164 



. THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Jan., 



the bees, how it was possible for Mr. Southworth 

 and Mr. Moon to pass their sugar honey for a 

 good article. 



Mr. Moon, said he took the premium at the 

 great International Fair at Chicago, in 1859, on 

 honey produced from feeding sugar syrup, and 

 one of the awarding Committee was so pleased 

 with the honey, that he thought he was entitled 

 to all three of the premiums. 



(Note by Reporter. It is perhaps due to Mr. 

 Moon to state, that after the adjournment of the 

 society, Mr. M. suggested to me that he was not 

 explicit enough in the foregoing statement, and 

 the facts were, that the honey was gathered 

 when basswood was in bloom, but was not yield- 

 ing much honey, and he fed them loaf sugar 

 syrup, to assist them in filling out the boxes. 

 He fed about 80 pounds of loaf sugar to a col- 

 ony that was making the whitest honey out of 

 70 in his apiary, and the largest part of the 

 honey exhibited, was sugar syrup. ) 



Mr. Southworth said his bees were flying out 

 and getting some honey when he gave them the 

 sugar, and the honey was not all made of sugar. 



D. L. Adair said that there certainly was a 

 change produced in the substance stored by the 

 bees, as was apparent in the taste. He instanced 

 bees storing the juice of apples and other fruits, 

 aud pure sugar syrup stored by the bees, ob- 

 tained the flavor and aroma peculiar to what is 

 known as honey. He did not think that the 

 distinctive aroma of honey was derived from the 

 flowers, but that the sweets absorbed the scent 

 from the atmosphere in the hive. It was well 

 known that many substances, such as oils and 

 sugars, would appropriate the scents or perfumes 

 in the surrounding air, and any one that had 

 opened a bee hive, would know that they gave 

 off a scent, as rats and other animals that inha- 

 bited holes and close dens. This was absorbed 

 by the liquid sweets, and gave it its distinctive 

 flavor. It is evident that the flowers could not 

 do it, as the scent or perfume of flowers differed 

 widely from that of honey and from each other. 



Question 7. — "Where two swarms of bees 

 settle together, how do you separate them? " 



Mrs. Tupper. If put into a large box, where 

 there is room to form separate clusters, they will 

 separate themselves. 



L. B. Butler of Woodbine, Iowa, said he 

 scattered the bees along on the ground and 

 they would soon form separate clusters around 

 their queens. 



Mr. Moon separated them by putting them 

 in as many different hives as there were swarms, 

 a few in front of each at a time, so that he could 

 see that each got a queen. 



Question 8. — "How do you prevent natural 

 swarming?" 



Mrs. Tupper. With black bees, if the old 

 queen be taken out and a young queen given 

 them just before swarming time, it will prevent 

 swarming, but Italians have several swarming 

 fevers during the season. Taking out a card of 

 comb at intervals would prevent it. 



D>: Lucas said in hiving new swarms, a card 

 of brood would not always prevent them from 

 swarming out again, as he had a swarm to de- 



sert twice under such circumstances before they 

 became contented. 



Question 9. — "Is catnip profitable for bee 

 pasturage ? ' ' 



Mrs. Tupper thought that no plant should be 

 sown that had not more uses than for its honey. 



W. B. King, of Ky. In Trimble Co., Ky. he 

 saw honey gathered abundantly from catnip. 

 He thought it valuable, and advised sowing it in 

 waste places, and along the road side. 



Question 10. — " Do bees make honey? " 



Mrs. Tupper. That was in effect answered 

 under question 6. 



Question 11. — " How many colonies of bees did 

 you go into winter with in 1871, and how many 

 did you loose during the winter of 1871-72?" 



Mrs. Tupper put 84 into her own cellar and 

 wintered all of them. One proved to be queen- 

 less and one was weak. These she united with 

 other colonies. She put 20 colonies each into 

 two other cellars, and lost them all. 



Question 12. — " As the comb cells are nearly 

 horizontal, what prevents the honey from run- 

 ning out before being capped over, and can this 

 principle be applied to domestic purposes? " 



Mrs. Tupper. The cells are not exactly hori- 

 zontal. The honey was held in by capillary at- 

 traction. She saw no use the principle could be 

 applied to for domestic purposes, further than is 

 already the case. 



Question 13.—" What is honey?" 



1). L. Adair said, strictly speaking, there was 

 no distinct substance that could be called honey. 

 The bees gather from flowers, from the different 

 sweets know as honey dews, and from the sac- 

 charine juice of fruits and plants, substances 

 that consist chiefly of sugar in some of its forms, 

 mixed with other secretions and essential oils, 

 and store it in the comb cells, and it is called 

 honey. It necessarily varies widely, depending 

 on the source from which it is derived. All ho- 

 ney is sugar containing vegetable substances in 

 solution with it. Sugar in all three of its forms 

 is in a general sense, the sweet principle of 

 plants, fruits and trees. — Cane sugar, fruit su- 

 gar and what is known as grape sugar vary but 

 slightly in their constituent elements andean be 

 chemically converted into each other. They dif- 

 fer only in the proportion of hydrogen and oxy- 

 gen or the elements of water. Bees will gather 

 and store up anything that sugar in any of its 

 forms is mixed with, so as to give a decided 

 sweet taste, and while it may be true that in the 

 process of gathering and transferring to the hive, 

 no chemical change takes place, they mechanic- 

 ally change its taste by its absorbing the scent 

 peculiar to the hive and often change its consist- 

 ency by a process of evaporations of any excess 

 of water. 



Question 14. — "Is it advisable for beekeepers 

 who keep bees on a small scale to have a honey 

 extractor? " 



Mrs. Tupper thought it would pay any one 

 however few colonies he had. When bees re- 

 fused to work in boxes, by taking out all the 

 honey from below with the extractor, it would 

 stimulate them to work in the boxes, and the 

 extracted honey in that case was a clear gain. 

 Uses a tent, when no honey is being gathered, 



