540 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Sept. 1 



SIX HUNDRED COLONIES SHIPPED BY 

 RAIL IN HOT WEATHER. 



Although Many of the Combs were New, 



Few were Broken; Queens Reared 



on the Journey. 



BY WARREN C. DYER. 



In an issue of the April number of Glean- 

 ings you asked for a communication from 

 any one who had had experience in shipping 

 bees by rail. As we have just returned from 

 Arkansas with 600 colonies of bees, we will 

 give you the benefit of our experience. 

 " We made screens of ]gxl, '/2-inch lumber, 

 the size of the hive. The wire was then 

 placed on these frames, and half-inch strips 

 nailed on each side, and quarter-inch strips 

 at each end. We placed one on the top and 

 bottom of each hive with four six-penny 

 nails to each screen. We also bored a three- 

 (ILiarter-inch hole in the end of each hive. 

 This work was finished June 4. That night 

 we put corks in the holes bored in the ends 

 of the hive, loaded them into lumber wagons 

 (no springs), sent them to the station four 

 miles from the yard, and loaded them in cat- 

 tle-cars. 



In the car we made three rows on each 

 side with an aisle in the center, and another 

 aisle across the car at the door. 



We had no hand-hold cleats on the hives, 

 and this fact allowed us to pack them so 

 they could not move a particle with the 

 humping of the cars. We finished loading 

 June 5 at 2 o'clock P. M., and pulled out of 

 Boughton, Ark., at 6 that evenmg. 



The weather on the 5th, 6th, and 7th was 

 extremely warm, and there was no breeze 

 except what the train made. We gave the 

 bees water twice and sometimes three times 

 a day. On the 6th we were laid out about 

 five hours in the heat of the day at Ozark, 

 Ark., on account of a wreck ahead of us; 

 and as it was very hot and clear, with no air 

 stirring, we were fearful that we might lose 

 some of the colonies, and what little loss we 

 did have occurred at that point. 



We arrived at Wichita, Kansas, at about 

 8 P.M. on the 7th, and that night it stormed 

 pretty hard. The next day was cloudy and 

 cool, and not extremely warm the rest of the 

 way. We arrived at Boulder, Col., at 2 p.m. 

 on the 10th; unloaded that afternoon, haul- 

 ing the hives in wagons with no springs about 

 three-fourths of a mile; turned the bees loose 

 that evening, having been closed up for ex- 

 actly six days. Our total loss consisted of 

 three colonies that smothered. We tried to 

 divide up all large stocks into two boxes, but 

 these three must have been missed, and I 

 think they died at Ozark, as, the next day 

 after we were laid out, there was a smell of 

 dead bees inside the car. 



I was surprised at one thing, and that is, I 

 could not see that the brood was hurt a par- 

 ticle in the shipping, and the colonies that 

 we had to divide up on account of being so 

 heavy in brood raised queens and took care 

 of these cells on the train Five days after 



we arrived I saw twelve (jueens hatched 

 from one colony in less than twenty minutes, 

 and I could not see but they were perfect 

 (jueens. Nearly every hive that had no 

 queen raised queen- cells, and we saw none 

 that were not hatched or had live queens in 

 the cells. We did not leave over ten pounds 

 of honey in any one hive. Half of the colo- 

 nies were shipped on new combs or on full 

 sheets of medium brood foundation in wired 

 frames. 



Our breakage in the 600 colonies did not 

 amount to one dozen combs, and none of the 

 foundation was hurt a particle. In my opin- 

 ion, however, combs built in Arkansas are 

 much heavier and tougher than those built 

 in Colorado, and will stand much harder 

 usage. 



Boulder, Colorado, June 22. 



HONEY-DEW HONEY. 



The Requirements of the Pure-food Law 

 in Regard to it. 



BY W. A. SELSER. 



[A subscriber recently Hsked us several questions in 

 regard to the attitude of the law concerning the sale of 

 honey-dew honey; and knowing Mr. Selser to be an 

 authority on the subject we referred the letter to him. 

 His reply will be of interest also to oihers who may 

 have fell in doubt as to what they could do with the 

 honey which their bees gathered.— Ed.] 



It would be ruinous for a bee-keeper to 

 put up "honey-dew honey " and sell it for 

 honey. You will, no doubt, understand the 

 matter more clearly when I tell you that the 

 pure-food law was drafted, not so much lo 

 stop adulteration as it was to state honest 

 facts to the consumer. In other words, we 

 could say that the pure-food law means sim- 

 ply honest sales. A bee-keeper has a perfect 

 right to put all the glucose he wants to in 

 his honey if he so desires; but when he puts 

 it in any receptacle and offers it for sale, he 

 must state on the package just what he has 

 put in it. Now, that is fair, is it not? It is 

 the most common-sense bill I have ever heard 

 passed by Congress. Dr. Wiley had a per- 

 sonal talk with the writer shortly after this 

 bill was passed, and on this very subject of 

 honey-dew. Dr. Wiley stated that the law 

 did not want the poor bee-keeper to stop sell- 

 ing all the honey-dew his bees gathered; but 

 he positively must state on the article offer- 

 ed for sale, "Honey-dew Honey." 



You also may know that this applies to any 

 honey gathered from various sources; viz., if 

 you put white-clover honey in a bottle, and 

 so brand it, it must be strictly white-clover 

 honey, and nothing else, etc. But in the case 

 of honey-dew it is really not honey at all. It 

 is simply "bug juice." As you may know, 

 it is gathered from a secretion of the aphis, 

 a little leaf-insect, and is largely dextrose, 

 while honey is largely levulose. Nectar, as 

 it is gathered by the bees as it comes in its 

 original state from the plant, is largely levu- 

 lose. So you can readily see that honey-dew 

 is absolutely not honey at all. We have 



