150 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



this with a layer of about four inches 

 of hay. There was no trace of wa ter 

 dearth. Only be careful that your 

 bees are not restricted to old candied 

 honey for winter food. 



3. Bees will swarm when so dis- 

 posed, in spite of all the preventions 

 the beekeeper may please to use. 

 Give them as much room as you 

 please, and ventilation to reduce the 

 temperature ; yet go they will, if the 

 swarming mania seizes' them. This 

 colony had the entire garden-house 

 as room for expansion ; and that it 

 is a cool place I am very certain. 

 Still, the swarm left. Only by re- 

 moving combs of maturing broods 

 and inserting empty combs, can 

 swarming be prevented. 



4. That a colojiy may be well win- 

 tered on seven potmds of granulated 

 sugar. In the first year my colony 

 had not one pound of honey in store. 

 I gave it seven pounds of granulated 

 sugar in solution, and it was in a 

 splendid condition in the spring. 

 Granulated sugar is preferable to 

 sugar candy, first, because it is 

 cheaper, and, secondly, because it 

 it is more soluble. On the first 

 day of October, I placed equal quan- 

 tities of this sugar and of candy, side 

 by side, in a small open box in my 

 cellar. On the twentieth, the gran- 

 ulated sugar was completely lique- 

 fied, whereas the candy then merely 

 showed signs of moistness. A sau- 

 cer of dissolved granulated sugar, 

 exposed in my sitting room, began 

 to candy only after the lapse of nine 

 weeks. 



Moreover, I apportioned fifty 

 pounds of granulated sugar among 

 twelve stocks insufficiently supplied 



with stores, allotting to each, in pro- 

 portion to its seeming deficiency, 

 and estimating one pound of granu- 

 lated sugar as equivalent to three 

 pounds of honey, and all these passed 

 the winter in excellent condition. 



We find in the above report of 

 this able German apiarist some valu- 

 able instructions, especially in the 

 wintering of bees on pure granulated 

 sugar, being by far the best substi- 

 tute for pure honey, when they are 

 found lacking in Nature's choicest 

 and best of food. But when we are 

 told that bees do better without a 

 proper protection as some would 

 have us believe, we truly become 

 sceptical with over forty years of ex- 

 perience, finding as we do that a 

 cellar of a proper temperature, and 

 kept so as to be free from dampness 

 and sudden changes, as well as from 

 all jars and noise is by far more 

 preferable than wintering on summer 

 stands. 



Battle Ground, Ind. 



A RECORD OF QUEENS 

 AND COLONIES. 



By G. a. Deadman. 



I PRESUME different beekeepers 

 have various plans for keeping a 

 record of queens, colonies, etc. The 

 one I am about to describe, and 

 which I have adopted will, I think, 

 answer the purpose for which it is 

 intended. 



You first procure a small book 

 with as many pages as you expect to 

 have colonies ; if the pages are not 

 numbered it makes no particular dif- 



