788 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



may hiive something to do with the matter, 

 but the second one more so than the other. 

 We, however, are making the plan work 

 successfully by the use of wire cloth be- 

 tween the upper and lower stories instead 

 of perforated zinc. Further particulars 

 are given on p. 756 of last issue. — Ed.] 



HOXKY (?) FROM CORN. 



I\Ir. Editor: — In Gleanings, page 702, 

 it is denied that bees can gather any honey 

 from maize Undian corn). If only the blos- 

 soms are considered, this may be true; but 

 how about the sap ? Unless my imagina- 

 tion is very much stronger than my judg- 

 inent, the drops which are to be found in 

 the morning along the edges of the corn 

 leaves are decidedly sweet when the weath- 

 er has not been too wet. That the weather 

 here has been very wet is perhaps tlie rea- 

 son that my bees have neglected the corn. 

 Last year they crowded upon it during 

 August. It is well known that much sugar 

 (glucose, is it not ?) is produced hy the 

 maize, and also that many plants give off 

 sugar from their pores. Some plants of 

 sultana, after standing in the dry air of 

 our dining-room last winter, had the edges 

 of their leaves fringed with little stalactites 

 of sugar, about a quarter of an inch long. 



All the above leads up to what I wish to 

 say — that I can not see why bees should 

 not be able to gather sweets froin maize. 

 Geo. a. Bates. 



High wood, N. J., Sept. 5. 



[But, even though those drops along the 

 edges of the corn leaves are sweet, it could 

 not be called honey or nectar. — Ed.] 



A GOOD SUGGESTION ON THE USE OF PASTE- 

 BOARD FOR MAILING-CAGES FOR QUEENS. 



Referring to the occasional failure of bees 

 to gnaw the pasteboard froin shipping- 

 cages (page 669) I would suggest that this 

 may be almost always prevented by simply 

 touching the perforations with a little hon- 

 ey. Tliis especially should be done if no 

 moisture penetrates about the perforations 

 from the candy within. I have not yet had 

 a failure when this precaution has been 

 taken. 



Last autumn one of a number of queens 

 received through the mails was thus im- 

 prisoned ten days after being placed in her 

 new home. The bees would not (or, more 

 likely, could not) tear away the dry paste- 

 board over the candy; yet this queen, to 

 my surprise, instead of djdng, as all her 

 attendants but three had done, proved to be 

 one of the most prolific of the lot, her bees 

 storing over 70 pounds of surplus honey in 

 June last. J. F. S. 



Aikin, Md., Aug. 20. 



least. I believe more honey came in on the 

 20th and 21st than in any other two days 

 yet. They are working now on sweet clo- 

 ver and white, and jvist rolling the honey 

 in. But I think still, as I said in my pre- 

 vious letter, that the bulk of the honey, un- 

 til now, has been made from red clover. 

 The bees would alight on a red-clover blow, 

 and, by force, push their heads down to 

 the honey by splitting the petal clear down 

 to the nectar. I have seen them do this ev- 

 ery time I have visited a red-clover field. 

 Last year was the first time I ever saw it 

 done; but no black bees were to be seen on 

 red clover here. Chauncey Reynolds. 

 Fremont, O., July 22. 



[This splitting of the clover-tubes is 

 something unusual, or at least I do not re- 

 meinber to have read of a case of it before. 

 Has any one else observed it? — Ed.] 



A simple method for detecting glucose 



IN SYRUPS. 



I\Ii'. Root: — In looking over your journal 

 I see that you have had a good time up in 

 Michigan and Texas. In your articles on 

 sugars you speak of natural glucose in su- 

 gar. I was not aware that there was any 

 kind of glucose but that made from corn. 

 My object in writing to yow is to give you a 

 test for glucose. I can detect it if there is 

 only an ounce in a gallon of inolasses. The 

 waj'^ I test molasses is this: Take half a 

 tumbler of water and one teaspoonful of the 

 molasses and stir it up thoroughly, then 

 add, say, one-tenth of a teaspoonful of tan- 

 nin, or tannic acid as it is sometimes called. 

 If there is any glucose it will turn the mix- 

 ture blac/!, and I suppose it will do it in 

 honeJ^ In the manufacture of glucose they 

 have to use sulphuric acid to separate it 

 from the corn. They get rid of all the acid 

 they can, but there is always enough left 

 to tell the tale. Trj^ it on honey. I believe 

 it will work. H. Houpt. 



Biriningham, Ala., Sept. 2. 



[If I understand cliemistrj^ rightly, there 

 is a kind of glucose in natural honey, but 

 it is not corn syrup, and its general char- 

 acter is very different from the artificial 

 stuff. I ain greatly obliged to you for j'our 

 recipe for testing glucose in honey. I have 

 no doubt it will work with honey just the 

 same; for if tannic acid shows the presence 

 of sulphuric acid, then it will show it in 

 honey as well as in syrup. — Ed.] 



BEES THAT WILL SPLIT RED-CLOVER CO- 

 ROLLA-TUBES. 



I wrote j'ou the fore part of last week in 

 regard to the honey- flow here. Well, the 

 flow has at this date not abated in the 



POROSITY of log GUMS. 



The old-fashioned log gum was a hollow- 

 ed-out section of a log (not a section of a 

 hollow log with a board for a cover nailed 

 over the top). Thus it will be seen the 

 grain in the top of the hive ran up and 

 down. The fact that bees did well in these 

 old clumsy hives, particularly as regards 

 wintering, was due to this very fact of grain 

 running vip and down. Reidenbach, in 

 Pfalzcr BieiiC!izcitu}ig, makes the assertion 

 that any ordinary board, such as our ordi- 



