1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



137 



On writing the matter up I found, as I sur- 

 mised, that the mails had been fumigated at 

 that time on account of the yellow-fever scare 

 that was then on. As no more were lost that 

 year I paid but little further attention to the 

 matter, as I thought such a scare would not 

 happen very often, and when it did I should 

 be likely to know of the matter through the 

 papers, so I could withhold any shipment of 

 queens until it was over. But I am now 

 awakened from this reverie by lately receiv- 

 ing word from a shipment of queens to Aus- 

 tralia, all of which went through dead. Among 

 other things in the letter are these words : 

 "If there had been a chance of any of them 

 coming through alive they were deprived of it 

 by the process oi fumigation which a// mails 

 coming from America to New South Wales 

 have to undergo now ; " and that this state of 

 affairs is becoming quite common can be seen 

 by turning to p. 242 of the Southland Queen, 

 where it will be found that the Atchley Co. 

 lost a whole shipment sent to New Zealand ; 

 and as the health officers of all countries are 

 becoming more alert with each passing year, 

 the mails will be fumigated more and more 

 till our choice queens will have no show what- 

 ever in the foreign mails unless some special 

 privileges are granted by way of a separate 

 pouch for queens, or something of the kind. 



The question now is. Can the National Bee- 

 keepers' Association take any action in this 

 matter which will help any ? or can Prof. Ben- 

 ton use anv influence with those at the head 

 of the foreign-mails department at Washing- 

 ton ? Unless something is done, successful 

 exporting or importing of queens through the 

 mails will soon be a thing of the past. 



The other item to which I wish to call at- 

 tention is found in S ray Straws, page 43, Jan. 

 15, and reads as follows : "If I understand 

 rightly, Doolittle advises, p. 16, to extract part- 

 ly filled sections, and use them for bait with- 

 out having the bees clean them out. Now, 

 will there not be particles of candied honey in 

 those sections? and will that not hasten can- 

 dying in them when filled ? " This part is by 

 Dr. Miller. Then the editor adds, "It does 

 not seem to me that Mr. Daolittle really meant 

 this ; for among practical bee-keepers it has 

 always been laid down as a rule that unfinish- 

 ed sections, when extracted, should be clean- 

 ed out by the bees, else there will be particles 

 of candied honey in the sections when they 

 are filled the second time." 



To the good doctor I wish to reply as fol- 

 lows : First, he understood me correctly or 

 rightly, and I have been in the habit of thus 

 using sections for the past 15 years. Second, 

 there may or there may not be particles of 

 candied honey in those sections. If the sec- 

 tions contained honey which would candy in 

 the comb before spring, had not the bulk of 

 the honey been extracted from them, the hon- 

 ey remaining in the cells after extracting will 

 candy somewhat, after the extracting process. 

 If the bulk would not have candied when left 

 without extracting, that remaining in the 

 combs after extracting will be free from can- 

 died particles when the baits are set on the 

 hives. Third, after several experiments I can 



not find that particles of candied honey, put 

 with freshly gathered honey, hasten the can- 

 dying of the mass, on the principle that "a 

 little leaven leavens the whole lump." I have 

 tried this several times, but so far have suc- 

 ceeded in getting honey to granulate or candy 

 only when every thing was just right for it to 

 do so, just the same as honey used to candy 

 for our fathers, or before we " smarties " got 

 to " fooling " with it. I know that some hon- 

 ey will candy sooner than other kinds, both 

 in the comb and out ; but so far as I have ex- 

 perimented I could never hurry the slow can- 

 dying kind by putting a little of the quick- 

 er candying kind with it. Could you, doctor ? 

 And to our good editor I wish to say that 

 many fallacies are often indorsed by "prac- 

 tical bee-keepers " simply because some one 

 has announced such fallacy to be a fact. Does 

 Bro. E. R. Root remember when nearly every 

 practical bee-keeper in our land was loud in 

 "laying it down as a rule" that none but 

 comb foundation ^'■freshfrom the mill'' should 

 be put in section boxes, because, if other than 

 fresh, the bees would not work it until a part 

 of the honey season had passed away, because 

 the old was so hard and dry-looking? After I 

 experimented in this matter, and announced 

 that such a theory was a fallacy, and that 

 foundation three years old proved to be soft 

 and pliable looking and otherwise, just so 

 soon as a degree of heat sufiicient to work wax 

 was brought to bear on it in the hive or sur- 

 plus arrangement, and that my bees actually 

 .worked foundation from three to five years 

 old just as readily as they did that only one 

 week old, this old rule, " laid down by prac- 

 tical bee-keepers," was as silent as the grave, 

 and has hardly been heard of since. And so 

 will be this other, regarding "particles of 

 candied honey in the sectious when they are 

 filled the second time," when we as candid 

 apiarists take time to look into the matter, in- 

 stead of taking for granted what is told us. 

 Take a section of candied honey and set it in 

 your surplus arrangement on the hive with 

 other sections, and allow it to remain there 

 till the rest are filled, and you will find the 

 honey in it liquid like the rest. Quinby told 

 us 45 years ago that combs of honey, candied 

 solid during winter, would all liquefy during 

 the following summer if left in the hive with 

 the bees, the heat of the bees and the summer 

 doing the work, and I have proven the same 

 true time and time again ; and, further, that, 

 if put up in the loft of a building where the 

 sun on the roof maintained a high tempera- 

 ture, the liquefying would be done long be- 

 fore fall. Now, then, as soon as those sec- 

 tions having particles of granulated honey in 

 them are on the hives, and the temperature 

 rises to a point where brood can be reared, or 

 wax worked, they all dissolve, and the bees 

 lick every thing dry and clean, as they always 

 do before putting any honey in any cell. And 

 those combs are just as free from particles of 

 granulated honey as they would have been 

 had the bees licked them dry the fall before ; 

 at least, reason and experiments covering al- 

 most a score of years tell me that such is the 

 case here in Central New York ; and as for the 



