, 

 and all in good condition, deny the report lately 

 published that the honey had been seized by the 

 British authorities for violation of the Adulteration 

 act. A reporter for the World, who visited the firm 

 yesterday, was told by Mr. F. B. Thurber that the 

 report probably arose from a circumstance which he 

 would explain. Tomb honey,' said he, 'being a 

 fragile substance, more or less of it arrives here in a 

 broken condition, and in order to save it, it became 

 necessary to pack it in some kind of a receptacle. 

 A number of years ago another New York house, 

 large dealers in honey, began cutting up comb hon- 

 ey into slices, packing it iu glass jars, and filling the 

 interstices with strained honey. It was found, how- 

 ever, that this soon candied or granulated to such 

 an extent that it destroyed the clear, translucent 

 appearance which consumers demand. In order to 

 avoid this a quantity of dextrine or starch sirup, 

 commonly known as glucose, was added. When our 

 firm took hold of the honey business we put up hon- 

 ey in this manner, and after it was introduced in 

 England our attention was called to the fact that a 

 retail grocer had been summoned under the English 

 Adulteration act for selling' in glass jars as honey an 

 article which was not wholly composed of that sub- 

 stance, the fact not being' stated on the label. A 

 small tine was imposed but no seizure was made. 

 We now label all jars containing honey, statins: that 

 the space around the combs has been filled with a 

 solution partly composed of starch sirup in order to 

 prevent granulation. Since we began to do this 

 there has been no trouble. The summoning of the 

 English grocer happened about a year ago, and was 

 published at the time in several bee journals in this 

 country. Our last exportation has been the means 

 of bringing this matter up again, but that shipment 

 was pure honey in comb, in glass boxes, just as it is 

 taken from the hives, and has met with great 

 favor.' " 



Very good, Messrs. Thurber & Co. I ran 

 not see any wrong done if you label your jars 

 of honey in the way you mention, and peo- 

 ple choose to buy them when thus labeled. 

 On page 311 of Bee-Keepers' 1 MagaHne for 

 1877, appears the following: 



"Thirber's Candied Honev.— One thousand dol- 

 lars in gold coin will be paid if the honey contained 

 in this jar is found to be impure, or in any manner 

 adulterated. The above is on all of Messrs. Thur- 

 ber & Co's. labels." 



WHAT KIND OK WINTERS REQUIRE MOST HONEY? 



I am having a little strife with one of my neigh- 

 bor bee men, as to whether bees eat more honey in 

 a cold, hard winter, or in a moderate, warm winter 

 (out door winteringi. Please answer this immedi- 

 ately, as the one of us that is wrong is to send for 

 your bee journal one year. I was a subscriber last 

 year, but have neglected to send this year. 



John Nimphy. 



Swartz Creek, Mich., Feb. It, 1879. 



I do not know that I can answer the <|iies- 

 tion directly, for if the weather should be 

 such that the bees commence breeding large- 

 ly, as they did last winter, the honey con- 



sumed to feed the brood, would be greater 

 than where the winter was so cold that lit- 

 tle or no brood was started. On the other 

 hand, bees consume much more honey to 

 keep up the animal heat during very severe 

 weather, than they do when the temperature 

 is mild. I think less honey would be con- 

 sumed in an even temperature of about 40 , 

 such as we have in the best cellars, than 

 when it is either colder or warmer. I think 

 you would better each pay half on Glean- 

 ings. 



THICKNESS OF SECTIONS. 



I use frames for surplus honey on your plan, but 

 having tried different sizes, I have settled on the 

 following, as most profitable for me, and quite as 

 salable; in fact, often more salable. My sections 

 contain 2 lbs. of honey, when full. I make them 

 o Q iXi l 1 x2?_ t , in., thus having' 6 sections in one frame, 

 and also make 4 1 1 xf 1 1 x"'', , which contain VA lbs. \ 

 cut the sections out of 3 inch plank which I have 

 dressed on both sides, to :.", in. I then cut it into 

 the length for sections, and groove it before sawing. 

 I have tried both ways, and this seems most satis- 

 factory. 



I have a horse power which works first rate. We 

 all owe you much for your endeavors to give your 

 readers the benefit of your ingenuity, and it made 



me mad to see . 



John Dickinson. 



Milwaukee, Wis., Feb. 2, 1879. 



There is <|uite a difference of opinion 

 in regard to the thickness of section ooxes. 

 1 have used them as thick as you mention, 

 but the bees sometimes get two thin combs, 

 instead of one thick one. Muth, in his new 

 circular, writes as follows : 



"There is no doubt but that the most honey is pro- 

 duced in frames which are 1' 2 inches apart from cen- 

 tre to centre; 1 have added a j inch to this width be- 

 cause it makes more handsome combs, and I find 

 that it works well; but to have honey framesS inch- 

 es or more a part from centre to centre is at the ex- 

 pense of the honey crop, and were it not for the sep- 

 arators, the bees would build three combs in every 

 two frames. 



"One of my friends argues very correctly thus: 

 "When the combs are so thick the cells are too deep, 

 and it takes the bees too long to evaporate their hon- 

 ey before they can cap it.' I prefer to raise comb- 

 honey without separators, for the other reason that 

 I do not believe that the bees will build as much 

 comb when their clusters are separated from each 

 other, as when clustered together." 



I have decided, as you perhaps know, on 

 about 2 in., separator and all, and we rarely 

 fail of having our sections nicely filled. 1 

 like the looks of the thick combs, when you 

 can set the bees to build them nicely. 



TWO SEPARATE COLONIES IN ONE HIVE. 



Success with us, in the apiary, during the past 

 year or season, has been about the average of your 

 correspondents' reports; our experience about as 

 varied as theirs; for we also have been experiment- 

 ing with bees, hives, and theories. With one colony, 

 however, we struck a "big bonanza," and "a nut for 

 Novice to crack." 



That colony stored 2563^ lbs. of honey, during the 

 past season. We allowed no increase. Most of the 

 honey was line comb, taken in "connected sections," 

 tiered 6 high. That's the "big bonanza." 



In putting in starters in a section, we used some 

 bits of comb (from a brood chamber) that contained 

 a few eggs. We tbousrht nothing more of it at the 

 time, supposing that the bees would clean all up as 

 usual. The section with starters containing eggs 

 was placed in the middle tier. In removing them. 

 In Sept., we found that the bees had actually reared 

 B queen from these eggs; that she had matured, be- 

 come fertilized, anil laid worker eggs in nearly all 

 of that section; that the eggs had matured into 

 brood which were nearly all out of the cells, and t!-:e 



