64 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



Heads of Grain 



From Different Fields 



COMB-HONEY GRADING-BULES; A CRITICISM. 



I wish to take exceptions to the editor's note 

 on page 1316, Nov. 1, in reply to the article by 

 J. C. Davis on grading comb honey. 



We have been trying to educate our brother bee- 

 keepers so we might improve our grades in comb 

 honey. The illustration is marked " properly 

 graded honey." In the first place, no illustration 

 should ever be published showing as much un- 

 sealed honey in any grade. 



In the second place, I fail to see where the il- 

 lustrations fit even the Eastern grading-rules, 

 and I claim that such cuts are misleading to 

 amateur bee-keepers. 



For several years 1 have had trouble with bee- 

 keepers who have shipped honey with me iq car 

 lots, who tried to grade their honey by the rules 

 published in Gleanings. We western bee-keep- 

 ers believe that the fewer grades we have the bet- 

 ter, as long as all the honey is covered properly. 

 As the editor says, we get so small a precentage 

 of so-called "fancy" honey that we have no use 

 for the fancy grade. At the last annual meeting 

 of the Colorado State Bee-keepers' Association we 

 revised our grading-rules, and included another 

 grade called No. 1, light amber. Our rules in re- 

 gard to this require the same weight, proper cap- 

 ings, etc., as is required in No 1 white. In fact, 

 it is No. 1 honey in every way except that it is 

 slightly off color. We believe that no honey 

 should be placed in the regular grades that has, be- 

 sides the outside row, more than 25 unsealed cells. 

 N. L. Henthorne, 



Sec. Colorado State Bee-keepers' Association. 



Platteville, Colo., Nov. 23. 



[If the reader will turn to the Colorado grad- 

 ing-rules published occasionally at the head of 

 our Honey Column elsewhere he will understand 

 better the arguments of our correspondent. — Ed.] 



ALEXANDER'S BEES DO NOT REACH ALL THE 

 BUCKWHEAT IN THE LOCALITY; THE MATTER 

 OF OVERSTOCKING IN A BUCKWHEAT COU.NTRY. 



I think Mr. Orton's ideas, page 1504, Dec. 15, 

 are entirely correct in regard to the amount of 

 buckwheat reached by Mr. Alexander's bees be- 

 ing greatly overestimated I'm something of a 

 walker, and during my spare time in the two 

 seasons I worked for Mr. E. W. Alexander I 

 traveled the roads in every direction around De- 

 lanson. I think not a tenth of the land in reach 

 of his bees was ever sowed to buckwheat in one 

 season, and most of this was of the poorer Japan- 

 ese sort. 



I believe that the number of colonies that can 

 be kept in one locality has been greatly underes- 

 timated. I now have about 150 colonies here; 

 and around me within a four-mile circle are more 

 than 1200 colonies belonging to my neighbors. 

 In spite of this, I got more honey per colony 

 than did any of my neighbors that I know of, 

 and some of them had twice the amount of buck- 

 wheat and not a quarter of the bees. I even beat 

 the Alexanders a little, though their big yard ten 

 m les away by road was second. 



Mr Oiton was wrong about the Alexander 

 honey-tanks, as each tank holds only t-ivo tons 

 or about eight tons in all. They are hardly 

 large enough, as it takes a two-ton tank to ripen 

 the honey properly from 150 extracting-supers in 

 a good honey-flow. R. V. Cox. 



Sloansville, N. Y., Dec. 21. 



[When we visited Mr. Alexander, some years 

 ago, he said he had found some of his bees, which 

 he traced by the line of flight back home, in 

 buckwheat-fields three and even five miles away 

 from his home. Ordinarily bees do not fly that 

 far; but he said that, in a hilly country such as 

 he had, they would fly further across valleys than 

 over level country or through woods and under- 

 brush. It was not difficult for us to understand 

 Tv/iy /50 colonies could be supported in one api- 

 ary, when Mr. Alexander offered this explana- 

 tion. 



We remember also how Mr. Alexander point- 

 ed out fields that were some three miles away, 

 and some even five miles. As his apiary was lo- 

 cated on a hill, the bees, if they have long dis- 

 tance vision (and he thought they had), could see 

 these white patches, and naturally go to them as 

 fast as the nectar supply in nearby fields was 

 taken up. 



Then another fact that he gave us was that his 

 bees undoubtedly gathered a very large part of 

 the honey from asters, which were in bloom 

 about the same time. — Ed ] 



HOW DID THE QUEEN GET IN THE OTHER HIVE.' 



Wishing to add more rapidly to my small api- 

 ary I bought two colonies of bees June 18th. 

 One of them did not incie.ise, and upon examin- 

 ation I found that the bees had four combs drawn 

 out, but no signs of queen or brood. I waited 

 two days and went through the hive again very 

 carefully, but could find no signs of a queen; but 

 there was a capped queen-cell on one of the 

 combs; and, being curious to see the inside, I 

 clipped the end of the cell off but there was no 

 larva inside. The queen-cell was surrounded by 

 about fifteen drone-cells containing larv^, which 

 I would think indicated a laying worker, although 

 there were no eggs nor larva? in any of the work- 

 er-cells. 



I cut out these cells and introduced a queen in 

 the usual way, leaving her in the cage three days 

 before releasing her. The minute she crawled 

 among them they balled her. I put her back in 

 the cage and tacked a thin piece of pasteboard 

 over the hole in the cage, but at the end of two 

 days they had released her and killed her. 



I gave them a fiame of brood from another 

 hive, but they refused to raise a queen. I then 

 gave them»three capped cjueen-cells from another 

 hive, but they immediately cut them out. 



In August I had a very large swarm come off 

 another hive, and after hiving it I placed it by 

 the side of the queenless hive that had been tear- 

 ing down the cells, intending to unite them in a 

 few days. Three days after, I proceded to unite 

 the two colonies; but when I opened the queen- 

 less hive I was surprised to find just a small hand- 

 ful of bees with a queen, also a number of the 

 brood-cells containing eggs. 



I immediately closed the hive and carefully 

 went through the swarm that had been placed 



