634 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



O, 





COMB HONEY HAVING A WATERY-LOOKING 

 CAPPING. 



"Good morning-, Mr. Doolittle. Rainy 

 ag"ain this morning." 



"So it is, Mr. Barber. Day before yes- 

 terday we had a fine day, though ratlier 

 cool, and the bees improved it, securing 

 more nectar than at any time before this 

 year; and I had strong- hopes that we might 

 g"et some surplus honey yet; but as it has 

 now rained the most of the time for thirty- 

 six hours, with the mercury hovering about 

 fifty and below, I have about given up hop- 

 ing- for any surplus honey, unless, perhaps, 

 it is gotten from buckwheat. It is now the 

 30th of June, and clover is on the wane. 

 This, with no prospect of any thing from 

 basswood, and the bees not having a chance 

 to get out of their hives more than once or 

 twice a week, gives a gloomy outlook. But 

 we'll not dwell on the unpleasant things. 

 What was it you wished this morning, 

 Mr. Barber?" 



"I came over to have a little talk with 

 you regarding the watery appearance of 

 my honey last year. During the fall of 

 1900 I Italianized a part of my apiary, and 

 during the season of 1901 the colonies which 

 were so Italianized gave me section honey 

 which looked bad on account of the capping 

 to the cells having a watery appearance. 

 The capping seemed to lie on the honey, 

 and the looks hurt the sale of it. My blacks 

 never gave such looking honey. Is this a 

 characteristic of the Italian bee?" 



"During the seventies and early eighties 

 this matter of watery-appearing honey was 

 the subject of much discussion among bee- 

 keepers at conventions and elsewhere, for 

 at that time the Italian bee had obtained a 

 good foothold in the United States, and very 

 many condemned them on account of their 

 being so economical of wax and space as 

 to give their comb honey the appearance 

 you say 5'ours had." 



"But you don't think that part of the 

 trouble was in their using less wax, do 

 you?" 



"Yes, I certainly do. Had j'ou noticed 

 more closely you would have discovered 

 that the cappings not only laj' on the hone3% 

 as it were, but the capping itself contained 

 less than half the thickness of wax that is 

 used by the black bees." 



"I did not think of such a thing; but if 

 this is so, there would be quite a saving in 

 this wa3'. " 



"Yes. And this caused a difference in 

 opinion regarding Italian bees, they being 

 condemned by man}' comb-honey men on ac- 

 count of their bad-appearing honey, while 



those who used the extractor were loud in 

 their praise of this qualitj- ; ' for, ' said they, 

 ' as less wax is used, less honey will be con 

 sumed for wax secretion; and this will give 

 us the amount of honey which the black 

 bees use in secreting wax for us to turn di- 

 rectly into cash.' Bear in mind that this 

 was at a time when extracted honey wiis 

 selling at from 20 to 25 cents a pound. 

 Hence it came about that the Italian bee 

 was especially recommended for an apiary 

 worked for extracted honey, while the blacks 

 and hybrids were thought by some to be 

 the better bees for comb hone}'.' 



"I do not wonder at this. But are all 

 Italians alike in this matter?" 



"No. Not long after this it was noticed 

 that certain strains of Italian bees, and 

 those coming from mothers several genera- 

 tions off from imported stock, gave combs 

 of a whiteness which nearly if not quite 

 equaled those produced by black bees, and 

 man}' bee-keepers set to breeding in this di- 

 rection till the success along this white-cap- 

 ping line was so great that scarcely a thing 

 about this matter has appeared during the 

 past twelve or fifteen years in our bee pa- 

 pers." 



"Perhaps the queens I obtained were di- 

 rect from an imported Italian mother. If 

 so, would this not be an objection to further 

 importation of these bees?" 



"This was, at that time, an objection 

 made by some against the further importa- 

 tion of bees from Italy, they claiming that, 

 by such importations, we would have a new 

 warfare to begin till we could breed this 

 watery-capping propensity out of each im- 

 portation. While I think there was some- 

 thing in this objection at that time, still, so 

 far as I know from personal experience, and 

 several facts gleaned from others, a great 

 advance along the line of white capping of 

 comb honey has been made in Italy as well 

 as in this country. You must have gotten 

 hold of some of the worst bees along this 

 line, if they were from queens that were 

 imported from Italy at the present time." 



"You have no doubt that they were Ital- 

 ian bees, have you?" 



"There is a possibility that they were 

 not. With me, the Cyprian bees were far 

 worse along this watery-appearing comb 

 line than the Italians; while the Syro-Ital- 

 ian bees were the worst I ever saw — so 

 much so that their comb honey was hardly 

 salable at any price without explanation, 

 it had such a nasty appearance, especially 

 that produced from any other blossoms than 

 those giving white honey." 



"I would have supposed that this trait in 

 the Italians would have doomed them in the 

 eyes of all comb-honey raisers." 



"It undoubtedly would had it not been 

 for the many good qualities of the Italian 

 bee. But the Italian bee is in this country 

 for its many good qualities, and it is here 

 to stay for all time. But few years more 

 will elapse before this objection we have 

 been talking about will be a thing entirely 

 of the past. But allow me a question : 



