1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



939 



think there is a high wall on both sides, so that 

 it is impossible to get out of the straight road — 

 only to feed and feed. By a little progression 

 it is discovered that the road would be most 

 beautifully straight were it not for the perplex- 

 ity of turns. 



] The bee-business is considerably like that of 

 poultry. Where the feed can all be raised, or 

 where there is saved what would otherwise go 

 to waste, there is profit. But if the feed must 

 be purchased, it affords a margin varying any- 

 where between profit and loss. If there is prof- 

 it in sugar honey anywhere, it would be in Cal- 

 ifornia. In the East and North the seasons are 

 too short and cold, and bees are more expensive. 

 A colony can not be fed long before causing 

 swarming. If not allowed to swarm, the bees 

 sulk. When they sulk, there is waste; and if 

 they swarm, there is greater waste of both time 

 and feed. Then there is also an increase of 

 travel-stain and irregular building. A little of 

 such reduces a fancy product to second or third 

 grade, and there is no hope for success short of 

 every section perfect in appearance, weight, 

 and quality of contents. With queens from 

 sight months to a year old, they usually swarm 

 before two supers are completed; and with still 

 younger queens, not more than three or four 

 supers. In " feeding back" to secure the com- 

 pletion of combs it amounts to a short "dash " 

 only, as a " wind-up " of the harvest or working 

 season. We choose particular colonies at a par- 

 ticular time; but when feeding is to be contin- 

 ued long, conditions of the bees should be taken 

 into consideration when there is bound to be a 

 waste of time and syrup. 



Difficulty that would hardly be expected ear- 

 ly in the season, is, in getting the last cells 

 sealed after the combs are filled with honey. 

 Where only ounces of feed is really necessary, 

 it takes pounds to complete the work. Then, 

 again, late in the season, instead of storing in 

 the supers it is crowded into the brood-cham- 

 ber, and much labor by the old bees, with few 

 young ones coming on, will soon depopulate the 



olonies. Between these times there is inter- 

 mittent swarming and loafing, and by the most 

 skillful management it will be a matter of luck 



f the colonies are in disposition to do effective 

 work in sections half of the time. When keep- 



ng bees in a cold climate, it seemed that much 

 warm weather would assist and perfect certain 

 manipulation. In trying the warmer climate, 



here are found other modifications and difticul- 

 jies undreamed of. For example : In Iowa I 

 thought absconding in spring due to winter- 

 iickness, and other absconding to starvation, 

 fn warm climates they appear to leave the 

 lives to break the monotony, being neither sick 

 lor out of food. As they fly out and return, 

 ;he queen seldom gets back into the hive. Then 

 I worthless queen is reared from a three-days- 

 )ld larva. The better the queen, the more lia- 

 jle she is to decamp. 



When a non-swarming device has been per- 

 fected, and several other discomfitures brought 

 within restraint, and an artificial method of 

 charging liquids with formic acid has been dis- 

 covered, it will be time to talk sugar honey. As 

 the subject now rests, it plays the role of a 

 mighty sleeping monster, ready to awake and 

 devour at any moment, the ghostly dread of 

 which is more troublesome to bear than a hand- 

 to-hand encDunter with the identical animal. 



Florence, Cal. 



[On carefully reading the foregoing I do not 

 think that there is any thing in it that advises 

 the feeding of sugar syrup for honey; on the 

 contrary, it suggests a good many difficulties in 

 the -way of producing such a product. 



I am satisfied that syrup, when fed thin 

 enough, and taken down by the bees slowly 

 enough, and sealed up in combs, has a very 

 distinctive flavor of honey. But it is not floral 

 •honey, because it does not come from the flow- 

 ers; and the fact that some like sugar honey 

 better than other honey may be another way of 

 saying that a good many people prefer sugar 

 syrup, pure and simple, to put on their pan- 

 cakes, to any honey that was ever produced 

 from flowers. The fact is, sugar syrup is the 

 purest of sweets; is mild in flavor, and with 

 some people it seems to be more easily assimi- 

 lated. Admitting, then, that sugar syrup, 

 when manipulated by the bees, may acquire 

 a certain honey flavor— which I think can not 

 be successfully disputed— that is no reason why 

 it should be produced. 



Mr. Dayton's analogy is a good one; i. e., the 

 poultry business pays when we do not have to 

 buy the feed— or, rather, when they can utilize 

 what would otherwise be wasted. But if we 

 must purchase the feed at a country store, it is 

 doubtful whether there is any money in the 

 egg business. So with the honey business. 



The sugar syrup itself alone, at the least cal- 

 culation, would cost from 2}4 to 3 cts. But this 

 simply represents sugar and water, half and 

 half. The bees will evaporate it down to a con- 

 sistency of 11 lbs. per gallon, waste a lot of it 

 in comb-building and brood-rearing, and retain 

 some of it, besides, not in their honey-stomachs, 

 but into the true stomach, to be consumed for 

 their individual use. Taking all of this into 

 consideration, the fussing with feeding, the 

 nuisance from swarming, a lot of unnecessary 

 consumers from brood reared out of season, and 

 the first cost of the sugar honey, the article 

 would cost anywhere from 5 to 10 cts. more than ' 

 real honey, because, in the case of the last- 

 named, there is no expense for the nectar, no 

 feeding, no robbers, and not necessarily a waste 

 in brood -rearing. This sugar honey (at least, 

 reports seem to say so— and what I have seen 

 seems to bear out the statement), has a water- 

 soaked appearance compared with floral honey. 

 That being the case, it certainly will not bring 

 a higher price than the best gilt-edged floral 

 honey; and assuming that our sugar honey 

 would bring as much, how much profit would 

 there be left after taking off ."> or 10 cts. from 

 the price realized in the open market? 



There, now, have I said any thing I ought to 

 have left unsaid? I did not intend at this time 

 to bring up the sugar-honey question; but as 

 nothing has been said on this subject of late, 

 and I find there is in some quarters some specu- 

 lation as to whether it would pay or not, it may 

 be well to look over the figures a little before 

 we think of embarking into what would cer- 

 tainly be a very questionable and probably a 

 failing enterprise. — Ed.] 



