606 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Grallni of Coml-Honey. 



W. L. MAKSHALX,. 



I will try to give our Nebraska rule 

 for grading honey, both comb and ex- 

 tracted. We do not think hard of any 

 who will try and establish a set of rules, 

 especially for their own benefit, and, 

 therefore, we cannot blame those who 

 live in the beautiful basswood locality of 

 Wisconsin, or the clover fields of other 

 places, for thinking that their white 

 honey is the only honey that should be 

 put in first grade. 



"White," in this State, does not 

 amount to much ; that is, it does not 

 wear well ; and for any one to try to 

 make a Nebraskan think that your 

 white honey is as good as our heart's- 

 ease honey, would be sheer nonsense. 



If I were to send one of you to the 

 store after some good butter, and would 

 tell you to get nothing but the best, 

 would you inquire for the whitest butter 

 they had, without paying any attention 

 to flavor or odor ? I think not. You 

 would be very apt to taste it, and smell 

 of it, and then take the kind that tasted 

 best to you. 



I do not believe you would mark all 

 your nice red apples " third class," or 

 your nice yellow peaches " second class" 

 just because they did not happen to be 

 white. 



Now, then, looking at the matter in 

 this light, let me give my way of grad- 

 ing comb-honey. 



My best grade is called " gilt edge," 

 and contains nothing but the finest and 

 bestof4j^x4M sections, filled with the 

 finest flow of heart's-ease honey, nicely 

 capped, and with even surface. Grade 

 No. 1 may contain any other honey, 

 such as basswood, clover, golden-rod, 

 Spanish-needle, orange, buckwheat, etc., 

 but must be well-filled, nicely capped, 

 and honey to be of good body. Any 

 sec'tioiis that have not been well filled, 

 or having crooked combs, or in any way 

 not up to No. 1, should be kept at home, 

 and by doing this you will always have 

 a good market for your honey. 



Extractod-honey, in this State, is 

 graded much the same as comb-honey, 

 by placing heart's-ease at the head of 

 the list ; then follows basswood and 

 clover, then sage. 



In order to prove the quality of our 

 Nebraska heart's-ease honey, I am will- 

 ing to furnish one 4:J^x4K section filled 

 according to my idea of "gilt edge" 

 honey, and let any man, or number of 



men, east of the Missouri river, or west 

 of the Rocky Mountains, furnish one 

 4^x4j^ section filled with clover, bass- 

 wood or sage honey, then send them to 

 any responsible person, who is not a 

 producer of honey, and let him compare, 

 and then judge. 

 Crab' Orchard, Nebr. 



Preyentlon of Afler-Swams. 



S. K. MILLEK. 



On page B86, Mr. Theodore Heiss 

 says : " By introducing a virgin queen, 

 about two days old, all queen-cells will 

 be destroyed by that queen." 



I wish to say that I fear this will not 

 always be the case, fo'r often when the 

 bees are intent upon swarming a second 

 or third time, they will not allow even a 

 queen, hatched from one of their own 

 cells, to destroy the remaining queen- 

 cells, neither will they allow more than 

 one queen to emerge from the cell even 

 though many of the queens have gnawed 

 away the cappings, and are ready to step 

 out and assert their rights. 



Again, Mr. Heiss says it advances 

 brood-rearing from 10 to 15 days. I 

 do not see how this would advance brood- 

 rearing as much as 15 days, for, as a 

 rule, colonies have sealed queen-cells 

 when they swarm, and the furthest ad- 

 vanced of these will hatch in about 7 

 days or less. Add to this 2 days, the 

 age of the virgin queen that he proposes 

 to introduce, and it give us 9 days. 



Allowing that each of these queens 

 would mate when 5 days old, and com- 

 mence laying in 5 days more (which is 

 quite reasonable to suppose), we have 

 gained only 9 days, for the one is only 9 

 days older than the other. 



But the point that I wish to get at is 

 this: In my opinion and experience 

 there is nothing gained by advancing 

 brood-rearing at such a time. Generally 

 bees swarm just when we have the heav- 

 iest flow of nectar, which lasts from o 

 to 6 weeks in most localities. In the 

 majority of localities I should say less 

 than 4 weeks. Therefore, the bees 

 reared from eggs laid at this time, in- 

 stead of being producers, will be only 

 consumers, both in the brood state and 

 after they have hatched, for we all 

 know that it takes 21 days from the 

 time the egg is laid until the bee emerges 

 from the cell. Add to this from 10 to 

 to 14 days (the age at which bees com- 

 mence to gather nectar), and you will 

 see that these bees only come on the 



