THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



261 



was placed in the cellar 6 or 8 weeks 

 previous. 



When I ih-st commenced keeping 

 bees, I stored my honey in a light 

 room on the north side of the house, 

 where it usually remained from 4 to 6 

 weeks before crating for market, and 

 some of the first boxes remained 

 much longer than this. In crating 

 this honey, I always found the centre 

 and back side of the piie watery and 

 transparent in appearance. As that 

 which was stored first was always the 

 M'orst, I thought it must be owing to 

 that being the poorest or least ripened 

 honey, until one year 1 chanced to 

 place this early honey by itself in a 

 warm, airy room, when, to my sur- 

 prise, I found upon crating it, that 

 this first honey had kept perfectly, 

 while the later honey stored in the old 

 room was as watery as ever. This 

 gave me theclue to the whole thing, 

 so when I built my shop, I located my 

 honey-room in the southwest corner 

 of the building, and painted the south 

 and west sides a dark color to draw 

 the heat from the midday and after- 

 noon sun. On two sides of this room 

 I fixed a platform one foot from the 

 floor, so arranged that the sections 

 rested on the edges of strips lj^x.3 



• inches, which were long enough to 

 hold l.s sections. The sections were 

 often piled on these strips until they 

 were 12 to 14 high, and 20 wide, mak- 

 ing a cube, as it were, containing 

 from 3 to .5 thousand pounds of lioney 

 on either side of the room, yet the 

 whole was so piled that the air could 

 circulate between each and every 

 section. 



During the afternoons of hot Au- 

 gust and September days, the tem- 

 perature of this room would be raised 

 to 100° and above, which would warm 

 the piles of honey to nearly that de- 

 gree of heat, and as this large body of 

 honey once heated retained the same 

 for a great length of time, the tem- 

 perature in this room would be from 

 S-5'J to 90- at (j o'clock the next morn- 

 ing, when it was as low as 40° to 60^ 



. outside. By this means tlie honey 

 was being ripened each day, and that 

 in the unsealed cells getting thicker 

 and thicker, when by Sept. 10, or after 

 being in the room from 4 to 6 weeks, 

 the sections could be tipped over, or 

 handled as carelessly as I pleased 

 without any honey running from the 

 few uncapped cells, which the bees 

 often leave around the edges of the 

 boxes. By leaving the door and win- 

 dow open on hot, windy days, so as to 

 cause the air to circulate freely 

 through the pile, I found that it took 

 less time to thoroughly ripen the 

 honey than it did where all was kept 

 closed. In doing this, of course it is 

 necessary to have screens up, so as to 

 keep flies and bees out of the honey- 

 room. 



If I wish to keep honey so late in 

 the fall tliat the rays of the sun fail to 

 keep the room sufticiently hot, or 

 from cool, cloudy weather the tem- 

 perature of the room falls below 85°, 

 I place an oil-stove in it, and by regu- 

 lating the flame to suit the circum- 

 stances, a temperature of 90° to 95° of 

 heat is always maintained. In this 

 way the honey is in perfect condition 



when sent to market, in which shape 

 it will stand much abuse before it will 

 begin to ooze from the cells. At the 

 late convention of the Northeastern 

 Bee-Keepers' Association, President 

 L. C. Root said that " what we now 

 wanted to strive for, was not to see 

 how large a quantity of honey we 

 could produce, but to see how good a 

 quality we could get, and look well to 

 the enticing shape in which it was 

 placed upon the market." In this ad- 

 vice I think we have the key-note in 

 regard to establishing a staple market 

 for our production in the future. 

 Borodino,© N. Y. 



For tlie American Bee JournaL 



Those Interesting Experiments. 



W. N. HOWARD. 



The article by Mr. Doolittle on page 

 197, will doubtless be hailed by the 

 advocates of the non-pollen theory, 

 with expressions of the greatest en- 

 thusiasm ; and as Mr. D. is an expert 

 apiarist, a man of keen perception, 

 and generally sound in his reasoning, 

 his conclusions from the result of his 

 experiments there given, will have 

 weight with many, and all will be im- 

 pressed with the fact, that these ex- 

 periments were made and given for 

 the purpose of shedding light upon 

 this much-vexed question of winter- 

 ing bees safely ; and they will also 

 serve to show the different conclusions 

 which "many men of many minds" 

 will derive from the same series of 

 facts. 



The colony Mr. D. describes was, 

 as he supposed, entirely without pol- 

 len, and had not scientific investiga- 

 tion proved it otherwise, he, without 

 doubt, would have staked his reputa- 

 tion as an apiarist, that they were 

 without a particle of pollen, and it 

 clearly shows how easy it is for even 

 the most expert to be mistaken. It 

 is not impossible, not even improb- 

 able, that from the time Mr. D. 

 commenced to feed them sugar syrup, 

 that they did not gather pollen, and 

 place it in the combs, and syrup upon 

 it so that it was not visible at the 

 time. Mr. D. looked them over, 

 about Oct. 25, 1884, for he states that 

 other colonies did gather pollen dur- 

 ing this period, and why not this 'i 



Mr. Doolittle, Prof. Cook, Mr. A. I. 

 Root, and other eminent authorities, 

 have been positive for years, that 

 brood could only be reared when bees 

 had access to pollen. Mr. D. found 

 young bees and brood in the hive at 

 the time the colony ceased to exist. 

 This fact alone would tend to show 

 that they had pollen ; then of the S or 

 10 bees examined first, 2 were found 

 to contain an abundance of pollen. 

 Prof. Cook found pollen in almost 

 every cell of the comb which he ex- 

 amined, and says : " Your bees which 

 are the fullest, or the most turgid- 

 are bloated like — have pollen in almost 

 every case." These are the facts, and 

 what inference shall we draw from 

 them V Mr. Doolittle cannot see 

 wherein the pollen was at fault, 

 simply because the liquid portions of 

 their "food was sugar syrup. Reason 



would point to pollen as the cause of 

 their death, as no bloated bees were 

 found that did not contain pollen. 

 Where all other conditions are such 

 as to be auxiliary to the cause, it may 

 not take any great amount of pollen 

 to produce tlie effect, as this case 

 shows. 



It is, I believe, acknowledged that 

 the excrement in all cases of genuine 

 bee-diarrhea, contains solid particles 

 of brownish-looking matter. Now, 

 when a case like this is developed, 

 and investigation shows no traces of 

 pollen in the intestines of the bees, 

 their excrement, or the combs, then it 

 will be time to assert that pollen is 

 not a cause of bee-diarrhea. Suppose 

 a healthy man be taken suddenly ill 

 and dies; a post-mortem examination 

 reveals the presence of arsenic, and a 

 verdict should be rendered. " came to 

 his death from the influence of arse- 

 nic," it would be universally accepted. 

 In this case Mr. D. concludes that al- 

 though pollen was found in the in- 

 testines of the bees and in the combs, 

 it is impossible for pollen to have 

 been the prime cause of their diar- 

 rhea, because he felt sure that they 

 had no pollen at the time they were 

 prepared for winter. 



How the tacts of this case can an- 

 nihilate the pollen theory, I cannot 

 see, as nothing new is shown except 

 that scientific investigation will re- 

 veal the presence of pollen in places 

 where the unaided eye might see 

 none, and that a good cellar is the 

 best and safest place in which to win- 

 ter bees, as, doubtless, if this colony 

 had been placed in a cellar, it would 

 have wintered in good condition. 



Derby, 5 Vt. 



For the American Bee JoumaU 



Over-Production of Honey. 



J. E. POND, JR. 



Should bee-keeping as an occupa- 

 tion be encouraged or discouraged? 

 What are the facts in regard to the 

 honey-supply to day V Take all the 

 honey that is gathered, whether put 

 upon the market or not, and how 

 much per capita would it give to those 

 who not only would like a supply 

 could they obtain it, but are amply 

 able and willing to pay a fair price for 

 a known pure article V I leave the an- 

 swer to the readers generally ; we aU 

 know the quantity would be very 

 small. 



Over-production has nothing to do 

 with the matter ; were ten times the 

 quantity produced it would be con- 

 sumed, if the consumer could find it. 

 Right here is the trouble : The large 

 producer floods some city market with 

 his produce ; that particular market is 

 over- supplied as a matter of course. 

 In the bee-papers we see reports in re- 

 gard to honey sales from only 5 or 6 

 of them. Why is this y Are there no 

 other spots or places in the wide ex- 

 tent of our land where honey can be 

 sold V I do not pretend to know about 

 the South and West, but right here in 

 New England, no honey is being of- 

 fered for sale, where if the attempt 

 were made, a large trade could be 



