256 



For tne American Bee .lournai 



Honey as a Staple Article 



BY JAMES HEDDON. 



Every bee-keeper who has had any 

 experience with the marketing of a crop 

 of honey, knows full well, that notwith- 

 standing some dealers and producers 

 have worked hard to make the article 

 somewhat staple and uniform in price, 

 no such thing has been done. I con- 

 ceive that if honey had no flavor, and 

 as little color as possible, that it would 

 then stand upon the merits of i^ sweet- 

 ening powers, and would at once have 

 a regular demand at a fixed price, the 

 same as sugar, syrups, etc. 



Now, from the experience I have had 

 with clear honey, I believe that it would 

 be a very simple job to erect a refinery 

 that would quickly, surely and cheaply 

 remove the flavor and bring nectar to 

 any desired consistency of flavorless 

 honey. Then the business of bee-keep- 

 ing would largely turn to producing 

 nectar (not honey) for the refineries to 

 make into honey syrup. We should then 

 for the first time see bee-culture on a 

 solid and respectable basis. An apiary 

 would be as salable as a store or a mill. 

 Capital would look with favor upon it. 



Hoav is it now V If you find one who 

 desires to " keep bees," he has probably 

 caught his enthusiasm from some mod- 

 ern bee book, patent hive vender, or 

 supply dealer, nearly all of whom make 

 it a business to talk up the smooth side 

 of the business, somewhat stretched, 

 and in order to make the unknowing 

 heart beat faster, they say " hardly any 

 capital required," and the consequence 

 is that almost all who try honey produc- 

 ing for a business fail, and those who 

 do not fail, soon see how much better it 

 would have been to have first gathered 

 their knowledge and then started with 

 a capital equal to that knowledge and 

 becoming to a man of some enterprise, 

 and to start just where some one of 

 years of experience leaves off. 



I find it very easy to sell a few colo- 

 nies of bees to almost any one who has 

 a proper mixture of enthusiasm and 

 money. It is just about as easy to fore- 

 tell the future of that apiary. It is 

 sometimes hard work to dissuade poor 

 and needy men from paying out their 

 last little surplus for one or two colonies 

 of my bees. Last winter was another 

 of the fatal ones in Southern Michigan, 

 and just now I fail to put my mind upon 

 a single person who has not been a 

 loser who has tried bee-keeping in this 

 county within two years. I have taken 

 pains to inquire into the exact condi- 

 tion of colonies that have lived and 



died about this county. I am still get- 

 ting at the facts, and in a future num- 

 ber will give them. I think about three- 

 fourths are dead, and many more are 

 weak. It is a beautiful morning, and 

 the bees make merry music, and of 

 course we hope to get a good harvest. 

 Dowagiac, Mich., May 12, 1879. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Hints on Robber Bees. 



J. O. SHEARMAN. 



We read in the books : " to stop rob- 

 bing, close up the entrance, so that only 

 one bee can pass at a time " ; rather a 

 close rule for all colonies, as they can 

 not clean out very well through a small 

 passage, and large colonies will not get 

 air enough. When they are trying to 

 rob, lean a board over the entrance ; if 

 that is not sufficient, cover the hive up, 

 till the bees stop flying and examine, if 

 they have a queen and enough bees to 

 hold their own, and if the robbers have 

 not started a "rum" on them, propor- 

 tion the size of the entrance to the col- 

 ony, and they may hold out. But for ex- 

 treme cases, when bees come tumbling 

 out of the hive, daubed with honey 

 enough so the outsiders will lick them 

 off, then look out. During the warmest 

 day in March, while going around to 

 see how the bees were flying, I noticed 

 they had commenced robbing by crowd- 

 ing in, by force of numbers, and begun 

 to carry off honey from 4 colonies. I 

 covered them up with straw. 



I used the straw because it was near- 

 est at hand. I have sometimes used a 

 blanket or sheet. They did not make 

 much headway robbing through the 

 straw that day, and near night I went 

 for No. 24 and found a laying queen, 

 brood, and plenty of bees — in fact it was 

 a strong colony, So I put in a wire door- 

 way ( same as for moving) and kept them 

 in all next day. As there was not day- 

 light enough to examine the others, in 

 the evening I dug a hole by the side of 

 two others and put each one in, let 

 them stand till morning, then covered 

 with boards and earth, and they are 

 there yet. Next morning the robbers 

 came but were disappointed. When 

 fine weather comes I will set them out, 

 watching my opportunity. The fourth 

 one was smaller than the others, but 

 healthier and in fewer frames, thus de- 

 fending themselves better. Early next 

 morning I looked for their queen, found 

 them in good order; they took care of 

 themselves with a small entrance and 

 a board leaning over it. 



New Richmond, Mich., March 20, 1879. 



