1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



539 



then white cappinos again from the same 

 colony. Perhaps variation of honey-flow 

 might have explained in his particular case; 

 but from careful observation 1 conckide that 

 the strain or breed of bees has ahnost all to 

 do with it. In the sprino- and early summer 

 of 1907 about 300 Holy Land queens were 

 shipped into this valley, and introduced in 

 five different yards. Since then we have 

 come to own all these bees; and one of the 

 most noticeable things about them is their 

 greasy capped honey. So different was the 

 honey they made and are still making that 

 one can go into these yards where they were 

 introduced here and there among the Italians, 

 and by raising the covers and looking at the 

 cappings of the honey tell which hives have 

 the Holy Land queens. Now, considering 

 that there were some 300 of these queens 

 scattered through about 1500 colonies, and 

 that most of the comb honey we took from 

 them was so greasy in appearance that we 

 had to crate it separately and sell it at a much 

 reduced price, while the Italians at the same 

 time and in the same yards made thousands 

 of pounds of the finest white honey, we must 

 conclude that the strain or breed of bees had 

 something to do with the greasy cappings. 

 I wish that Mr. Whitney would carry his ex- 

 periment a little further by sending for a 

 good Holy Land queen, and then, after giv- 

 ing her plenty of room and ventilation, re- 

 port. I should be much interested, for I have 

 condemned the Holy Land breed more on 

 account of their greasy capped honey than 

 for any thing else. I may have made a mis- 

 take, but I think not. I recall two or three 

 hives which I have watched so closely on 

 this point that I am sure that, in the last two 

 seasons, they have not capped a single sec- 

 tion or frame white, although I have some- 

 times had them working in as many as three 

 full-depth extracting-supers at once. Some 

 of these Holy Land bees are in the shade all 

 day, and some in the sun. Some of them 

 have good tight covers on the hives, and 

 others an old shade-board thrown over them 

 with cracks wide enough to admit one's fin- 

 ger, but I never noticed a case where the 

 bees were evidently of the best Holy Land 

 stock, and capped their honey white. 

 Mesilla Park, N. M. 



w.\ter-soakp:i) as well as white cappings 

 made by bees of the same colony. 

 Last season was very wet throughout the 

 latter part of May and all of June, but I got a 

 big crop of honey. The heavy flow of 

 " white " and light-colored honey ceased sud- 

 denly the latter part of July, and there was 

 nothing doing for a short time, about a week 

 or ten days, when the bees commenced 

 bringing in ifreely of a darkish honey, pre- 

 sumably from smartweed and heartsease. I 

 had left all the supers on after removing the 

 filled sections, as I then had noplace to store 

 them, and was hoping for a late flow of hon- 

 ey. It came, and the bees commenced just 

 where they had left off; but what a change! 

 The June and July honey was capped with 



coverings as white as snow, while the combs 

 were plump; but the darker honey was as 

 "watery" or "greasy" as any I ever saw, 

 tlie capping being in direct contact with the 

 honey at every point, while the combs were 

 fully '4 inch or more thinner than the white 

 combs to which they were built. 



There had been no time for a change of 

 (jueens by supersedure or swarming, nor a 

 new generation of bees — that is, entire; and 

 I am convinced that this phenomenon of 

 greasy or watery capping is due, not to a lazy 

 or hustling queen (bees), but to some condi- 

 tion of supply, temperature, ventilation, or 

 perhaps to the density or flavor of the honey 

 itself. 



Again, in a section-holder I have before 

 me, taken off yesterday, are four sections. 

 One is capped as white as a sheet of pa- 

 per, while the one beside it shows "watery " 

 cappings. Another of the four is capped 

 largely white; but in the midst of the snow 

 are cells with cappings as translucent as par- 

 affine paper. In the same super were other 

 sections showing the peculiarity in a very 

 marked degree. 



Lastly, the shallow "bait "frame is capped 

 snow-white save for a row of holes next to 

 the wood (lower bar) which are capped fair- 

 ly transparent. 



I have no doubt you have seen the same 

 thing many times, and I wonder at the dis- 

 cussion now that I have looked into it. 



Dr. a. F. Bonney. 



Buck Grove, Iowa, June 22. 



CAPPINGS "greasy" BECAUSE BEES CLUSTER 



TOO CLOSELY ON THEM, PUSHING THEM 



DOWN TO THE HONEY. 



I think Mr. Whitney is nearly correct in 

 his conclusions, p. 362. Some twenty years 

 ago, when producing honey in sections I saw 

 many cases of it, and always in the strong 

 colonies of Italians. The first proof I found 

 bearing on the subject was when the combs 

 in some hives melted down, the combs near 

 the melted ones presented that same watery 

 appearance. Second, I found that, by rais- 

 ing the front end of the hive half an inch off 

 the bottom, and giving a little ventilation 

 and shade at the top I seldom found any of 

 it. The queen is somewhat indirectly re- 

 sponsible for it, in my opinion, because the 

 bees of some colonies cluster closer on the 

 combs than others. The black bees will usu- 

 ally run out of the hive and cluster on the 

 outside before the capping is soft enough to 

 be crushed down upon the honey by them. 



Mauston, Wis., July 1. F. WiLCOX. 



[Apparently there are two sides to this 

 question. It would seem that there are some 

 conditions under which a strain of bees will 

 produce greasy sections and other conditions 

 when they will produce combs with snow- 

 white cappings. It also seems to be ecjually 

 true that there are some strains that are 



fiven to producing watery-looking honey, 

 he testimony of the New Mexico Chap ap- 

 pears to support that position. — Ed.] 



