153 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



AlKJUSt 



Cupid and the Bee. 



Cupid once upon a bed 

 Of roses laid his weary head ; 

 Luckless urchin, not to see 

 Within the leaves a slumbering bee; 

 The bee awaked — with anger wild 

 The bee awaked, and stung the child. 

 Loud and piteous are his cries; 

 To Venus quick he runs, he flies; 

 "Oh, Mother! — I am wounded through - 

 I die wiih jiain — in sooth I dol 

 Stung by some little angry thing. 

 Some serpent on a tiny wing — 

 A bee it was — for once, I know, 

 I heard a rustic call it so." 

 Thus he spoke, and she the while 

 Heard him with a soothing smile, 

 Then said, "My infant, if so much 

 Thou feel the little wild bee's touch, 

 How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be. 

 The hapless heart that's stung by thee! 



-Thomas Moore. 



The big convention will surely be held 

 as advertised, in Buffalo, September 10, 

 11 and 13. 



FEEDING BACK 



To Secure Comb Honey — One of Mr. 



Demaree's Experiments. 



BX ADKIAN GBTAZ. 



IN connection witli the subject of wax 

 secretion, as noted in tlie Switzer- 

 land items this month, 1 beg to re- 

 late here one of the experiments made by 

 Mr. Demaree, of Kentucky, on feeding 

 back. 



After the colony experimented on had 

 fairly started work in the super, he 

 took the super off and put in place one 

 filled with sections and full sheets of 

 foundation, and resumed feeding. He 

 had to feed forty-one pounds of extracted 

 honey to produce twenty-four pounds 

 (net weight) of comb-honey. A second 

 super was then placed and it took thirty 

 pounds of feed to fill the twenty-four 

 sections. The third super gave exactly 

 the same result. Taking the two last 

 supers as a basis, there was a loss of 

 honey of six pounds out of thirty. Those 

 six pounds were employed by the bees (1) 

 to sustain their life; (3) to raise brood. 



and (3) to produce the wax necessary to 

 build the sections of comb. 



As it was after the main flow of honey 

 and before the fall flow, very little honey 

 could have come from the fleld, the less 

 so because fed bees do not gather as 

 actively as others. But even supposing 

 that enough came from the field to sus- 

 tain the life of the bees and to feed the 

 brood (which is not likely to have been 

 the case) we would tlien have a maximum 

 consumption of only six pounds of honey 

 to complete the combs of twenty-four 

 pounds of section-honey. 



There were in each super thirty sec- 

 tions of twelve ounces of honey each. 

 Assuming the weight of wax of each sec- 

 tion to be one ounce, six pounds of 

 honey produced thirty ounces of wax or 

 3 1-5 pounds of honey to one pound of 

 wax. This is probably too high, for it is 

 not probable that there was enough 

 honey brought in from the field for 

 brood-rearing and life- sustaining pur- 

 poses. It must be remembered here 

 that a colony bountifully fed will raise a 

 considerable amount of brood and slack 

 or even quit entirely gathering from tlie 

 field. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



So do the winds and thunder cleanse the air. 

 So working bees settle and purge the wine; 

 So lopped and pruned trees do llourish fair; 

 So doth the lire the drossy gold refine. 



— Spencers Fairy Queen. 



REMOVING HONEY FROM THE 

 HIVES. 



KY L. E. KEltK. 



I SUPPOSE every one has his own way 

 of doing this work. Locality also 

 has a great deal to do with it. In 

 localities when; the flow is of short dura- 

 tion, and the product is shipped, not 

 much fitting -and crating is done till Sep- 

 tember or October. Here, however, our 

 flow is best in November. And also I 

 find a ready market for all of my product 

 right at home. 



I never use a bee-escape in removing 

 honey; they do their work all right, but 



