218 



THE AMERICAN APICULTUMIST. 



it seems as though thei-e is a prejudice 

 against extracted honey that meets the 

 united eflFort of every honey producer to 

 overcome. We should first seek the course 

 from which it emanates, and tlien apply 

 the remedy. I would like to hear from 

 others and what their experience has been 

 in this direction. 



I do not consider it safe for us to hunt 

 sales through commission houses, neither 

 do I consider tlie wholesaling of our 

 honey to the grocery stores a safe tran- 

 saction ; that is, to meet the consumer in 

 its original purity, and thus increase a 

 demand for honey. 



It is evident that there is a great deal 

 of suspicion in regard to extracted honey 

 and we can hardly believe tiie "Wiley lie" 

 responsible for it all. 



Spring, III., Nov. 8, 1888. 



Bee Cellars and various Topics. 



Z. T. HAWK. 



In the December Apiculturist of 1887 

 I briefly described my cheap bee-celhvr and 

 my plan of preparing colonies for winter- 

 ing. I had successfully carried twenty 

 colonies through the previous winter in 

 the cave there described, and I had little 

 doubt that with the conditions much more 

 favorable in the autumn of '87 I should be 

 able to again winter my stock witli little 

 or no loss. The bees were put in the re- 

 pository, November 18. The hives were 

 not very full of bees nor did they have as 

 much honey as is usually considered ne- 

 cessary for successful wintering. They 

 were placed on the summer stands April 

 8, having been confined one hundred forty - 

 one days. The temperature of the repos- 

 itory ranged from 38° to 44° above zero 

 during the coldest weather, but during 

 the latter part of February it fell to 36°. 

 During the winter one queenless colony 

 deserted its hive and crawled in witli its 

 nearest neighbor. That was my only loss, 

 hardly a loss at all for I still had tiie bees 

 and combs. Some of the colonies were 

 slightly afl"ected with the dysentery when 

 taken out, but two or three days of pleas- 

 ant weather made them all right. Friend 

 Alley, it doesn't take a hundred dollar cel- 

 lar to winter bees in; and if you know 

 some poor fellow who is going to run the 

 heavy out-door risk, because he cannot af- 

 ford to make a cellar, send him the Dec. 

 1887 Apicultukist and charge it to me. 



If he have time, strength and a little vim, 

 he can protect his bees witli a cash out- 

 lay of a dollar and a half, perhaps less. 

 If he have chatt-hives or double-walled 

 hives that admit of packing he may get 

 along very well l)y leaving his bees out; 

 but I sleep better when mine are safely 

 stowed away beyond the reach of bliz- 

 zards. 



Queen-rearing. 



I tried my hand at queen-rearing dur- 

 ing my vacation this summer, but I can- 

 not say that I covered myself with glory 

 or made the least addition to my fame as 

 beekeeper. The "pesky" things behaved 

 in a manner most surprising to me, and I 

 think that fully half of all the young queens 

 hatched in my apiary managed to lose 

 themselves on their mating flights or to 

 be killed at the entrances of their hives on 

 their return. I think the chief difliculty 

 arose from the scarcity of honey during 

 the iireater part of the time I was experi- 

 menting. The bees, having nothing to do 

 in the fields, took to playing pranks on 

 each other and the young queens were the 

 chief sufferers. But there was one thing 

 entirely outside all my previous experi- 

 ence with bees. A young queen left the 

 hive where she was reared and united and 

 where she had been laying three weeks, 

 to cast her fortune with another colony 

 ten feet away that had a laying queen. I 

 found her balled but too late to save her. 

 Was it your Boston neighbor, Mrs. Par- 

 tington, who said that "bees never do any- 

 thing invariably?" I think they don't. 



Two kinds of honey in a cell. 



I am quite sure the Apicultukist is 

 in error in saying that bees never place 

 but one kind of honey in a cell. During 

 the bass wood flow this year I got two 

 hundred finished sections and three or four 

 hundred more almost completed. A great 

 part of the latter were almost ready to be 

 capped, but for a month the bees did not 

 get honey enough to finish them. During 

 all that time they remained just as they 

 were at the end of the bassvvood har- 

 vest but when the fall flowers bloomed 

 they were finished in a few days. I think 

 the bees prefi r to store the various kinds 

 of honey separate as you suggest, but I do 

 not think they hesitate to mix the kinds 

 when necessity demands it. 



Possibly they may be more particular 

 when the apiarist is feeding back for the 

 purpose of having incomplete sections 

 filled out. That is an exi)eriment I have 

 not tried. 



Aiidubon, loica. 



