330 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



fioin Michigan Ibal be sells aster liuiiey at 

 tlie same price as that of the red raspberry, 

 aiul that it has a fine flavor and a good 

 body. He attributes its poor reputation for 

 winter stores to its tendency to candy. Mr. 

 Raleigh Thompson, of Underwood, Indiana, 

 who has had great experience with aster 

 honey, also reports that it crystallizes very 

 quickly. It is so thick that it is diflfieult to 

 extract. His bees winter finely on it with 

 very little loss. The flowers are so abun- 

 dant in his loeality that the fields at times 

 are as white as snow. Others in the central 

 states have been ecjually successful. Mr. T. 

 W. Livingstone, of Leslie, Georgia, says 

 lliat it candies quickly if not sealed; but 

 (hat when he lived at Dalton his bees de- 

 l>ended on it for winter stores. Pure aster 

 iioney is nearly as white as that of white 

 clover, but usually it is amber-hued, due to 

 the presence of goldenrod honey or that of 

 other autumn flowere. It is very sweet, with 

 an agreeable flavor. Like goldenrod nectar, 

 the nectar of the asters has at first a sour 

 or rank odor wliich soon disappears. 

 Waldoboro, Maine. 



[We ha\e had good, bad, and inditTerent 

 leports of colonies wintered on aster honey. 

 So far most of tfie reports have indicated 

 trouble, as in the following: 



Bees wintered 1 adly. I had them all in the cellar, 

 lilt they had dysentery from the aster honey. I have 

 lost one-third of them — my heaviest loss in 30 years. 



Solon. Ohio. " H. C. Lane. 



Our own be€s Iiaving aster stores have 

 shown more signs of dysentery than any 

 colonies we ever wintered before. Colonies 

 in the same cellar having stores of sugar 

 syruj:* were clean and dry when set out. 



One of the great drawbacks to aster hon- 

 ey, as mentioned by Mr. Lovell, is its ten- 

 dency to granulate so quicldy and so solid- 

 ly. The illustration herewith sliows the al- 

 most " gritty ■' api)earance of the honey in 

 the open cells. Many of the combs show 

 the cappings gnawed away, and the honey 

 in the cells so solid that the bees apparent- 

 ly were unable to use it. 



Query. — Why should the solid aster honey 

 in the cells be less available than the solid 

 cakes of candy made from boiled syrup? 

 See following article by Geo. H. Rea. — Ed.] 



STARVATION OF COLONIES ON CANDIED STOKES 



BT GEOEGE H. REA 



Reports of bad wintering are numerous 

 this spring. The description of symptoms 

 usually given indicates that the condition is 

 largely due to aster honey gathered last fall 

 for winter stores. If this honey has acted 

 everywhere as it has in Medina, the wonder 

 is that any bees with no other winter stores 

 are alive. 



About the middle of March the writer, 

 with ]\Ir. Arlie Pritchard, visited the 

 Blakeslee yard of the A. I. Root Co. The 

 covers of the great quadruple winter cas?s 

 were lifted, and a peep taken at the clus- 

 ters. The weather was too cold to do more 

 than that, and, in fact, it has not been fit 

 to permit manipulating colonies so far this 

 spring (j\rarcli 28). 



Out of sixty colonies three were found 

 (lead. Sealed stores could be plainly seen 

 along the top-bars of the frames in these 

 colonies, while the bees were mostly on the 

 hive-bottom. A small cluster in each case 

 was .still clinging to the combs. They had 

 starved to death with plenty of stores in 

 the hives. In fact, investigation showed 

 that they were actually clustered on candied 

 honey which they had uncapped but were 

 evidentlv unable to consume. That seems 



strange at first thought. Bees will eat hard 

 candy, but this is the hardest candied honey 

 that I have ever seen. 



The illustration on preceding page shows 

 this hard honey in the cells. 



The wonder is that these bees were not all 

 dead. Had it not been that at that time the 

 weather warmed up enough that they could 

 get out in small numbers and get water, 

 they probably would have all died. 



In previous years, when feeding iiaid 

 candy I have noticed that the bees would 

 get along very well as long as the weather 

 was such that they could get out and gather 

 water, but would sometimes die clustered 

 right on the cake of candy during a spell of 

 bad weather. Bees wintered in a moist cel- 

 lar will use hard candy, while they will be 

 unable to do so in a dry cellar. In the first 

 case the necessary moisture is supplied 

 from the atmosphere. The same might be 

 true outdoors in wet weather — but not when 

 it is cool and dry, as it has been this spring. 



[As mentioned in the footnote to Mr. 

 IjO veil's article above, the reports from oth- 

 er sources regarding the aster honey are 

 quite conflicting. It has become evident 



