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about drouth, and tliey were brought 

 to the stages of hunger, thirst and 

 starvation, the test lasting forty days. 

 Thirteen varieties of grapes were 

 placed before them, and every oppor- 

 tunity afforded the bees to appease 

 their hunger, but in no case were the 

 bees able to pierce the skin of a sound 

 grape, or otherwise harm it. When 

 the skins had been cracked or bursted, 

 the bees lapped and sacked the juice 

 out, but the sound fruit was untouched. 

 My own experience has corroborated 

 these statements. The jaws or mandi- 

 bles of a worker-bee are not con- 

 structed for cutting hard, tough sub- 

 stances. 



Permit me to make one remark in 

 conclusion that does not properly re- 

 late exactlj' to the subject, but rightly 

 grows out of it, I think. In religious 

 matters I am inclined to be very lib- 

 eral, and give the utmost liberty to 

 others ; yet it seems to me that no man 

 can study earefull)' such statements as 

 I have made and kindred facts without 

 being forced to the conclusion that 

 there is a "power not ourselves " be- 

 hind nature, "which makes for right- 

 eousness," whether he agree with me, 

 and call that power God, or not. To 

 me all this is the manifestation of an 

 Infinite Father, and I would it might 

 be to all men. 



St. Joseph, Mo. 



COMB HONEY. 



Some of the Practical Points in 

 its Production. 



fiend at the Maine'Convention 



BY L. F. ABBOTT. 



There was a time — away back so far 

 that we ilo not care much about it now 

 — that hone}' formed the great sweet 

 of the world, and it held its place in 

 the afiections of our old-time esteemed 

 relatives up to a little matter of time 

 of about 200 j-ears ago — more or less, 

 a few years either way makes no dif- 

 ference. 



The production of cane sugar and 

 syrup by the production of the slaves 

 in the seventeenth century (our re- 

 mote relatives had not begun to imbibe 

 the great moral lessons taught by the 

 bees), had, in a great measure, dis- 

 placed honey as an article of food, and 

 while our several-times great grand- 

 fathers quite readily " caught on " to 

 the idea of manufacturing sweets 

 themselves from the products of the 

 fields in the sugar-cane, they had the 

 most ridiculously absurd notions con- 

 cerning the wonderful little bee, that 

 has not changed a whit in its instincts, 

 habits or want of respect for its friends. 

 Hence, while the bee was just as 



wise then as to-day, and laughed out 

 of both corners of its mouth at the old- 

 time obtuseness of our relatives, in 

 missing the real "business end" of 

 the bee — for wliich, as now, they often 

 gave emphatic f)ointers — for this rea- 

 son slow progress was made in im- 

 provements in bee-culture, and instead 

 of increasing the number of colonies, 

 there were annuallj' thousands of them 

 destroyed with the brimstone match, 

 in order to secure their honey. So, on 

 account of this wholesale destruction 

 of bees, and the lack of a proper 

 knowledge of their instincts and their 

 successful management, honey fell into 

 comparative disuse for many years ; 

 and this state of things continued, with 

 only slight improvement up to within 

 a quarter of a centurj' ago. Since that 

 period the most wonderful strides 

 have been made, both in the science 

 of bee-keeping and the appliances used 

 in the successful management of bees. 



These wonderful improvements, and 

 the close study and painstaking experi- 

 ments that Yankee bee-keepers have 

 adopted, have been the means of in- 

 creasing the amount of honey-produc- 

 tion immensely, and if this production 

 continues to increase as rapidly during 

 the next ten years, as it has in the last 

 decade, may we not reasonably expect 

 that honey will take its place among 

 the leading products of this country ? 



!!$ti-enji;lli of Colonies. 



A fundamental principle to be ob- 

 served in the production of honey in 

 either form — comb or extracted — is 

 strength of colonies ; and I would, if 

 possible, make provision for the con- 

 tingency of weak colonies in the 

 spring, by having all colonies go into 

 winter quarters strong in numbers. 

 There are extremes to be avoided in 

 both ways — too large colonies and too 

 weak ones. 



I mean by that, that the abnormally 

 large colonies we often find in the 

 apiary, where a part or all have been 

 run for extracted honey, are not the 

 best to winter, unless special provision 

 is made in order to get them through, 

 and then, mj* experience has been that 

 it is better to divide such colonies im- 

 mediately after tlie summer harvest is 

 over, giving a laying queen to the 

 queenless portion, and build up two 

 colonies for winter In lieu of one. 

 There is a strong liability that the 

 large mass of bees in such a colony, 

 left undivided, will die before spring, 

 while on the other hand, the two me- 

 dium ones, if properly taken care ot, 

 are pretty sure to survive the winter 

 months. 



These medium populous colonies in 

 the fall — which may be called strong 

 ones — as a rule, are the ones which 

 will come through the winter, when 



wintered in a good cellar, nearly as 

 strong as when they are put into win- 

 ter quarters in November. This may 

 be accounted for on the supposition 

 that early breeding commences, and 

 their number are kept up by the pro- 

 duction of young bees. 



Now I know there is a point for dis- 

 cussion here ; some of our best apia- 

 rists believing that it is injurious to the 

 future prospects of the colon}' to have 

 the queen commence laying before 

 March or April ; but it is needless to 

 remark that it is the strong colonies 

 which store the surplus honey in June 

 and July, and take advantage of the 

 white clover harvest. Then the ques- 

 tion arises, how shall we attain to this 

 maximum strength of colonies, unless 

 we can start with strong colonies when 

 put upon the summer stands from the 

 cellar ? 



Now, on the other hand, a weak col- 

 ony put into winter quarters in No- 

 vember or December, will be weaker 

 in April or May. A little patch of 

 brood will probably be found in, such, 

 the last of March. Such colonies can- 

 not be expected to begin work in sur- 

 plus cases, at least until seven frames 

 of the Langstroth size are pretty well 

 crowded with bees. Ordinarily this 

 cannot be accomplished till the sum- 

 mer honey harvest is well advanced, 

 unless such colonies are helped by 

 stronger ones ; and this is hardly a 

 paying method. 



All of our considerable apiaries con- 

 tain more or less colonies of bees 

 which do not come up to the standard 

 of honey-proxluction that others do. I 

 know there are causes, other than the 

 one I have set forth, to which the dif- 

 ficulty may be attributed in part. 

 These are — some of them — want of 

 prolificness in queens, di.sease in win- 

 ter depopulating the colony, loss occa- 

 sioned by age of bees, etc. 



Then, if my premises are sound, the 

 first point to be considered in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey is the oft-re- 

 peated«jnjunction, to have strong colo- 

 nies in the spring, and to accomplish 

 this, we must adopt a plan at the close 

 of the preceding honey harvest, to in- 

 sure strong colonies of young bees to 

 place in winter quarters. 



Puttiner Kees Out of Cellars. 



Spring now comes with its vicissi- 

 tudes. The fact is generally admitted 

 (disbelievers can learn by experience) 

 that bees wintered in-doors are more 

 subject to loss by spring dwindling 

 than those wintered out-of-doors. To 

 obviate this as far as possible, it is best 

 to keep the bees in the cellar till May 

 1, if they can be kept quiet. There 

 are exceptions to such a rule, for some- 

 times our seasons give us warm 

 weather, and that continuously from 



