463 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1. 



Since we sold at fi and even at 5>.< cts. per lb., 

 by the carload, each of (irst-class California 

 and of clover and basswood honey, we can 

 hardly find customers for dark honey at any 

 price. The bottom has come out of prices of 

 all articles of late, which. I hope, is temporary 

 only. 

 Cincinnati, O., May 7. 



[What Mr. Muth has said in regard to the 

 taste of individuals in different localities is 

 quite true; and along with this idea it may be 

 well to say that, in certain p^vrts of York State, 

 a considerable number consider buckwheat the 

 finest honey in the world. They like that rich 

 strong flavor and dark color. To them, no 

 honey can stand in comparison with it; and in 

 regions where basswood seems to be the chief 

 source of supply, no honey is considered equal 

 to it. It is well that there is this variety of 

 taste; because if everybody universally agreed 

 that one kind of honey was the best, honey 

 from all other sources would necessarily bring 

 a lower price; but as it is, there are quite a 

 number of "best honeys" in the world. — Ed.] 



THAT NEW PLAN TO PREVENT SWARMING. 



By O. JM. Doolittk 



While I would not on any account discourage 

 new plans (for out of the invention of new plans 

 for the various manipulations of bees has come 

 wonderful things of late), yet I can not feel 

 that it would be right to let pass unnoticed 

 some of the obvious errors which are found in 

 the article by Bro. Edson Hains as given in 

 Gleanings on page 405. To let these errors 

 pass unnoticed would perhaps cause many to 

 put time and money into such a swarming-pre- 

 ventive arrangement, by way of building new 

 bee-hives or by altering old hives over, boring 

 holes, etc., in them, with little if any prospect 

 of success, as I can see it; while a word of 

 warning may save some from going into this 

 Ihing headlong, and allow those who wish to 

 experiment along this line to do so understand- 

 ingly. In the first place, the plan is not a ?ieit) 

 plan, for it is very similar to the D. A. Jones 

 plan which was given to the world some ten or 

 fifteen years ago. The Jones plan was to allow 

 the queen from six to eight combs for laying in, 

 which were placed in the center of the hive 

 with perforated zinc on either side and over 

 them, with two or three combs near the en- 

 trance, and between these and the 'queen's 

 apartment two wide frames of sections were 

 placed, while more wide frames of sections 

 were placed back of the queen's apartment, 

 and finally sections placed over the whole top 

 of the hive. As soon as the six or eight frames 

 were filled with brood, three of them, having 

 brood in the most advanced stage, were taken 

 out and put in the place of the three combs in 

 front of the sections, and next to the entrance, 

 while those combs were placed in the brood- 

 nest to give the queen plenty of empty room. 

 In two weeks the three combs in front, now 



nearly empty of brood, were substituted for 

 three with nearly mature brood again, from the 

 brood-nest, and so on through the season, thus- 

 keeping the queen's apartment empty of honey, 

 with plenty of room for eggs, while the bees 

 could store their honey in the sections in front 

 and overhead without going into the brood- 

 apartment at all unless they desired. 



The whole thing looked so reasonable to me 

 that I made five hives on this plan, and in- early 

 spring put five good colonies into them, work- 

 ing them according to instructions, with the 

 result that every one of them swarmed, and 

 the whole thing was a complete failure so far 

 as the merits claimed for it were concerned, 

 as I gave in the columns of Gleanings of 

 about that time. It matters not whether the 

 queen can go out with the swarm or not; so 

 long as the bees contract the swarming fever,, 

 and that fever continues, they are of little 

 value as a colony for storing honey in sections 

 to the best advantage, and I can see nothing in 

 the Hains plan which will prevent their con- 

 tracting the swarming fever, more than there 

 was in the Jones plan. The whole thing is- 

 based on the false idea that bees coming in 

 from the fields loaded with nectar go directly 

 into the sections and deposit that nectar in the 

 cells. Mr. Hains says, " When I put on the 

 surplus case I place it so the bees can have 

 ready access to it from the combs in front of the 

 excluder, without passing through the zinc. 

 This i)artially keeps the honey-gatherers out 

 of the brood -nest and saves them the trouble of 

 going through the zinc heavy laden with hon- 

 ey, and it prevents them from emptying their 

 load right into the brood-nest where the queen 

 is about to lay her eggs." This is only the old 

 idea over again, which caused an entrance ta 

 be placed at the tops of the frames of thousands 

 of the first-made Langstroth hives, as well as 

 at the bottom, so that the bees in returning 

 from the fields with their loads of honey could 

 go direct to the sections and thus be saved the 

 time, .trouble, and travel of climbing up 

 through the crowded hive with their loads. I 

 have lain hours enough, when put together, to 

 make days, by the side of a single-comb observ- 

 atory hive to see what I could find out in this 

 matter, as well as otiier matters, and I never 

 yet saw a bee. coming in loaded from the field, 

 deposit the load of nectar it had. in a cell of 

 the comb, unless honey was so abundant that 

 every bee was so filled that it could hold no 

 more, which does not happen once out of ten 

 thousand times; but the load is always given 

 to one of the younger bees which has not yet 

 entered the fields as a field worker, and taken 

 by this bee and deposited where it is wished. 

 Again, the same thing is proven when we 

 change a colony from German bees to Italians, 

 by changing queens some time before the honey- 

 harvest. There comes a time when all the 

 German bees will be field-bees, and all the 



