166 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



March 2. 1905. 



shape for the honey-flow, but the many manipulations and 

 the disturbance to the colonies caused by them seems to be 

 unsatisfactory. 



TOO MUCH WBAR AND TEAR TO THE COLONY. 



There is no doubt that more brood is reared by colonies 

 so manipulated. The spreading of the brood-combs and in- 

 serting empty ones forced the bees to enlarge the brood- 

 nest, and the removal of the honey and pollen from the 

 combs in the rearrangement of the brood-nest stimulated 

 them._ But while this may have been an advantage in that 

 way, it, at the same time, was in a large measure a great 

 disadvantage in a large amount of honey or stores being 

 consumed, in a great waste of energy, and an unnecessary 

 amount of wear and tear, resulting in a sacrifice of bee-life, 

 a comparative depletion of the colony to the increase in 

 numbers obtained, and leaving the colonies in no better 

 condition, if as good, as when they are left alone. There is 

 apparently no advantage gained when practiced in a whole- 

 sale way, for the extra labor and expense involved, even if 

 it is done with care and sound judgment in the hands of an 

 experienced bee-keeper. The difference is not great enough 

 to warrant its practice, and as this was apparent to the mem- 

 bers of the firm, the method of spreading brood was put out 

 of practice. 



COMPARED WITH THE LET-ALONE PLAN. 



Colonies that were left entirely alone built up stronger 

 and gave more surplus. A thorough test of this was made 

 in a yard owned by two assistants in the employ of this same 

 firm. The brood-nests were all in nice condition, with 

 good combs and plenty of stores. The shallow extracting 

 supers were left on the hives and provided room for enlarg- 

 ing the brood-nest and storing honey that was not needed 

 in the brood-chamber below. The colonies spread their 

 brood-nests in a natural way ; they were not disturbed by 

 unnecessary manipulations, and a good crop of surplus 

 honey was obtained with a less amount of labor and expense. 



Brazos Co., Tex. 

 [To be continned.] 



What is Honey ?-Official Definition. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



The official definition of the word "honey" has recently 

 been submitted to one of the committees of the National 

 Bee-Keepers' Association of which I am a member. This 

 definition when once adopted will bar out anything else as 

 adulteration. But the present proposal would bar honey- 

 dew. I most emphatically sustain the views expressed by sev- 

 eral bee-keepers when they ask that the so-called honey-dew 

 be not excluded from the definition of the word "honey." 

 The honey-dew in some sections is gathered by the bees 

 one summer out of every four, at least, and is often mixed 

 with other honey or nectar from the flowers, in such small 

 proportion as to make it very injurious to the bee-keeper if 

 the product had to be discarded. All honey-producers who 

 are at all acquainted with the low quality of honey-dew 

 recognize the fact that it must be sold as a very inferior arti- 

 cle, but there are honeys harvested from the blossoms which 

 are also low in quality. This honey-dew is a natural product 

 harvested by the bees in the fields and woods, and it would 

 be awkward, as well as unjust, to punish a bee-keeper who 

 sold the natural product of the bees as honey, solely because 

 It was honey-dew either in part in toto. 



The laws of the country are for the protection of both the 

 producers and consumers, and they cannot be too stringent 

 oti real adulterations, but they ought to protect and not pun- 

 ish the honest-producer. I have, myself, harvested tons upon 

 tons of honey-dew— m one season as much as thirty barrels 

 of It; I have seen it mixed with tbe finest white clover honey 

 in all sorts of proportions; but although I recognize its in- 

 , fenonty, I feel that it is an absolutely legitimate product, 

 and should be classed as inferior honey. There are many 

 uses to which it can be put, and its color will always show its 

 presence m any quantity; for that reason there is no need 

 of fearmg that any material injury will be inflicted on the 

 consumers, who can readily ascertain that its flavor, like that 

 of buckwheat or boneset-honey, forces it in a third or fourth 

 class position. Tobacconists, bakers, vinegar-makers, etc., 

 can use these low grades of honey with more profit than any 

 of the grades of glucose, the sweetening power of which is 

 much below that of any grade of honey. 



This matter is of some importance and should be thor- 

 oughly sifted by the bee-keepers. Hancock Co., 111. 



Best Size of Hive for Bread-and-Butter Bee- 

 Keeping. 



BY E. D. TOWNSEND. 



IT has been said that if you want to get the ear of a bee- 

 keeper, and hold it, you must talk about hives. 



In the first place, the majority of writers on the hive 

 question are too positive in their assertions, or, in other 

 words, they have had an experience in one locality, per- 

 haps, with one or two styles or sizes of hives, and have 

 worked out a system that fits their particular hive and 

 location, so that it is a practical success in their hands. 

 What is more natural than that they should cry " Eureka !" 

 and grab their pen and write to their favorite bee-paper un- 

 der the bold head-lines, "The Hive Problem Solved at 

 Last "? 



As I am in a liberal frame of mind to-day, I am going 

 to allow that an experienced bee-keeper can get fair results 

 with almost any known hive, in any location where there is 

 nectar to be gathered, of either comb or extracted honey. 

 Allowing this to be a fact, which I do not think many will 

 dispute, one can see how easy it is for a bee-keeper who 

 has had experience with only one or two sizes or styles of 

 hive, to come to the conclusion that he, as good luck would 

 have it, has adopted the only good hive, when, really, if he 

 had started with some other good style or size of hive, he 

 would have worked out a system that would fit his location 

 so well that the results would have been about the same. As 

 a person will get /air results from a hive that is ill adapted 

 to his location or system, he is quite likely to change that 

 word fair to good results, and plod on through his bee-keep- 

 ing experiences, never knowing how much he has been 

 handicapped by not adopting the hive his location and sys- 

 tem required for the best results. 



STUDY WELL YOUR LOCATION. 



In the first place, study well your location, and the time 

 your main honey-flow commences, whether you will produce 

 comb or extracted honey, or, if you intend to operate one 

 home yard, or several out-yards, where no one will be pres- 

 ent to hive swarms that may appear at any time, espe- 

 cially would I caution you against taking the advice of any 

 one who claims that his one size of hive is especially 

 adapted to all these conditions, for the best results in the 

 production of honey. 



To illustrate : You may- be getting the best results 

 with the 8-frame L,angstroth hive, with your system and 

 location, in your home yard, but as soon as you begin to 

 establish out-yards you might have to sacrifice the advan- 

 tages of the 8-frame hive and adopt the 10-f rame, on account 

 of the swarming problem. 



Then, the time your main honey-flow commences must 

 be taken into consideration. I would use just as large a 

 hive as would breed up and get full of bees so as to be in 

 good shape to gather honey when the season opens. This 

 size of hive is all right for either comb or extracted honey, 

 in the home yard where some one will be present during the 

 swarming season to take care of any swarms that may ap- 

 pear. In an out-yard for extracted honey, on the let-alone 

 system, the hive should be somewhat larger to prevent 

 swarming. 



When I commenced the keeping of bees — in 1876 — like 

 many others, I suppose, I adopted the hive my neighbors 

 used. In this case it was the 12-frame Gallup, with the 

 then popular l>^-inch spacing of the brood-frames. After a 

 few years I, mith many others, adopted the l-yi spacing. In 

 my case it was very easy. As our hives were 18^ inches 

 long inside, all I had to do was to add another brood-comb 

 to each hive, and it was done. With these 13 Gallup frames 

 as a brood-nest, I have never found a hive that would pro- 

 duce more extracted honey than this would in this locality. 



Later, as I began to establish out-yards, I found it more 

 convenient to buy bees in Langstroth hives, mostly in the 

 S-frame size, so I had quite an experience with this size . 

 also. But the results were not quite as good as with the 13- 

 frame Gallup hives. So when I commenced to build new 

 hives., what would be more natural than that I should build 

 the Gallup size, in the Langstroth style, which resulted in 

 the lOframe Langstroth ? Then with my system of tiering 

 up several stories high, to allow the honey to ripen thor- 

 oughly on the hive before extracting, the wide, shallow lO- 

 frame Langstroth style makes a better proportioned hive 

 than the narrow Gallup or 8-frame Langstroth. 



Then for eight or nine years I had 10 Gallup hives with 

 only 10 frames each. These, as you will notice, were still 

 smaller than the 8-frame Langstroth — about 100 square 



