806 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOLHWAL. 



Dec. 17, 1903. 



lower story, previous to swarming-, there will be no laying 

 of eggs in the supers. The breeding in supers takes place 

 mainly in very small hives— 8-frame hives, or smaller— be- 

 cause a prolific queen finds herself cramped for room, and, 

 of course, will seek all chances of depositing eggs. In large 

 hives — those of 10 frames or more— the laying of eggs in the 

 super takes place only in irregular seasons, when the flow 

 is intermittent, so that combs are built, partly filled, and 

 then partly emptied during bad weather, or a change in con- 

 ditions. Those combs that have been fresh built, and 

 emptied of the honey, are open to the queen, and she will 

 find them readily if in search of additional room. It is, of 

 course, unpleasant for the apiarist to see his nice sections 

 spoiled in appearance by brood, for those combs in which 

 brood has been reared, even but one time, are fit only for 

 storage-combs, and not salable. But in a good season, when 

 the flow is uninterrupted and strong, the bees fill the combs 

 as fast as they are built, and the spaces left empty are 

 scarce. The queen then remains over the brood and refills 

 the brood-cells as fast as the young bees hatch. 



In producing extracted honey by our method, with half- 

 story combs above a large brood-chamber, the breeding in 

 upper stories is very rare, and only, as I have said before, 

 in irregular seasons, when quite a number of cells are left 

 within reach of the queen. We found that even the placing 

 of empty combs in the supers above the brood would not 

 draw the queen above, if the thing was done in time, that 

 is, before the combs below are too much crowded with 

 honey. After one super is full of honey the other empty 

 supers may be added above without much danger of the 

 queen crossing over a half-story of full combs to hunt for 

 cells. In all but exceptional instances the queen will not 

 go far from the brood-center to lay. On the other hand, 

 when the bees are run for extracted honey, it matters very 

 little whether brood is hatched in the supers, provided the 

 colony does not entirely desert the brood-combs to locate 

 above. This happens sometimes, but the instances of this 

 kind are so rare that I have never thought it worth while to 

 bother with the excluders for the sake of avoiding it. 



The greatest objection to the queen laying eggs in the 

 supers when the colony is run for extracted honey, is that 

 often drone-combs are located in the super. If the queen 

 finds these, and she is tired of laying worker-eggs, we take 

 it that it is a rest to her to lay in drone-cells, either because 

 of the different positions in which her body is placed for 

 laying, or because the fecundation of the eggs that are 

 to hatch as workers gives her more fatigue than the laying 

 of eggs that pass through the oviduct without coming in 

 contact with the sperm-sac. At any rate, it is positive that 

 there are times when the queen will seek drone-cells, and it 

 is usually when she has been laying eggs regularly, and in 

 large numbers for some time. 



If every comb in the super has been built on comb 

 foundation, there will be no more drone-comb in the upper 

 story than in the lower, but this is not always the case. We 

 used to save cur drone-combs, those cut out of the brood- 

 chamber, to place them in the extracting supers, and we 

 had a great many such combs in use when we recognized 

 the fact that it would have been cheaper, in the long run, to 

 have rendered up these combs for wax, and used worker- 

 combs in the entire hive, supers and all, owing to the 

 queen's occasional use of the drone-combs. The combs are 

 not a temporary investment ; they are to the bee-keeper al- 

 most the equivalent of real estate to the farmer, for they 

 need never be destroyed, and they increase in value and 

 strength with age, so that extracting-combs that have been 

 in use 30 years are really better than new ones. So the 

 primary cost of these combs is insignificant when compared 

 to their usefulness. 



I am convinced that the laying of eggs in the super by 

 queens does not depend altogether upon the more or less 

 fertility of the queens, but depends mainly upon the condi- 

 tions of the season, and my reason for believing this is, that 

 there are seasons when not a single queen lays eggs in the 

 upper story, vphile there are other seasons, rare ones, 

 when perhaps one-fourth of the queens in an apiary will 

 occupy the upper story with brood, if there is any room 

 there at all. If this brood is layed in worker-cells in extract- 

 ing-combs, there is no harm done, but if it is in drone-cells, 

 we have lost a portion of our crop, for it takes a large 

 amount of food to rear and sustain those worthless gor- 

 mands for the ephemeral duration of their life. 



Hancock Co., 111. 



The Premiums we offer are all well worth working for 

 LfOok at them. 



Eucalyptus Honey— Dark vs. Light. 



BY E. V. PAGAN. 



WHEREVER the famous eucalyptus will grow we 

 should think that bee-keepers would aid in planting 

 it. Its honey is delicious, of excellent flavor, thick 

 in body, though rather dark in color." So says the Editor 

 on page 757. 



I am not going to dispute that eucalyptus honey is 

 " delicious " to you, Mr. Editor. I have tasted several dif- 

 ferent samples of it that came from Australia, its native 

 place, and I surely would not class it as delicious. Some of 

 it might pass as tolerably fair in flavor, but I think the 

 majority of persons would vote none of it better than that, 

 and some of it as unfit for table use. For years the effort 

 has been made to find a market for it in London, but the 

 effort has not been a great success. Australians say it is 

 excellent honey, but the people of England do not agree 

 with them. 



A very little of some kinds of eucalyptus honey would 

 greatly damage any kind of light honey for my taste, and I 

 suspect it would for the general public of this country, so 

 that I should much dislike to have eucalyptus grow in 

 my locality if it should yield at the same time with plants 

 yielding the best white honey. It might, in some localities, 

 prove an English sparrow among honey-plants. 



COLOR OF HONEY. 



On page 757, W. A. Pryal says : " I believe the time is 

 not far off when color in honey will not cut much of a figure 

 so long as the article is of good flavor. To my notion, some 

 of the amber-colored honey I have tasted surpassed any of 

 the so-called white honeys ;" and the Editor adds : "Color in 

 honey is now, and has been, a fad which we are certain will 

 pass away like many another senseless fad." 



Is not all of that said under a misconception ? Does 

 color, in and of itself cut any great figure to-day ? Suppose 

 that all the white honeys were dark, and that all the dark 

 honeys were light, and that they had always been so ; do 

 you think that water-white buckwheat honey, with its rank 

 taste, would come any nearer to the price of alfalfa honey of 

 a dark hue than does the present dark buckwheat to the " 

 white alfalfa ? Buckwheat honey is lower in price now 

 than alfalfa, not because it is darker, but because of the dif- 

 ference in flavor, and it so happens that most honey of light 

 color happens to suit the taste of most people better than 

 the generality of dark honey. In general, a lighter color is 

 a sign of a better flavor, and, so long as that continues, the 

 fad for light color will continue. 



Since writing the foregoing, I asked a lady whether she 

 preferred the dark or light color in honey. With some lit- 

 tle hesitation she gave her preference to the dark color. 

 It was the answer I expected, for I knew in advance that 

 she preferred the taste of the dark. Very likely you will 

 find that those who prefer buckwheat and the stronger- 

 flavored honeys — and there are many of them — will all pre- 

 fer the darker colors ; and when the time comes that the 

 majority of the people like the taste of dark better than 

 light honey, then the fad will change — hardly till then. 



[We are always glad to get sensible and honest criti- 

 cism of what we may say in these columns. We hope, also, 

 that we may never seem to convey the " know it all " im- 

 pression in what we write. We don't know a great many 

 things, and are learning all the time. 



Now, after having written that paragraph, we want to 

 say further that after a number of years of experience in the 

 honey-business, dealing with thousands of grocers, the 

 great majority are faddish enough to think that they must 

 have light-colored honey. They care little for the flavor, 

 only so it is light-colored. 



As to the flavor of eucalyptus honey, we were not speak- 

 ing of imported eucalyptus honey. Our sample came direct 

 from California, and it was most excellent honey, in flavor, 

 body, and color. There may be varieties of eucalpytus 

 honey just as there are of alfalfa and other honeys. 



We shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Pagan would some day 

 be glad to have even eucalyptus honey rather than none at 

 all. What bee-keepers need is a sure, annual yielder, for 

 no matter what the color or flavor (so long as wholesome) 

 may be, there will be a demand for it somewhere in this 

 wide land of ours. — Editor.] 



