THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



sufficiently warm. The temperature 

 should never go down to the freezing 

 point. It should be kept as near 45 

 degrees as possible, and should not go 

 much below 40 degrees nor far above 

 50 degrees. 



By the time the first frost comes, 

 not later, all the colonies should be 

 looked over, and these that have not 

 enough winter stores should be fed 

 until they have plenty, which should 

 not be less than 20 lbs.; 25 lbs. would 

 be better. For out door wintering 

 they should have not less than 25 lbs. 

 of good sugar syrup or honey. 



Sunny Side, Md. 



Inducements for Bee-Keeping 



BY C. J. ROBINSON. 



Bee-keeping is honest, honorable 

 and easy. It needs but little capital 

 and no unusual skill; neither great 

 strength nor profound learning. It 

 does not depend on political favor nor 

 the smiles of the rich. Rural, but not 

 rude ; royal, but not rigorous. It asks 

 but the smiles of nature and a quiet 

 spot. It makes by saving and does 

 not injure by taking. It requires many 

 operatives, but they support them- 

 selves, requiring of their employer 

 only a cheap, suitable place to store 

 the product of their skill and industry, 

 ready for his or her use or for the 

 market. It can be conducted al- 

 most anywhere, and more money made 

 from the same amount of capital and 

 labor than in any other business. 

 Many a farmer loses more than he 

 makes by not keeping bees, or not 

 keeping them properly. He and his 

 family grow prematurely old with 

 plowing and reaping, and mowing and 

 hoeing, and all the drudging inciden- 

 we will relieve you from wasting toil." 



tal to tilling the s >il, while every flow- 

 er is saying to them, "Send bees and 

 These sable servants challenge com- 

 petition in con forming the sweet treas- 

 ures of nature to their masters' use. 

 Spare them life — it is short at best. 

 Let inventive genius protect and aid 

 them — they appreciate favors. We 

 cannot afford to do without bees, much 

 less to keep them in a profitless man- 

 ner. The profits of bee-keeping may 

 undoubtedly be far greater than here- 

 tofore, and whoever shall provide more 

 feasible ways to accomplish it will de- 

 serve a nich with him who makes two 

 blades of grass grow where one grew 

 before. 



Perhaps the most important consid- 

 eration for keeping bees is, that honey 

 is the most healthy sweet that is or 

 can be produced. Cane sugar cannot 

 be assimilated as food until it becomes 

 transformed into glucose (grape sugar) 

 and lumdose (uncrystallized sugar). 

 Bernard states that when cane sugar 

 is injected into the blood it circulates 

 therein as an inert body, and is in no 

 degree used as nutriment by the tis- 

 sues, but is eventually entirely re- 

 moved unchanged with the urine. Iu 

 his research to ascertain where in the 

 digestive economy cane sugar is trans- 

 formed, he failed to find it changed 

 in the saliva or in the stomach. He 

 at length discovered it in the small 

 intestines. Such being the order oP 

 nature, it would seem that in cases 

 where the small intestines, the assim- 

 ilating organ, becomes weakened, cane 

 sugar should not be taken into the 

 stomach. On the other hand, honey 

 is ready for assimilation, being nat- 

 urally fitted for absorbtion by the lac- 

 teal vessels, by which it is conveyed 

 into the circulation, assimilated into 



