234 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



St'pleuiher 



torn of the sections which have the 

 combs discolored a little of those hav- 

 ing cells of pollen in them. Now, al- 

 though this place may not be larger 

 than the eye of a fine needle still it 

 tells us for certain that a tiny worm 

 of the wax moth is there, and unless 

 it is destroyed it will destroy more or 

 less of the nice white comb which en- 

 cases our honey. While in different 

 cities a number of years ago, looking 

 after the honey market, I saw boxes 

 of honey which had worms in them as 

 large around as a slate pencil, and an 

 inch or more long ; and although 

 they bad nearly denuded the honey 

 of the nice white cappings to the cells, 

 still I could not make some of the 

 grocerymen believe that the worms 

 lived upon the wax, they calling them 

 honey worms. Such a spectacle soon 

 disgusts customers, and injures the 

 sale of comb honev very much. If 

 after several examinations you fail to 

 find such little white flour like places, 

 you need be very thankful. If you 

 should find these, the next thing to do 

 is to sulphur the honey, as this is the 

 only known remedy for these pests 

 except picking the worms off by hand, 

 which, while it can be done with 

 brood combs before any great injury 

 is done, cannot be done with comb 

 honey. To fumigate, I take an old 

 kettle and put some ashes in the bot- 

 tom of it so there will be no danger 

 of fire resulting from the heat from 

 the coals which are to be placed 

 therein. When I have the kettle 

 thus prepared I take it to the honey 

 room and pour sulphur, which has 

 been previously weighed, on the coals 

 to the amount of one-fourth pound to 

 every 70 cubic feet contained in the 

 room, when the kettle is quickly 



pushed under the pile of honey [it 

 having been piled a little off from the 

 floor for this purpose,] and the room 

 closed. You will have to be spry or 

 you will get some of the fumes thereof 

 yourself, which is not very pleasant, I 

 assure you. I now go and look in at 

 the windows (two of which should be 

 provided for ventilation in any honey 

 room,) to which the few flies which 

 chance to be in the room will come, 

 hoping to escape their doom. As 

 soon as I see that the last fly is life- 

 less, I take out my watch, and after a 

 lapse of five minutes, I open the win- 

 dows so as to carry out the smoke as 

 soon as possible, for if allowed to set- 

 tle on the combs and sections it will 

 g'ive them a greenish color, which will 

 be a damage to the sale of the honey. 

 The same thing will be likely to occur 

 if more sulphur is burned than is 

 given above, as some know full well 

 who have tried guessing at this mat- 

 ter. It seems to be a very nice point 

 to get this matter right, for if to 

 much is used the combs are sure to 

 be turned green, while if too little is 

 used the worms will not be killed. 

 The above amount has been arrived 

 at after years of trial and experience. 

 If more honey is brought into the 

 room after the first has been sulphur- 

 ed , this is also watched, and when the 

 marks of the worms are seen on these, 

 the .same operation is repeated again, 

 and so on till I am sure the honey 

 leaves my hands without danger of 

 these pests making an appearance 

 after it has been placed upon the mar- 

 ket. While on this subject it might 

 be well for me to say that I am not 

 troubled nearly so much with these 

 worms at the present time as I form- 

 erly was, the reason of which I attri- 



