36 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[August, 



My dear Bee friends, there is just as much 

 principle about bees as there is in anything else. 

 For instance, we go to some of our fairs, where 

 they have got their horses trained up to a high 

 speed, when they will make their mile in two 

 minutes and thirty to forty seconds ; then let 

 some of the old fogy farmers bring out some of 

 their old plow horses and put them on the track 

 with the fast horse, and in one or two rounds see 

 where the slow horse is. There is just as much 

 in management of bees. 



A word or two on Italian and black bees. 



As regards the black bee. Every good season 

 they swarm largely, and maybe before the next 

 •spring one-half of them will be gone. Now take 

 the Italian and manage them right, and they 

 will be a perfect success, and will not. like the 

 black bee, run back, unless you make some mis- 

 take in their management. If you notice, the 

 Italians fill the hive full of honey, nearly every 

 comb, except a small place in the brood chamber. 

 I opened three hives in the middle of October to 

 introduce imported queens, and not an e^ did I 

 see. The cells contained honey and pollen, and 

 rilled up so closely in the fall that they made a 

 perfect success, where the black bees will starve 

 to death. 



My experience is, that the Italians will go into 

 the winter quarters with less bees than the 

 blacks, and will come out in the spring with 

 more, on account of the large amount of honey 

 stored in the fall ; and I would assist Mr. Hos- 

 mer, in his statement made at the National Con- 

 vention, but I thought he made a little too 

 strong a case for himself. 



Alfred Chapman. 



JV* w Cumberlind, W. V. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



A Freak in Bee-culture. 



About the 1st of June, a neighbor transferred 

 two colonies of bees into frame hives. All went 

 on well until about the 18, h, when one swarmed 

 out leaving the combs destitute of bees, with 

 some brood and no honey. The bees did not 

 settle close by, though there were plenty of trees 

 in the yard, but came over to my apiary, about 

 two hundred yards distant, and settled upon a 

 young peach tree within ten feet of my hive. It 

 was hived in the same hive, but came out again 

 in the evening. About this time another one 

 swarmed and settled within ten feet of the first. 

 It was hived, and the entrance was contracted 

 to about \ inch. It remained, but in the even- 

 ing out came No. 2 and went into No. 1. Late 

 in the evening out came another swarm that had 

 not been disturbed. It also came over to see 

 me, and settled upon the top of hive No. 1, and 

 gradually made its way in. This made three 

 fine swarms in one hive. The weather being 

 very warm, the heat in the hive melted the 

 combs down, killing about one-half of the 

 three swarms. Now what made the bees leave 

 the stands in the first place, all leaving young 

 brood, and in one, the comb was full of fresh 

 larva and eggs, though not a great quantity of 



honey, and one without any '? Why did they all 

 come to one point to settle, there being plenty of 

 trees between ? I have always noticed a disposi- 

 tion to settle in the same place in the same 

 apiary, but this being entirely obstructed by 

 trees, and distant about two hundred yards, and 

 no timber on the opposite of me for two hun- 

 dred yards. I never saw hees leave young 

 brood without some apparent cause, while 

 these combs were all clean and nice, and the 

 hives new, no moths nor ants about. Will 

 someone give the solution. 



A Novice. 



[Translated from the Bieuenzeituntc.] 



What is Honey? 



Two articles in No. G of the Bienenzeitung of 

 this year, show the necessity that the beekeepers 

 should be acquainted with the nature and prop- 

 erties of honey, so that he, on the one hand, may 

 readily distinguish it from analogous products, 

 and, on the other hand, recognize the value of 

 them as bee food. 



When an individual plant is closely examined, 

 and its elements investigated, it will soon be dis- 

 covered that it is composed of organic matters, 

 which readily separate themselves in nitrogenous 

 and those without nitrogen. To this latter class, 

 with which we have to do, belongs the Plantfiber 

 or Cellubose (C12, Hio, O10). Starch (C12, Hi 0, 

 O10), Vegetable Gum (C12, Hio, O10, + HO), 

 Pectin, and the whole class of sugars and vege- 

 table fats. 



Our subject leads us to consider sugar alone of 

 the last name products. 



1. Grain sugar (C12, H12, O12, + 2HO). 



This sugar is found pure in many plants ; in 

 some it is found in the flowers, in others, in the 

 young sprouts. It is also found in great, abun- 

 dance in fruits, viz., cherries, plums, peaches, 

 figs, grapes, &c, which need but be tasted to 

 discover the presence of sugar. The white efflor- 

 escence on dried prunes, and the white granula- 

 tions on raisins, is grain sugar, which is also 

 called fruit or grape sugar. 



Tasting a dry grain of grape sugar, and then 

 a grain of cane or beet sugar, the difference be- 

 tween the two will be readily distinguished, the 

 former being less sweet than the latter ; two and 

 one half parts of grape sugar yielding only as 

 much sweetness as one part of ordinary cane 

 sugar: grape sugar dissolves less readily than 

 cane sugar; one part of cold water dissolving three 

 parts of ordinary cane sugar, while, in the same 

 quantity of water, only two-thirds of one part of 

 grape sugar will be dissolved. 



Grape sugar is composed, however, of a mix- 

 ture of crystallizing and mucilaginous sugar. 



Compared with honey, grape sugar appears to 

 be chemically similar.* 



* It is an error to suppose that honey is composed 

 of mucilaginous and grape sugar, because the origi- 

 nal grape sugar is composed of crystallizing and mu- 

 cilaginous sugar. Both are one body, showing them- 

 selves uuder two different forms, as ice and water. 



