81fi 



GLEA2^1XGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



ARTIFICIAL COMB HONEY. 



The Philadelphia Farm and Garden calls 

 tlieir April No. their annual strawberry 

 number, and a grand good number it is; but 

 one of the best things in it is an editorial, 

 liittiug a blow at just what we have been 

 writing on for two months past. See what 

 you think of it : 



Our vocabulary has no words strong- enoiigrh to 

 condemn in tit lang-uase such " scientltlc pleas- 

 antries" as the one wliinh appeared hately in the 

 New York Miil mid H rpnss. and has since been 

 j^oing the rounds thidiiyh tlic American press. 

 The article is s'i^en iironiini'ncc li.\ tlie tiaring' head- 

 lines —" Hinnim Injicnuity to do away with the 

 AN'ork of the iiccs." and describes an iuiauinary and 

 utterly impnssilile method (d' maimt'acturing- comb 

 honey artificially, altogether without help of the 

 bees. While American bee-keepei-s have been and 

 are still working: earnestly to find a market for 

 their pi-oduce, while even now the purest extracted 

 lioney g-oes begging- In our city markets on account 

 of the glucose scai-e, the great city papers try to 

 make all these efTorts come to naught, and to make 

 the consumer afraid of the most natural, most de- 

 licious, and most wholesome sweet, In the shape of 

 comb honey. 



This so-called scientifle pleasantry is nothing but 

 a willful and malicious lie, and one which strikes a 

 fatal blow at the interests of the American bee- 

 keeper. The great newspapers refuse to yield to 

 the demands of interested parties for a proper 

 correction. The damage seems to be well-nigh 

 irreparable, for the agricultural press does not 

 reach the honey-consumer in the cities, among 

 whom a press so hostile to agricultural interests 

 chiefly circulates. 



Let us say, however, that both the inventor and 

 publisher of such infernal lies deserve a good long 

 term of free board and lodging in the penitentiary. 



^EP0^¥3 DlgC0U1^^6IN6. 



SHALL HE GIVE UP? 



MY subscription to Gleanings has run out, 

 and so have my bees; and I am in doubt 

 whether to have any thing more to do with 

 either. A year ago I lost 30 colonies, but 

 had 30 left; and although they were very 

 weak I got about 700 lbs. comb honey, and increas- 

 ed to 30 colonies. I put them in the cellar with ten 

 frames of honey to the hive. I filled the half-story 

 cap with fine shavings, and tacked sack cloth over, 

 and put on the hive with the oil cloth removed. I 

 put l.T in a wing cellar, and 1.5 in a cellar under the 

 wood-house, both shut off from the middle cellar. I 

 did this because I thought I kept them too warm 

 the winter before; but this winter has been so 

 very cold that I presume the temperature in the 

 wood-house cellar was down to for sl.\ weeks at 

 one time, and that under the wing not much above 

 it. Well, the bees are all dead, and most of the hon- 

 ey left, and which is molded slightly in a few hives. 

 I think [ shall not give up entirely, but get a 

 swarm or two and try again on a small scale. I be- 

 gan with two swarms, which increased to fifty in 

 thi-ee years, and I spent considerable on Ftalian 

 (lueens, etc., but they are all gone now. 



(Jko. II. I'A-nii. 

 Stevens Point, Wis.. .\i)r. 31, ISS."). 



Friend P.. your bees were no doubt worse 

 olf in tliat cellar than they would have been 

 outdoors, and this is one great reason why I 

 liave been so loth to advise wintering. The 

 temix'rature of yoin- cellar went down to 

 zero, you say. Well, the tendency of the cel- 

 lar then was to keep the bees at zero when 

 they woidd have been warmed up a great 

 many times if outside. The same way we 



often find frost even now under heavy 

 mulch. During tlie severe weather it froze 

 down to a great, depth, and the mulch, or 

 protection, has had the effect of keeping or 

 prolonging the e.xcessively low temperature. 

 Chaff hives, you will notice, may let tlie 

 temperature go down to zero, or even below 

 it; but they also permit it to rise, when the 

 surrounding air rises, iu a romparativeh/ 

 short space of time. 



LOSS ON ACCOUNT OF HONEY-DEW. 



The loss in bees through this section the luist 

 winter is the heaviest that has ever been known— 

 fully 95 per cent. Cause, no good honey last sea- 

 son after June, hence the region of the brood- 

 chamber was supplied late in the season with an 

 unusual amount of itollen and a small sujjply of 

 bug-juice. IJees that were fed in the fall on sugar 

 oi- good honey have wintered well. 



R. B. Bobbins. 



Bloomdale, Wood Co., Ohio, Apr. 1, 1885. 



ONLY 2 LEFT OUT OF 53, CAREFULLY PUT UP FOR 

 WINTER. 



Last season I increased to 60 colonies; but as we 

 had almost a total failure of honey I had to double 

 back to 53 iu the fall. I fed 15 colonies 150 lbs. 

 granulated-sugar syrup. I put a Heddon case on 

 the top of each hive, filled witli dry forest-leaves, 

 and left them on the summer stands. Now for the 

 result: 



Out of the 53 thus prepared I have just two weak 

 colonies left! Surely I am ready to go into Blasted 

 Hopes. No, don't put me there, for I am going to 

 " trj' again." I have the hives, combs, etc., and 1 

 propose to get some bees by the pound, and stock 

 up again. I find sealed brood in nearly all the hives, 

 the eggs evidently laid during a warm day or two 

 we had about the Vth or 8th of Jan. This divided 

 the cluster, and caused the bees to spread over the 

 patches of brood, and thus they perished with the 

 long protracted cold that followed; but, what in- 

 duced the queen to lay so eai-ly in the winter? Was 

 it because the honey of last season was miserably 

 poor stutf, gathered from grapes, some rotten 

 apples, and unusually mi.xed with pollen? It 

 was so poUenized as to be, much of it, absolutely 

 bitter; much of it was watery and sour. Most of 

 my colonies liad diarrhiea badly; some had 25 to 30 

 lbs. of honey left. 



At the meeting of our N. Kansas Bee-keepers' 

 Association, held April 3, the reports were gloomy 

 enough, one or two exceptions, and those were in 

 favor of the crUar. I think that the losses in this 

 i-egion will not fall any short of 00 per cent. Some 

 have lost all: most have only one or two colonies 

 left. J. W. Margrave. 



Hiawatha, Kansas, April 17, ISSi. 



ONLY 3+ LEFT OUT OF ^1. 



I think that fully three-fourths of the bees in this 

 county are dead. I had 8) stands last fall: now 

 have 3t left, many of those with only a handful of 

 bees in a hive. Many I hear of have lost every 

 swarm. Ellwood Spencer, a neighbor, has 15 left 

 out of 80 last fall. I wintered 4fi of mine on their 

 summer stands in Langstroth and Simplicity hives; 

 out of the 46 are yet alive; 34 I had in a cave, and 

 15 of those are alive. Most of those that died in the 

 cave starved to death, while those on their summer 

 stands left plenty of honey. S. L. Sherman. 



Oskaloosa. Iowa, .\pril 7, tSS"). 



