GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



Well, whence did that colony get bees to swarm 

 with? Did you follow our injunctions, to remove 

 the old hive, when nearly all its fleld-working force 

 was out? Did you remove it carefully, so that as 

 few bees as possible would mark the new location? 

 If so, whence did they get the bees with which to 

 make up a swarm? If your operations were all in 

 keeping with the spirit of this method, then your 

 bees must have different habits from mine. I could 

 not be persuaded to adopt Bro. Doolittle's additions 

 to my method of preventing after-swarms, even if 

 I needed any, for they are not in harmony with the 

 method; for it is one adapted to him who has hun- 

 dreds of colonies to handle, and does not wish to 

 spend more time in manipulating the old colony 

 than it requires to hive the second swarm beside 

 the old stand; and after both queens are fertile, re- 

 move one, and run back the swarm, which is anoth- 

 er plan of ours, which settles the question of increase 

 from second swarms, and one which we often prac- 

 tice if the colony is one that we wish to rear queens 

 from. 



This puts me in mind of one instance this season, 

 where one of our best colonies that had cast a prime 

 swarm nine days previously, cast four after-swarms 

 in as many days, all of which we hived on fdn. in 

 hives, clustering about the old stand. As soon as 

 all of the five queens were fertile, we shipped four 

 of them and ran all the swarms back into the old 

 colony, extracted all honey stored in the newly 

 drawn combs, and gave their combs, eggs, and lar- 

 vte to prime swarms just issuing. Not a particle 

 of bee labor or time was lost. Wc spent less time 

 in the whole operation, than I have seen spent in 

 trying to " clip all the cells but one," and then fail- 

 ing to prevent after-swarms at that. 



Our climates and localities, as well as our ideas 

 of dispatch, differ widely. I could no more adopt 

 Mr. Doolittle's bo.x and comb manipulation than 1 

 could his hive. I do not think any one will toler- 

 ate any added complication, when once he " gets 

 the haTig " of just how to use my method in its let- 

 ter and spirit. Jamks Heijdox. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



FALSE STATEMENTS IN REGARD TO THE HON- 

 EY BUSINESS OF OUR COUNTRY. 



As a protection to ovir boe-kPeping population, we propose in 

 this department to publish the names of newspapers that per- 

 sist in publishing false statements in regard to the purity of 

 honey which we as bee-keepers put on (he market. 



'E extract the following from tlie Evcn- 



v^lilir '"y ^^cifs, of Saginaw. Mich. It was 



evidently written by our okl friend 



L. C. Whiting, of East Saginaw. 



Mich. 



UEES A.ND GLUCDSE. 



1 saw an extract in your paper from the Chicago 

 News, headed, " What Bees are Coming to." They 

 took it originally from the Detroit Free Press. It 

 Mas written in the style of Peck's bad boy, and was 

 evidently a burlesque, or something worse, on the 

 part of the author. For instance, the writer said 

 the bees were being fvd glucose; and to prove it 

 jtointed out a barrel labeled grajx' sugai-. Now, 

 grape sugar, if dissolved, would turn hack into su- 

 gar again before he had time to sell it, and would 

 not be the color ot honey, and of course be unsala- 

 ble. To a beo-keei)er the case (if there was any 

 truth in it at all) stands like this: Bees as a rule 

 raise brood only when honey is coming in. There 

 is a time in the summer, alter white clover has 

 gone to seed, that there are no tlowers to yield hon- 

 ey for several weeks. Bee-keepers have learned 

 f hat jt pays to feed back pooy lioiicy du|-ing this 



dearth of blossoms, to keep the oueen laying to 

 raise workers to gatlier the honey that comes later. 

 This is probably what the Detroit bee-keeper was 

 doing. The life of a working bee in the honey sea- 

 son is very short, from sixty to ninety days. If the 

 flow of honey ceases for thirty days nearly half the 

 bees in the hive will have died from old age. Those 

 unacquainted with the short life of the worker-bee 

 think some disease has killed them. Bee-keepers 

 feel, after such a winter as the last, that they have 

 about enough to contend with without being ad- 

 vertised as selling glucose for honey. We some 

 time will have a law that will compel persons to 

 sell things for what they are, or forfeit their goods; 

 and the sooner the better. L. C. W. 



It is indeed true, that bee-keepers have 

 had enotigh to contend witii without this 

 miserable sensational reporter's story that 

 friend W. refers to ; and it seems to me that 

 the times are ripe for a law that will make 

 it a very severe offense to sell any thing for 

 something else. Feeding bees something 

 that is not honey, with the purpose of selling 

 it for honey, if such a thing has been done, 

 should most assuredly come tinder the above 

 head. 



LETTER FROM J. H. MARTIN, 

 [e tells how his Automatic Extractor works. 



AI.S 



SOMETHINT. ABOUT VIROIN QUEENS 



TTit)t' call for a report from some one using the 

 '^jf^] Stanley automatic honey-extractor. I have 

 \^^ used one two years, and not only extracted 



■^ one ton, but several, with it, and the follow- 

 ing is my report. As to the working qualities 

 of the machine in my yard; Last season, owing to 

 the short crop, our work with it was limited to 

 about one ton; but this season basswood came 

 down in such a shower that nearly three tons have 

 been run through the machine, and we afc not 

 through yet. 



The machine I ordered of Mr. Stanley was made 

 to tit my size of frame, 11 xU. It was among the 

 first of his make; and by the side of my old two- 

 frame machine it was a genuine "Jumlio." It 

 takes four frames, and, of course, it does not start 

 oft' so quickly nor stop so easily as the light two- 

 frame machine, and on that account it appears 

 clumsy to manage; but after you get used to the 

 change, this clumsiness disappears. As I have done 

 nearly all of my extracting myself, my method is as 

 follows: 



I go out into the yard with my cart, upon which I 

 have three hive-bodies. I go from one hive to an- 

 other till I fill all of the hives, say 30 frames of hon- 

 ey. I then wheel it right into the building, close to 

 the extractor, and extract the load. After uncap- 

 ping lour frames 1 insert them in the extractor, 

 and, whirling the baskets into position, I give the 

 crank a few vigorous turns, and then leave the ma- 

 chine to run down. It will run with enough force 

 to throw out honey until you uncap another frame 

 (1 have sometimes uncapped two frames). I then 

 reverse the combs and set it to whirling the other 

 way, and uncap more combs; and by the time the 

 machine stops I have four more combs ready lo ex- 

 tract. 



The beauty of the macliiiie, and the great claim 

 for it, is the reversing motion, and it works to a 

 charm. Vou don't have to touch a sticky comb un- 

 til both sides arc extracted; and if you do your own 

 work, the machine is not only automatic in revers- 

 ing, but in extracting; and I think Bro. IfecJdoq 



