THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



305 



Illinois, and other of the Southern 

 Middle States, but this success oug'ht 

 not to be allowed to delude more north- 

 ern bee-keepers, such as those in Michi- 

 gan, Wisconsin and Ontario into 

 abandoning- the thicker packing of 

 chafiP or sawdust. Weeks of zero 

 weather call for thorough protecion. 

 The cellar gives this in the most com- 

 plete manner, but, if the bees are out 

 of doors, the protection can scarcely be 

 too thorough. 



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Ignorance regarding honey is more 

 general than many of us bee-keepers 

 imagine. To illustrate: When out at 

 Grand Rapids, Michigan, awarding 

 the premiums at the fair, I started in 

 to show the exhibitors how the Canadi- 

 ans cut up sections cornerwise, and 

 sold each piece for five cents. I had a 

 section nicel}' cut up, and the pieces 

 laid out upon a plate, when a boy of 

 about 14 came along, and I thought I 

 would try to sell him a piece. After a 

 little explanation, he laid down a 

 nickel, and walked away with a piece 

 of honey. He went as far as the door, 

 stopped, looked at the honey, and then 

 came back in a sort of a sheepish way 

 and asked: "Mister, is this stuff that 

 the honey is in good to eat, too ?" 

 Poor boy, it probably was his first 

 taste of comb honey, and whether he 

 could eat the comb, too, or must suck 

 out the honejs or spit out the comb, was 

 to him a problem. 



Comb Honey can be kept over the 

 winter free from crystal ization, or anj'^ 

 other deterioration, but it must be kept 

 warm, yes, what some people would 

 call hot. J. A. Green reports in 

 Gleanings that he kept some over and 

 sold it this year at a profitable advance 

 in price, which might not have been the 

 case if Colorado had had a good crop 

 of honey. Mr. R. L. Taylor of Lapeer, 

 Michigan, once kept over a crop of 

 comb honey and sold it the next year 

 at a profit. It was kept in a room hav- 



ing walls filled with sawdust and 

 warmed with a stove. Mr. Green says 

 that the nearer 100 degrees the room is 

 kept the better. I presume this is true, 

 but I doubt if Mr. Taylor's honey room 

 was kept so warm as that. Gleanings 

 questions if the fuel might not over- 

 balance any possible gain, and I pre- 

 sume this would be true unless there 

 was quite a crop of honey, and a ma- 

 terial advance in prices — and we are 

 not sure that there will be any 

 advance. 



<^^jr< wu^^^^^ 



Bottom Boards, according to my ex- 

 perience, are not usually fast to the 

 hive. I doubt if one hive in lOO of those 

 that I inspect through the country has 

 a fast bottom board, but E. R. Root 

 says, in Gleanings, that nearly all of 

 the bee-keepers that he visits have the 

 bottom boards fast so that the hives 

 may be ready to move, either to shift 

 about the apiary, or to move to out- 

 yards, or into the cellar. Hives with 

 fast bottom boards are an advantage 

 when we wish to move them to an out- 

 yard, but, aside from this, the advan- 

 tages are all with the loose bottom. 

 In moving colonies about the yard, 

 tight bottoms are not needed. Neither 

 are they needed in putting the bees into 

 the cellar. If pains are taken a daj' or 

 two in advance to see that the bottom 

 boards are not stuck fast to the hive, 

 the hive raised at the end thus causing 

 the cluster of bees to draw up among 

 the combs, a hive can be picked up 

 quietly, and quickly and carefully car- 

 ried to the cellar, and put in place be- 

 fore scarcely a bee knows what is 

 going on. 



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Disturbing Bees when putting them 

 into the cellar is strongly condemned 

 in Gleanings by Mr. W. S. Grow. He 

 takes pains to put a large tooth pick 

 under the corner of each hive that the 

 hive may not be stuck down and come 

 loose with a snap when it is picked up 

 to be stacked up in the cellar. He pre- 



