313 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr 1." 



F. A. WiixsoN, Bathgate, N. Dak., says {A. 

 B. J.) that in 1893, with no bees, squashes grew 

 as big as an apple, then turned yellow and died. 

 In August, bumble-bees appeared, and all that 

 set after that grew well. In 1893, bumble-bees 

 were on hand early, and "every set produced a 

 fine large squash." [Ik-re is a good fact for 

 that symposium. — Ed.] 



G. W. Demaree reports in A. B. J. that he 

 extracted all the unsealed honey from a lot of 

 combs, then uncapped and extract! d the rest, 

 and evaporated artificially the first lot, which 

 proved inferior in texture and flavor to that 

 evaporated by the bees, and granulated sooner. 

 [Here is a valuable fact. Who else has had 

 similar experience in the same line?— En.] 



Experimenter Taylor asks what I know 

 about Given foundation to warrant me "in 

 maligning its good looks." Simply that I used 

 it as long as I could buy it. and I don't think I 

 ever saw a sheet of uniform thickness. I never 

 heard of a uniform sheet before making that 

 statement, but have since, and I've no desire to 

 dispute what others say. 



John F. Gates gives his method in A. B. K. 

 Keeps his bees in big box hives 13 in. square 

 and 18 to 34 in. high; never takes any honey 

 from them, and but one swarm annually. He 

 hives swarm on old stand in a hive 8 in. high; 

 gives supers, gets good crop, then adds bees to 

 the old hive, and melts up combs in little hive 

 to have it empty for next year. If you think 

 Gates is a fool, you're fooled. 



T. W. Cowan said, in British convention, 

 that it was not worth while, in his opinion, for 

 English bee-keepers to follow the Americans, 

 who were " rather apt to rake up old, tried, and 

 discarded patterns of frames as though they 

 were new, and their own ideas." But why 

 shouldn't I pick up a gold coin because some 

 one else has thrown it away thinking it brass? 

 [That's it; you've hit it exactly.— Ed. J 



T. K. Massie says he has no trouble with 

 burr combs with top-bar 1)4 wide and }4 thick 

 spaced 1%. Ills top-bar is ll}4 long. A longer 

 top-bar might sag if X inch thick. But he's 

 down on the V edge on end-bar. [There seems 

 to be some misunderstanding about this V edge. 

 We make ours blunt, tJ inch wide at the point. 

 We have found in some cases that they have 

 been objected lo, simply because the V came to 

 a point — that is, was sharp. By mistake on the 

 part of the workmen, some of the V edg(!S went 

 out from the factory sharp, and to these is 

 traceable some of the complaints. — Ed.] 



What say the iJEE8?(see top of p. 38G). 

 But what if the two outside combs are full of 

 honey to start wiih? My bees have said very 

 emphatically tlu^y'd rather not have brood in 

 outside combs. [Yes, that's true; but our bees 

 (or, rather, queens) will often lay in all the 

 combs of an a'y/if frame hive — yes, clear to the 



sides of the hive; but they have almost never 

 done this in the ten-frame hive. The fact is, 

 the eight combs see?/! to have about the capac- 

 ity of the average queen; therefore the bee- 

 keeper who wants no surplus in the brood-cham- 

 ber prefers the eight-frame hive, — Ed.] 



I^^Kt 



NOTES FROM A MOHAWK VALLEY APIARY. 



BEE-KEEPERS NOT SECRET SIONOPOI,IZERS 



OF A GOOD locality: the glucose 



PROBLEM. 



By P. H. ElWdiHl. 



Quite likely the Rambler has not forgotten 

 his experience four miles east of here at the 

 Van Deusen foundation-factory; for in Ramble 

 No. 104 he puts the bee-keepers of his native 

 State into a class by themselves, and credits 

 them with having a good thing which they se- 

 cretly monopolize. Such is not the case. Bee- 

 keepers have no Eldorado east of the Rocky 

 Mountains— certainly not in the Mohawk Val- 

 ley. Our crop of comb honey does not average 

 more than 50 lbs. per colony, and our crop of ex- 

 tracted not more than 75 lbs., unless extracted 

 too often for fine quality. For the last few 

 years we have not averaged even that. The 

 desire to monopolize this business does not ex- 

 ist, for a majority of bee-keepers are going out 

 of the business, either by curtailing the extent 

 of their business or by abandoning it entirely. 

 Of course, the successive poor seasons have 

 been largely instrumental in producing this re- 

 sult. More influential, however, have been 

 adulteration and the sitspiciovi of adulteration 

 which have materially lessened the demand and 

 lowered prices of both comb and extracted hon- 

 ey. The Wiley fabrication has reached every 

 part of the country, while the sugar- honey 

 slander is fast following it. It has been assert- 

 ed that mere suspicion of adulteration has little 

 effect on demand and prices; but so long as 

 " loss of confidence " is credited with being the 

 cause of our present disastrous business depres- 

 sion it would seem to be unwise to assert that 

 " loss of confidence " in the genuineness of any 

 staple production would be any less disastrous 

 in the branch of business immediately concern- 

 ed in producing and marketing the same. 



Not long since, an intelligent lawyer of New- 

 York city informed me that he had seen comb 

 honey in market that was wholly an artificial 

 product, and made entirely without the aid of 

 the bees. Again, a heavy jobber in honey in- 

 formed me that the suspicion of sugar in honey 

 deterred many from buying the white comb 

 honey. A manufactui'er who uses considerable 

 extracted honey said he would no longer use 

 any California honey, nor buy any Eastern hon- 



