164 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



March IS 1900 



Having the light I carefully proceed along the rows of 

 hives, looking closely for any traces of mice, for so far I 

 have not succeeded in fully keeping mice from any bee-cel- 

 lar. The presence of mice is detected by finding heads and 

 abdomens of bees with the thorax gone, the same having 

 been eaten, and by fragments of comb under the hives. If 

 these are found buy a common choker trap, if you do not 

 have anj', and for bait use squash or pumpkin seeds, as 

 these have an attraction for the mice beyond anything else 

 ever used in or on a trap. 



Having the mouse question settled, I next look at the 

 bees at the bottom of the combs. "Where wintering well 

 only rows of abdomens appear, the points all standing out- 

 ward, and nearly or quite motionless, unless you have been 

 awkward in your movements so as to arouse them need- 

 lessly. Be careful not to hold the light too near, or breathe 

 on the bees, as they are easily aroused by either of these. 

 I sometimes raise the covers to a few hives and look in at 

 the top of the frames, but as this can rarely be done with- 

 out disturbing the bees, it is better not to do it unless some 

 positive need requires it. 



As I am about taking my departure I look at the tem- 

 perature, which to-day (Feb. 28) was 46 degrees, which is as 

 near right as any unless such should be 45 degrees. But 

 should it go down to 42 degrees, or rise to SO degrees, the 

 bees would show but little difference, except that the mur- 

 mur heard would be somewhat louder. 



At the near approach of the time for putting bees out, 

 the hum will become louder, they will not remain so quiet 

 under the light from the candle, and more will go to the 

 cellar-bottom, even when wintering in good shape. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Color Cards for Grading- Honey, Etc. 



BY WM. MUTH-RASMUSSKN. 



MR. E. E. HASTY (page 38) does not seem to "catch 

 on " to the object of color cards for classifying honey. 

 Comb honey is clast as white, light amber, amber and 

 dark. By these designations it is quoted in the various 

 markets. The classification applies only to the color of the 

 honey, and has nothing to do with the whiteness, greasi- 

 ness, evenness, fullness, or any other external feature of 

 he comb. 



When I am grading and packing my honey, it is of im- 

 portance to me that my grade marks shall be correct and 

 acceptable in any market where the honey may go. If part 

 of my honey is called light amber in one market, and am- 

 ber in another ; and another part of it is called amber and 

 dark in different markets, I never know how I stand, or 

 what I may expect to get for my honey crop. Hence, the 

 necessity of having a definite standard to go by. 



If we could always be sure of the source of the honey, 

 we might designate it as White Clover, Basswood, Alfalfa, 

 Sage, Buckwheat, etc.; but this is not always practicable, 

 particularly with the colored honeys. The classification 

 should be uniform for the whole country, so that a case 

 markt " Amber " by me will be accepted and paid for as 

 amber, whether it is sold in San Francisco, Chicago, or 

 New York, and not knockt down as " Dark " after it leaves 

 my hands and control. If customers prefer dark honey in 

 a white comb, the correct grading and classification is just 

 what will enable them to get what they want with the least 

 trouble. 



_^^^^ WHAT MAKESJa laying WORKER ? 



To this question (page 39) Dr. Miller gives his usual 

 answer. Allow me to advance a theory in this regard. The 

 nurse-bees are governed in their activity partly by the tem- 

 perature and partly by the amount of nectar and pollen 

 brought in by the field-workers. It has been said that the 

 queen is furnisht with a special, prepared food, which stim- 

 ulates her reproductive organs and causes her to lay. Ac- 

 cording as this food is furnisht in greater or lesser quanti- 

 ties, the egg-laying is increast or diminisht. When this 

 queen-food is entirely withheld, the egg-laying ceases for 

 the time being. 



I believe that all worker-bees are capable of laying at 

 some time of their existence, if not thru the whole of their 

 adult life. Under normal conditions the queen-food is 

 never offered to worker-bees, but when a colony is queenless 

 and anxious for brood, may not the nurse-bees select such 

 workers as in their judgment are most capable of egg-lay- 

 ing and furnish them with queen-food? and may not this 

 queen-food have the same stimulative effect on the dormant 



and defective organs of these workers as it has on the 

 queen ? "I don't know," but I think so. 



REMINISCENCES — HONEY--EXTR ACTORS. 



In Gleanings in Bee-Culture is a description of the Pea- 

 body honey-extractor — the first extractor made and sold in 

 this country — together with illustrations of the machine 

 and its inventor. How this brings up memories of olden 

 times, when Wagner, L,angstroth, Ouinby, Grimm, Novice, 

 Baldridge, Heddon, Argo, and many others, more or less 

 unknown to the present generation, used to write for the 

 American Bee Journal. 



In the spring of 1871 1 bought my first extractor of Mr. 

 Peabody, and, when sending it, he wrote: "I have just 

 received an order for another extractor from California." 

 As far as I am aware, I was the first bee-keeper on the 

 Pacific Coast to own and operate a honey-extractor. If any 

 one preceded me, let him arise and claim the priority. 



Previous to thatr time all liquid honey was here pro- 

 duced by the sun-extractor, or, as we called it, the " sun- 

 strainer." The first sun-strainer I workt with had a capacity 

 of a ton on a hot day. That was in Southern California. 



Inyo Co., Calif. 



NO. 3.— COMB HONEY PRODUCTION. 



Spreading- Brood— Encouraging- Breeding- — 

 Strengthening Weak Colonies. 



BY R. C. AIKIN. 



THE preceding article closed with my method of spread- 

 ing brood by putting the combs back end foremost, i.e., 

 putting the end of the comb having brood in it to the 

 back of the hive, and the honey end to the front. The same 

 thing may be practiced by simply turning the entire brood- 

 chamber half around, but of course this can only be done 

 with hives having loose bottoms and the entrance in the 

 bottom-board. 



To thus change the position of the brood is a splendid 

 way to get the combs full of brood from end to end. It is 

 the nature of the bees to cluster near the entrance, ^^?if?"o//)/ 

 right at the entrance, and this results in the brood-nest be- 

 ing close to the front of the hive. This rule will be more 

 nearly universal in sunny climes, and where the hives face 

 the sun. To face them north would cause very many colo- 

 nies to start breeding at the back, but simply because there 

 they find the most heat and the driest part of the hive. 

 Also to face east or west will cause many to start at the 

 side, but in this case the brood will usually be nearest the 

 entrance end. 



After the starting of the brood-nest at the very begin- 

 ning, the way it is spread thereafter depends upon the loca- 

 tion of the entrance, in the early spring spreading both 

 toward the entrance and toward the warm side ; but once 

 the colony becomes fairly strong, then mainly toward the 

 entrance. If the first breeding of the season has been 

 about the center of the front end, thej- will spread cross- 

 wise of the combs, and have brood in almost, if not quite, 

 every comb, while there is a lot of the back ends free of 

 brood. 



Following these ideas I reverse the order when a colony 

 has fairly started, so as to have the equivalent of I'i to 3 

 combs of brood, even with less than that if the weather is 

 warm and the bees seem able to guard the entrance so far 

 from the breeding cluster. This plan gets the combs filled 

 with brood from end to end, and while we get no less brood 

 — probably more — it is in fewer combs. It surely encour- 

 ages breeding, for the bees will stretch the cluster to the 

 front to guard the exit, thus taking all that can be spared 

 from the brood, and the queen, finding bees all over the 

 combs, and the honey being cleared from the part of the 

 comb near to the front, occupies with eggs. It is nice 

 when I want to contract a brood-nest by putting in a 

 dummy, to find 6 or 8 combs of brood in 6 or S and not in 

 10 combs. 



I also make use of the same idea to stimulate breeding 

 — I reverse combs having the back ends full of honey and 

 the fronts empty, when the bees uncap and move the honey 

 back. If a colony is made to handle honey, and have much 

 in their sacs, they feed the queen and brood well, and we 

 gain much the same effect on breeding as if they gathered 

 from the fields. 



The effect of these manipulations will be by far more 

 noticeable if there be no gathering from the fields. If nec- 

 tar is being brought in of course we lose the effect of the 



