64 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



I take straight pieces of brood comb, 2 or 

 oinches in widtli; this I fasten to the top- 

 bar and end pieces with melted wax. 1 

 would do this even if 1 had to cut off the 

 pieces from combs already built; comb 

 foundation will not answer. The bees will 

 raise the parts mentioned into store combs, 

 the same as if they had built it themselves. 

 But if we put brood comb in those places, 

 they will fill the frames at times with brood, 

 and store their honey above, if room is 

 given. If small swarms only are allowed to 

 build, we shall have very nice combs; 

 sti'ong ones should be allowed to build only 

 for surplus. J. L. Davis. 



Ingham Co., Mich., Jan. 10, 1S77. 



For tne American Bee Journal. 



About Honey. 



Last winter 1 saw an article in the New 

 York Tribune, copied from an English pa- 

 per, about an empty honey box. The 

 writer stated that he was in Boston and saw 

 some 3-lb. boxes of honey, marked " Ver- 

 mont white clover honey." He purchased 

 an empty box for a model to make some by. 

 When he arrived home he took his knife 

 and scraped from the inside tlie box a little 

 wax and honey to see how it tasted. He 

 made up his mind that Vermont white 

 clover honey was nothing more than sugar 

 fed the bees and then sold for white clover 

 honey. He took that occasion to " rake 

 down" American bee-keepers generally. 



What a pity it was that such a man could 

 not have been appointed one of the judges 

 at our Centennial. There he might have 

 had an opportunity to address tlie National 

 Bee-Keepers' Convention, and he would not 

 have been long in finding out that he is not 

 much of a judge of American honey. I 

 happen to know the man who sold that 

 honey in Boston, and I can say that a more 

 honest man cannot be found in the State of 

 Vermont. He had better try the experi- 

 ment ot feeding sugar to bees and see now 

 well it will pay. I have tried to make my 

 bees fill out a few cells in boxes that were 

 nearly full, by feeding them; but I had to 

 give them 10 lbs. to make them put 1 lb. in 

 the boxes. I could never make out what 

 they did witli what I fed them for the above 

 purpose. 



Some years ago a man from the State of 

 N. H.. canvassed this county with a patent 

 bee hive. He explained how it worked, and 

 said that the bees would work all winter in 

 his hive, and that for every lb. of sugar fed 

 them, the bees would " make " 2 lbs. of 

 honey, and that, too, in the winter. And 

 strange to say he foinid .many who took 

 stock in what he said, and purchased his 

 hive and right to use. I never saw the man 

 but have seen his hives and heard his vic- 

 tims talk. That was before bee journals 

 were printed. 



I have several times purchased small lots 

 of California honey to test the flavor of it, 

 but the fiavor I never found. It has the 

 same taste to me that granulated sugar has 

 after the bees have put it into the comb and 

 sealed it. Of course it was not sugar but it 

 was no better. Vermont white clover 

 honey is of an excellent flavor and quality, 

 and very light-colored, but that is not as 

 good as honey from Aroostook Co., Maine. 

 I never saw honey so light-colored and fine- 

 ly flavored. But those men in that county 



will persist in using 8 and 10 lb. boxes. If 

 the A. B. J. could be circulated more freely 

 down in that wild country, I think they 

 would soon use sucli boxes as have been 

 described in the Jouknal during the past 

 10 years. They could make even a better 

 show than our friend Harbison did at the 

 Centennial. That seems almost impossible. 

 The honey could not be put up in better 

 style than Mr. H. did his, but the honey is 

 much better and they could beat Mr. H. on 

 the (luality and color alone. About 500 lbs. 

 of Aroostook Co. lioney arrived in Boston in 

 November, and all in large boxes. 



Honey gatheretl near the sea-shore is very 

 dark-colored, and in a wet season, of a poor 

 quality. I exhibited some of my honey at 

 our county fair, some 10 years ago. The 

 judges said that they could not awai-d me a 

 premium, as they did not think that my 

 honey was the pure article. I replied that 

 I cared nothing about a premium but that I 

 wanted them to understand that the honey 

 was pure and was gathered from white 

 clover blossoms by the bees. When the re- 

 port appeared in print, I found that they 

 had awarded me a "gratuity." 



The fact is. not one bee-keeper in fifty is a 

 good judge of honey; and not one man in 

 ten thousand can tell impure honey from 

 the pure article. I have prepared food for 

 my bees by mixing honey and sugar syrup, 

 that was much better than honey stored 

 here some seasons. H. Alley. 



Wenham, Mass., Dec. 18, 1876, 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Prevention of After-swarming. 



In order to increase as little as possible, I 

 relied during the last season on natural 

 swarming, and removed all queen cells but 

 one in the mother hive, about 5 or 6 days 

 after the swarming. Sometimes I found a 

 young queen dead in her cell, which made 

 me very careful in picking out the largest 

 and healthiest cell to be developed. One 

 instance, however, made me change my 

 method. When I had removed in one hive 

 all but two of the queen cells (those being 

 the largest, and to all appearances, the 

 healthiest ones), 1 selected one at random, 

 not being able to find a preference; and 

 after cutting out and opening it I found two 

 dead, full-grown worker bees in the cell. 

 Then the thought struck me that if per- 

 chance I had removed the other cell, I 

 would have either lost the hive or it would 

 have become much weakened before dis- 

 covering its queenlessness. 



Since then, I wait until I hear the piping 

 of the young queen, which is now my signal 

 for at once removing all queen cells, being 

 sure of a queen then. The watching of the 

 hives is easily done. Listening eacn morn- 

 ing and evening for 1 or 2 minutes, during 3 

 or 4 days, always brings me the piping. I 

 find this method of advantage in another 

 resi)ect. It happened several times that the 

 young queens slipped out while I held the 

 "cut out" cells in my hand, and all live ones 

 come out if kept warm. I tiiink they can 

 be successfully used in forming nuclei 

 hives. Not having an observation hive yet, 

 I made one for one frame, glass on both 

 sides, hung in it a nice honey comb contain- 

 ing brood, took a honey box just full of 

 bees which were breeding, and put it over 

 the nucleus hive, an inch hole connecting 



