1903 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPEK 



8i 



the distinction be.twecn nurse bees or 

 wax-producing bees, and field bees is 

 not real, and that in case of necessity, 

 old and young bees can do whatever 

 work may be necessary. 



It has also been stated that the ratio 

 between the honey consumed and ,the 

 wax produced cannot be less than about 

 two and a half, or thereabout. A pound 

 of wax contains as much carbon as 

 about two and a half pounds of ordi- 

 nary honey; and, therefore, much hon- 

 ey, at least, is needed for the produc- 

 tion of one pound of wax. 



Unfortunately I have only a few scat- 

 tered numbers of the above mentioned 

 papers, and those containing the figures 

 are missing. The only information I 

 have is that it takes from three to six 

 pounds of honey to produce one of 

 wax. that is, according to this method 

 of determining the ratio. 



An exceptional case is given by Mr. 

 Sylviac. A swarm of approximately 

 ten thousand bees (^estimated by their 

 weight), built in three days 900 grams 

 (nearly two pounds,) of wax. 



Suppose that each of the bees secret- 

 ed ,the same amount of wax every day 

 during each of the three days, that 

 would make three-hundredths of a 

 gram per bee, per day. As such a con- 

 dition is impossible, some of these bees 

 must have secreted considerably more. 



It might be well to state here that 

 one American pound equals 452 1-2 

 grams. 



In line with the above question, it 

 might be well to investigate how much 

 honey a bee eats simply to keep alive. 

 Mr. Harroult has experimented on this 

 question. He put (in November 1900) 

 a certain quantity of bees in an obser- 

 vatory hive. That hive was in a warm 

 room. The temperature during the day 

 was from 60 degrees to 64 degrees Fah- 

 renheit, and never below 48 degrees 

 during the night. At first the hive was 

 opened during the day. Quite a por- 

 tion of the bees wen,t back and carried 

 away some of the honey given. A lit- 

 tle pollen was brought in. 



From November 17th to the 9th of 

 December the hive remained closed. 

 The total weight November 17th, hive, 

 bees and honey was S50 grams to which 

 should be added 30 grams of honey giv- 

 en December 5th. On December 9,th 

 no honey was left. The bees and hive 

 weighed 793 grams, the hive without the 



bees. 734 grams, giving the weight of 

 bees at 59 grams. The weight of 63 

 of these bees was found to be six and 

 nineteen-one hundredths grams. There- 

 fore the weight of one bee, something 

 less ,than one-tenth of a gram. The 

 honey consumed from November 17 

 to December 9th was then 880,— less 

 than 793 grams for 22 days; which is 

 very near four grams per day. The 

 number of bees, very near 600. The 

 amount of honey consumed daily by 

 each bee, four six-hundredths or 

 one one-hundred and fiftieth of 

 a gram. That is one-fifteenth of 

 the weight of the bee. A colony of 

 bees weighing, say five pounds would 

 then consume one-third of a pound of 

 honey daily, merely to keep alive. 



Knoxville, Tenn., Feb. i, 1903. 



SELLING EXTRACTED 



HONEY AT RETAIL. 



The Subject Continued from February Number. 

 (W. W. McNeal). 



AS TO the matter of labels for 

 packages containing honey I deem 

 it imperative that all honey sold 

 by retail should thus be stamped with 

 the name and address of the party who 

 put it up for market, with his guaran- 

 tee of purity. But I believe the term 

 extracted is worse than superfluous 

 when appearing on the labels. There 

 are so many extracts of one kind or 

 another for sale that the very first im- 

 pression the interested public gets is 

 misleading-. The word seems to con- 

 vey a dififerent idea entirely from the 

 one intended and the retailer is thus 

 made to proclaim his goods to be an 

 "extract" of honey, an extract of some- 

 thing, — anything in fact, but "pure bees' 

 honey" as the common version puts it. 

 Being so understood that the article 

 is a manufactured one, its reputation 

 is made bad and a ban is put upon the 

 genuine article by the seemingly harm- 

 less little statement, "pure extracted 

 honey." 



The fact that the patrons of the bee 

 hive, generally expect pure honey to 

 show no tendency to granulate, all per- 

 sons putting it up for retail will find 

 their interests best served by adopting 

 measures to keep it in a clear liquid 



