306 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



May 20, 



comb under these conditions nearly always build drone-cotub. 



I now wait four or five days, when I go to the old colony 

 and take out four frames of brood, from which all the bees 

 were shaken, as they were from the last-meutioned franie, 

 when I carry them to the nucleus. I now fill out each hive 

 with empty comb or comb foundation, and put on the surplus 

 arrangement. 



By the above, each colony is made of about equal strength, 

 and the brood is so taken out of the old hive that the colony 

 does not have a desire to swarm. The old colony will have 

 the most field bees for the first week or so, but the other will 

 soon make the stronger colony of the two. 



My second plan is to make one colony from each old one, 

 on the principle of division of bees instead of division of 

 brood, as in the above case. In using this plan we must have 

 queen-cells nearly mature by the time our first colonies are 

 preparing to swarm. Having such cells on hand, I go to a 

 colony preparing to swarm, or one that has its hive full of 

 bees and brood, and move it one side of the old location, so 

 as to put a new hive in its place. If a hive is not full of brood 

 and bees, do not touch it; for it is useless to try to increase 

 bees till such is the case. 



cir I now look over the combs till I find the one having the 

 queen on it, when I place that comb in the new hive. I next 

 give them a frame having some honey in it, and then fill out 

 the hive with empty comb or foundation, when about two- 

 thirds of the bees in the old hive are shaken in front of the 

 new hive and allowed to run in. After this I arrange the 

 frames back in the old hive, putting a division-board in place 



pared hive in its place. Thus I have a laying queen and 

 enough of her own bees to protect her, together with a hive 

 filled with combs of brood, and all the field-bees from the re- 

 moved colony. The loss of bees to the removed colony stops 

 the swarming impulse, and In about a week they have so re- 

 gained their loss that they are ready for the sections again. 



In this way I make one colony from two old ones, but 

 have all in the best possible condition to take advantage of 

 the honey harvest which is soon upon us. 



These plans all look toward a host of bees in time for the 

 harvest, with no desire to swarm : and thus having them 

 gives an assurance of a large crop of honey. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



"Digested" (?) Nectar aud Glucose — A Protest. 



BY EMEKSON TAYLOR ABBOTT. 



I desire to offer a mild protest as to some of the positions 

 taken by Prof. Cook in his article on page 179. He says, in 

 speaking of the glucose of digestion, that it is " transformed 

 cane-sugar or starch, acted upon by the animal juices of the in- 

 testines" (note the language); and that " honey is probably 

 the same, as the bees gather the cane-sugar from the flowers 

 and transmute it by a digestive (?) process into the wholesome 

 and delicious honey." 



I want to say that honey is " probably " not "the same" 

 as the glucose produced by the "juices of the intestines." At 



Pi(7. 2 — Keor View of the CMon Winter-Case Arrangemenl. 



of the frames taken out, when the old hive is carried to a new 

 location where I wish it to remain. After the bees thus re- 

 moved have become reconciled to their queenless condition, I 

 give them one of the nearly-mature cells, or a virgin queen 

 which will soon be laying. In this way I have secured my 

 new swarm, controlled all after-swarming, and introduced my 

 young queen, all to my liking, and with but little trouble. 



My third plan is one which I use on the weaker colonies, 

 or those which do not get ready to swarm up to 10 days or so 

 before the honey harvest arrives, when I proceed to make col- 

 onies from them as follows: 



A hive is filled with frames of empty comb, and placed 

 upon the stand of one of these colonies which have not 

 swai'med, and all the sections are taken off and placed there- 

 on, then all the bees are shaken and brusht off their combs of 

 brood and honey in front of the hive, into which they will run 

 as fast as shaken off. Thus I have a colony that is ready for 

 the honey harvest, as they have the queen, bees, and partly- 

 filled sections all in readiness to work. Previous to this, 

 nuclei have been started, so I have plenty of laying queens to 

 use as I need them. 



I next take all the combs of brood from which the bees 

 •were brusht except one, arranging them in the hive the bees 

 were shaken out of, and carry them to the stand of another 

 colony which has not swarmed. I next take the comb of 

 brood which was left out, go to one of the nuclei, take out the 

 ' frame having the laying queen on it, and put the frame of 

 brood In Its place. Take the frame — bees, queen and all — 

 and set it in the place left vacant for it when arranging the 

 combs of brood. I now put on the sections, and, having all 

 complete, I move the colony to a new stand and set the pre- 



least there are a large numberof us who think it is not, and up 

 to the present time we have failed to find any convincing proof 

 that our opinions are not correct. In the first place, we insist 

 that honey as found in the combs has never come iu contact 

 with any "juices secreted by the intestines," as wo commonly 

 think of digestion. We are well aware that it passes through 

 a transformation after it is gathered by the bees and before it 

 is known as honey, but that is not necessarily a "digestive 

 process," as plain, common people would define digestion. So 

 far as I am concerned personally, I think the process of pro- 

 ducing honey out of nectar bears more resemblance to that of 

 producing commercial glucose out of corn than it does to the 

 process of digestion as it takes place in the intestines. I espe- 

 cially protest against conveying the idea that honey has ever 

 been in the " intestines " of a bee. One may just as well say 

 that corn taken from a chicken's crop had been in its intes- 

 tines — a statement which anyone would recognize as being far 

 fro?n scientifically correct. 



Honey is transformed nectar, but I prefer to think of the 

 process as being chemical, rather than the result of the vital 

 energies of an animal organism. 



Then the Professor would have us believe that commer- 

 cial glucose is a very unwholesome food, if not really poison- 

 ous. He says bees seem to "know that it is an unwholesome 

 food, and thus only take it as a matter of necessity." Uo bees 

 know anything about its " unwholpsomoness," or do they re- 

 fuse to take it because it is deficient in saccharine matter? 

 If they know so much about glucose, why will they suck pois- 

 oned nectar from a fruit-tree? 



" If glucose will kill bees, it stands to reason that it Is very 

 probably deleterious to all animals." I am not so sure that 



