1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



551 



If there wasn't enough honey in the flowers to support them 

 and give a surplus besides, it seems unjust to punish them so 

 severely. I had a lot of bees that behaved the same as yours. 

 In the year 1S94 they not only gave no surplus, but they 

 didn't even get their own living, and to get them through the 

 winter and spring I had to feed them an even ton of granu- 

 lated sugar. 



The next year, 1895, although they got their own living, 

 they gave me no surplus. Now, if at the beginning of the 

 year 1896 I had said to them that they were doomed to die 

 because they had been a loss instead of a profit to me for two 

 years, I would have made a mistake, for this year they have 

 given enough surplus to pay back the ton of sugar and leave 

 me several hundred dollars besides. If no other bees around 

 you are getting surplus, then you may be pretty sure it is not 

 the fault of the bees, but next year may reward your patience. 

 If other bees are getting honey and yours none, then the best 

 thing is to give them another queen so as to change the breed. 

 But please don't kill the poor little creatures for what they 

 can't help. 



How to Make Honcy-Viiiesar. 



Please tell us in the American Bee Journal how honey- 

 vinegar is made. Please give the whole process, and how long 

 it takes to make it. J. F. K. 



Answer. — You can hardly miss in making vinegar of 

 honey. All that's necessary is to have some water with the 

 honey, keep it reasonably warm, and let the air get to its sur- 

 face. The stronger it is the longer it will take to make, and 

 the cooler it is kept the slower will be the acetous fermenta- 

 tion. Probably most of the honey-vinegar is made from the 

 washings of cappings, in which case it would be hard to say 

 how much honey is used to a gallon, and different persons 

 make it of different strength. In the chapter on vinegar in 

 Root's " A B C of Bee-Culture," E. Prance says it takes two 

 pounds of honey to make a gallon of vinegar, and it takes two 

 years to make it. " To know when the water is sweet enough, 

 put in a good, fresh egg, and make the water sweet enough to 

 float the egg so there will be a patch of the shell out of the 

 water about as big as a silver 10-cent piece ; then it is about 

 right. We keep ours standing in barrels, with one head out, 

 to give it air : for air it must have to make vinegar. Tie a 

 square yard of cheese-cloth over the top of the barrel, to keep 

 out dirt and flies and other insects. Keep under cover out of 

 the rain, in a warm, dry, airy place." 



G. D. Black says : " One pound of honey will make one 

 gallon of vinegar, as good as most of the cider and white-wine 

 vinegar that is sold ; but to make strong, No. 1 vinegar, it 

 requires two pounds of honey to the gallon." 



H. A. Palmer says : "One pound of honey will make 

 three gallons of better vinegar than one can buy." 



Probably you can have vinegar in the course of a summer 

 season if you keep it in the hot sun, with plenty of surface to 

 the air, and not more than a pound of honey to the gallon. 



Swarming Bees— WciglU of Swarms— Cliangiiii 

 Depth of Cells— Honey from Corn. 



J. T. H., of Columbus, Ohio, asks on page 486, about 

 non-swarming bees. If he was near here, I could let him have 

 bees that would swarm enough to suit him. I had 43 colonies 

 last spring, and 40 of them swarmed, and two of the swarms 

 swarmed, after they had filled two supers of 24 sections each. 

 I secured 72 swarms in all, three of which "pulled out" for 

 the woods. I doubled some up, some doubled themselves up, 

 and I have now 65 colonies, and have secured over 1,200 

 pounds of basswood honey. I tried to keep them from swarm- 

 ing, too ; some had one super on, and some two, and they were 

 all working in them, too. They had them from one-third to 

 two-thirds filled with comb, and some had begun to seal some 

 of the sections. So I think my bees could satisfy J. T. II. in 

 swarming. 



J. M. asks on page 487 about the weight of prime swarms. 

 I weighed all my swarms for two years, and they averaged 6 

 pounds; that is, the prime swarms, and the second swarms 

 3 pounds. The heaviest prime swarm weighed 8 pounds, 

 and the lightest 5}.j pounds. I have the S-frame hive. 



Now, I would like to ask a few questions, but I have not 

 the " cannon " loaded quite as heavily as a year ago. 



1. When a prime swarm is hived on starters or empty 

 frames, they rear brood close to the top-bars, but when that 

 brood hatches they lengthen the cells along the top-bars for 2 

 or 3 inches down, or more, and fill them with honey. Now, 



do they shorten those cells the next year, and rear brood in 

 them again, or do they leave the cells long ? I rather think 

 they shorten them the next spring, as some of mine had 

 worker-brood clear up to the top-bars, and drone-brood on the 

 side of the V of the top-bars this spring, but I afn not sure 

 whether those frames had longer cells than brood-cells last 

 year, or not. 



2. How long after a prime swarm is hived on empty 

 frames with one-inch starters, does the queen begin laying? 

 This summer I had a weak queenless colony that I wanted to 

 put a prime swarm in with, so I hived a prime swarm in a box 

 and stood them quietly, in the evening, on top of the queenless 

 one, and in 86 hours they had not gone down, so I smoked 

 them down, and in that time they had comb built and some 

 eggs in it, so I know they will lay in 36 hours, but I don't 

 know how much sooner. 



3. Do bees gather honey from corn blossoms ? Last year 

 I got a lot of amber honey between basswood and golden-rod, 

 and the bees were thick on the corn, but they seemed to all 

 have pollen. This year they were not as thick on the corn, 

 and I am not getting so much amber honey. There are lots 

 of pumpkins, squash, melons, cucumbers and smart-weed in 

 range of my bees. 



4. Do bees gather both honey and pollen at the same time ? 

 Chanhassen, Minn. J. M. S. 



Answers. — 1. You will find the same depth of cells always 

 for worker-brood, and always the same for drone-brood. If 

 bees lengthen out the cells when storing honey, as they may 

 do no matter in what part of the frame, whenever those cells 

 are to be used again for breeding purposes they are cut down 

 to the regular size before an egg is laid in them. Put into the 

 middle of a brood-nest a comb of sealed honey two inches 

 thick, at a time when bees are anxious to rear brood, and you 

 will find that the bees will commence at the lower part, 

 emptying out the cells and cutting them down to the proper 

 depth, and sometimes you will find the deep cells at the upper 

 part, still sealed over, and immediately adjoining the shallow 

 cells with eggs and brood. A waste of wax and work, of 

 course, but what better can they do ? 



2. I cannot answer with authority, but I suppose in much 

 less than 36 hours, for the queen is often found dropping 

 eggs immediately after the swarm is hived, one of the ways of 

 telling whether the queen is with the swarm being to put a 

 blackboard under so that the white eggs dropped on it will 

 show plainly. Now just as soon as the bees can get the foun- 

 dation drawn out to the depth of a quarter of an inch or less, 

 the queen v.'ill lay in the shallow cells, and that may be in 12 

 hours, possibly in half that time. After you have made some 

 carefufobservations in the matter as you have regarding the 

 weight of swarms — for which please accept thanks — will you 

 kindly give us the result of your observations '? 



3. I dou't know. I have some doubts whether corn- 

 tassels yield anything but pollen. Bees sometimes gather 

 something in the line of nectar from the joints of the leaves 

 of the corn. 



4. The principal honey-plants yield both honey and pol- 

 len. Of the remaining larger number, some yield honey only, 

 and some only pollen. When working on plants that yield 

 both honey and pollen, some bees gather only honey, and some 

 both honey and pollen. I doubt whether a bee ever gathers 

 only pollen from a blossom that contains nectar at the time 

 the bee visits it. I think you will generally find the heaviest 

 loads of pollen early in the day, and perhaps the same is true 

 of honey, but toward the middle of the day you will find the 

 larger number of bees entering the hive with honey only. 



The Alsike Clover Leaflet consists of 2 pages, 

 with Illustrations, showing the value of Alsike clover, and 

 telling how to grow it. This Leaflet is just the thing to hand 

 to every farmer in your neighborhood. Send to the Bee Jour- 

 nal office for a quantity of them, and see that they are dis- 

 tributed where they will do the most good. Prices, postpaid, 

 are as follows : 50 for 25 cents ; 100 for 40 cents ; or 200 

 for 70 cents. 



The Names and Addresses of all your bee- 

 friends, who are'not now taking the Bee Journal, are wanted 

 at this oQice. Send them in, please, when sample copies will 

 be mailed to them. Then you can secure their subscriptions, 

 and earn some of the premiums we have offered. The 

 next few months will be just the time to easily get new sub- 

 scribers. Try it earnestly, at least. 



See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 557. 



