THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



587 



for wintering. I did not use the 

 method to exclude pollen, for that I 

 want them to have aa " bread " upon 

 which to spread their honey, and 

 make it palatable for themselves and 

 " babies." 

 South Bend,v3 Ind., Sept. 4, 1885. 



ExchanKe 



Improvements in Bee-Culture. 



J. A. MOYER. 



Much has been said and written 

 about the honey-bee. Perhaps in all 

 ages it was known, and to go back as 

 far as the first King Saul, while in his 

 hasty pursuit of the Philistines, when 

 they came to a wood where there was 

 much honey — so much that it drop- 

 ped—Jonathan, the son of Saul, 

 dipped his staff in a honev-comb and 

 put it to his mouth ; and back again 

 to the promise to Moses, to possess 

 " a land flowing with milk and 

 honey." And so on dow n as far as 

 we have any history of man, to the 

 earliest settlers of the country, we see 

 the " sweet companions " toman even 

 in their wild state. 



Take our grandfathers' days, when 

 they saw the need of domesticating 

 the bee. See the culture they then 

 received— hived iu salt-barrels, hol- 

 low-logs, or whatever they could be 

 sheltered in — it was the beginning of 

 bee-culture here. There they toiled 

 busily from day to day, gathering 

 honey from the wild-flowers, for their 

 sustenance and comfort during win- 

 ter, ^leanwhile the early settler was 

 busy with his axe clearing away the 

 dense forests preparatory to cultivat- 

 ing the soil and reaping the benefits 

 therefrom, so as to enjoy life. But iu 

 this early culture, what was the con- 

 dition of the bee when the honey was 

 required 'i It was cast over fire and 

 brimstone long enough to extinguish 

 the life of the helpless creature ; then 

 robbed of the store it toiled all the 

 summer to gather. 



When we come on down to this cen- 

 tury, we see the change from the man 

 gathering the harvest with the old 

 style hand-sickle, to that of the pres- 

 ent times, with the farmer in his 

 broad acres of golden grain with self- 

 binding reaper, doing the work of 

 many men under the old style, and 

 saving much hard labor ; and doing 

 all other branches of mechanical 

 work by rapid machinery, and the 

 beholder is led to exclaim, " What an 

 age of improvements !" 



But turn one glimpse to the apiary 

 and we readily see the minds of the 

 bee-keepers have not been dormant 

 during this age of improvements. 

 Instead of the old log-gums about the 

 fence-corners, we see the large lawns 

 filled with beautiful, painted, mov- 

 able-comb hives of various styles; 

 the need of first taking the life of 

 the bee before the honey is secured, 

 is done away with. 



Again, we notice the extractor, by 

 which the honey is taken out of the 

 combs by centrifugal force, and the 

 empty combs may be returned, and 

 the bees can refill them several times 

 while they could build new combs. 



This explains to the honey-consumer 

 why pure extracted honey is cheaper 

 than comb honey. With the wax-ex- 

 tractor the waste scraps of combs are 

 extracted by means of steam, and by 

 the use of the comb foundation press, 

 this wax is again made into combs, 

 tluis saving the bees tlie greatest por- 

 tion of their time for honey-gather- 

 ing; and making one colony of bees 

 worth to the owner about seven times 

 as much as under the old regime. One 

 man practicing the old system of 

 keeping bees would have to keep 

 about 7,000 colonies to equal the 

 modern man with 1,000. Otherequally 

 important improvements in supplies 

 for the apiary are too numerous to 

 mention. Still, with all the vast im- 

 provements, I believe that bee-culture 

 is yet only in its infancy. 

 Wapakoneta,*o Ohio. 



Translated from the German Bien^n-Zeitung, by 

 Alfred Neighbour. 



Winter Temperature for Bees. 



DR. DZIERZON. 



In winter all nature is in a state of 

 complete repose. In a beehive also 

 almost everything is perfectly quiet 

 then. In a state of torpor our favor- 

 ites await the time when the sun will 

 again rise higher in the sky and re- 

 turning spring awakens them to new 

 activity. 



But every colony does not awaken 

 from its slumber; many communities 

 never return to life again. It all de- 

 pends whether the bee-keeper has 

 done his duty in making judicious 

 and careful arrangements for winter- 

 ing his colonies safely. Although bee- 

 keepers are pretty well agreed as to 

 the requirements and conditions of 

 wintering bees, the greatest ignorance 

 still exists as to what should be the 

 temperature in the hive while the 

 bees are at rest in winter. One bee- 

 keeper, for example, says that the 

 hive should be constructed in such a 

 way as not to allow the temperature 

 in its interior at any time to fall to 

 the freezing-point or below. Another 

 bee-master expresses his admiration 

 at bees being able to withstand the 

 cold when the temperature inside the 

 hive is at the freezing-point or even 

 lower, whilst a temperature of .52^ 

 Falir. is sufficient to chill or benumb 

 them outside the hive. Both appear 

 to be of the erroneous opinion that all 

 the parts of a bee-hive are heated by 

 bees in a similar way as a room is 

 heated by a stove. 



When a colony is dispersed over the 

 whole of the interior, the tempera- 

 ture no doubt is pretty well equalized; 

 but when the temperature is falling 

 and the bees crowd together to form 

 a thick, round cluster, they impart 

 just as little heat to the empty or un- 

 occupied space of their hive as a per- 

 son wrapped up in his bed warms the 

 room, because in both cases the radia- 

 tion of heat from the warm body is 

 so insignificant as to be altogether in- 

 capable of restoring the external loss 

 of heat. After the thermometer had 

 shown IS-* Fahr. of frost for some 

 days, I found that, however well the 



hives were constructed to retain the 

 heat, not only was the inner surface 

 of the doors and sides of the hives 

 covered with hoar frost, but the combs 

 also; whilst the bees, even at the edge 

 of the cluster, enjoyed a temperature 

 of at least •5-1-', as otherwise they 

 would have passed into a state of tor- 

 por and died. 



Bees, in whose economv the most 

 profound wisdom is marjifest in order 

 to preserve their strength and to save 

 honey, do not, of course, maintain a 

 higher degree of temperature than is 

 absolutely necessary for their exis- 

 tence, but a mucli higher degree of 

 temperature, whether natural or arti- 

 ficial, does not affect their well-being, 

 as is shown by their thriving in 

 Brazil, where they enjoy during the 

 time of repose, a temperature not of 

 .54", but of lOO'J and above. Just as 

 with us, so rest in the bee-hive is en- 

 tirely dependent of the height of the 

 mercury. Their rest is conditional. 

 It makes no difference whether the 

 cessation of vegetation be caused by 

 severe cold or excessive heat. 



Tlie view, therefore, which Pastor 

 Schonfeld defended at the time when 

 the dispute was going on as to 

 whether bees should be kept warm or 

 cool in winter, and according to which 

 view a certain degree of cold is neces- 

 sary in order that bees may be kept 

 in undisturbed repose and survive the 

 winter in good condition, is altogether 

 fallacious. It is their instinct, a cus- 

 tom which has become a second na- 

 ture to them, because there are no 

 flowers to be deprived of their honey 

 or to be fertilized, which keeps the 

 bees from making fruitless excursions, 

 occasional flights to cleanse them- 

 selves always excepted, and induces 

 them to keep perfectly quiet even 

 during the most inviting days in 

 autumn and winter. In 1S33-34 there 

 was really no winter at all. On the 

 coldest dav, Jan. 0, the mercury stood 

 at 13J^" Fahr. below the freezing- 

 point. The hazel flowered in Jan- 

 uary, and the gooseberry in February. 

 Winter, as it were, was succeeded by 

 spring, and the bees wintered admir- 

 ably. Last year the winter was like- 

 wise tolerably endurable, and conse- 

 quently the bees wintered satisfac- 

 torily. I wonder whether a bee-keeper 

 ever complained of a winter being 

 too mild, and wished for colder 

 weather for the sake of his bees. 

 Every one who is concerned about his 

 colonies wishes the frost a thousand 

 miles away. 



Convention Notices. 



{S~ The 4th semi-annual meeting- of the 

 Wabash County Bee-Keepers" Association 

 will be heM at North Manchester, lud., oa 

 Oct. 10, iss."), in the G. A. K. Hall. Union 

 Block. First session at 10 a. m. All bee- 

 keepers are cordially invited to be present. 

 J. J. M.iRTiN, Sec. 



iPW The Western Bee- Keepers' Associa- 

 tion will hold its fourth annual meeting: in 

 Independence, Mo., on Thursday and Friday, 

 Oct. 10 and 11, 188.'). The Association will 

 endeavor to make this the most interesting: 

 meeting yet held, and will spare no pains 

 within its means to make it valuable to all. 

 Several of our most prominent bee-keepers 

 have signified their intention to be present. 

 C. M. Cbasdall, Sec. 



