214 



AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



April 3. 1902 



Pres. York — Send Dr. Miller a five-gallon can of it, pre- 

 paid ! 



Mr. Riker — I visited in Colorado this fall, in some sections 

 where they raisesweet clover altogether, other sections alfalfa, 

 and in others the two kinds mixed. Wliere they raise sweet 

 clover people don't like it. Where it is pure sweet clover they 

 can't eat it. It sickens them. They can eat a mess, l5Ut 

 can eat very little of it. Of the alfalfa and the other there is 

 no end to ttieir eating it. The more they eat the more they 

 want of it. That experience I found there. Since I have re- 

 turned I have put extracted alfalfa honey on the market and 

 am selling it to my neighbors. Every person that I have sold 

 it to likes it. They can eat of that when they cannot eat of 

 any other honey. Well, it seems to me that the alfalfa honey 

 really is the best honey I ever had anything to do with. White 

 clover comes next, but the pure sweet clover in the West, 

 where I was this fall, and they told me it was pure sweet 

 clover which smelled exactly as pollen smells, as they grew it, 

 is pure honey there. The gentleman who has sweet clover 

 honey must have some other honey mixed with it in order to 

 make it good honey. 



Mr. Clarke — That reminds me of the boy and the cake. 

 You give -him a very nice-tlavored cake, and give him bread 

 afterwards, aud the bread doesn't go good : he likes the cake. 

 My experience has been this : Where I have had a sweet clover 

 customer yon can't get him away with alfalfa. He is used to 

 good-flavored honey, where sweet clover is properly ripened — 

 (I am not talking about ''green goods," taking olT all the 

 honey and selling it). You give him alfalfa and he will pro^i- 

 ably'tell you that he had a lot of artilicial honey. I meet with 

 that everywhere, nine times out of ten. on account of the 

 mild flavor of alfalfa, and the strong flavor of the clover. I 

 don't say anything against alfalfa, because it is a beautiful 

 honey, but it is the change from the strong to the mild which 

 is the cause of the trouble. 



Mr. Whitney — I would like to endorse what ilr. Clarke 

 has said with reference to sweet clover. Of course, we have 

 in our locality a sprinkling of white clover but not to any ex- 

 tent — largely sweet clover. I have never proved it finer honey 

 in my life than 1 have this year, and it is nearly all sweet 

 clover, but, as he says, it should be ripened. Mine was two 

 months in a very warm room and I sold it all, most of it at 15 

 cents, and I haven't had a word of complaint. There was very 

 little of that strong, sweet clover taste that we get in the smell 

 as we go through a patch of sweet clover. I am inclined to 

 think, however, as the secretary proposed, that the honey that 

 is^the best is that which people like best ; and I like sweet 

 clover. 



(Continued ne.xt week.) 



] Contributed Articles, l 



Transferring Bees— VVhen and How To Do It. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



A correspondent writes thus : " When is the best time to 

 transfer bees ? I have quite a number of colonies in box- 

 hives which I wish to transfer, and 1 should like to know 

 when this can be done to the best advantage. Can I do it as 

 soon as spring opens'? or would I better wait till the bees are 

 .securing honey from the fields '.^ or wait till swarming-time ? I 

 should be i)leased to have your answer through the American 

 Bee Journal." 



The transferring of bees from box-hives, or " gums," or 

 from one style of frame hive to another, can be successfully 

 done at any time of the year when bees can fly. if the operator 

 understands just what is needed in the case : and it is with 

 pride that I look on the man or woman who has ability enough 

 to accomplish anything successfully which is necessary to do 

 at a certain time, no matter whether such timr' is the most 

 propitious or the most unpropitious. The person who can suc- 

 cessfully transfer a colony of bees in early spring, when robber- 

 bees are prowlins around, is to be admired : yet. unless there 

 is some urgent reason why a certain thing should be done at 

 a certain time, it is always best to wait about doing anything 

 till the time when everything is the most conducive toward a 

 successful outcome. 



Q As I consider it, there are two seasons of the year when 

 bees can be transferred to the best advantage, the first being 

 fruit-bloom, and the other 21 days after a prime swarm has 



issued. During the first part of fruit-bloom the scramble 

 after new honey is such that one is not liable to be annoyed by 

 robter-bees, and at this time there is very little honey in the 

 combs to cut through, such honey making a sticky mess of 

 everything used during the operation. Again, as the bees are 

 getting their first honey, they are eager for .something to do 

 inside the hive at night, hence will repair all mutilation of the 

 comb, fasten the same in the frames, etc., much more rapidly 

 and readily than at any other time. 



With all the above being true, fruit-bloom brings the 

 most auspicious time for transferring bees; but it has this 

 drawliack : As a rule, the bees have got under good head- 

 way rearing brood, and we shall find the combs half or two- 

 thirds filled with the same, so that in cutting them to fit the 

 frames, much brood must be sacrificed, as well as displaced in 

 the brood-nest, owing lo our not being able to secure all in the 

 shape in the new hive which it was in the old one. All of this 

 has a tendency toward a loss of bees, and as all of the brood 

 that is sacrificed at this time would become bees of the right 

 age to do the best labor in the honey-harvest, had we left the 

 transferring till later on, we can see that a loss must be made 

 by doing our transferring at this time of the year, with all 

 colonies except those which have little brood in their combs. 

 For this reason I prefer to wait till 21 days after the prime 

 swarm went out. However, even though some brood is lost, 

 fruit-bloom is a much better time to do our transferring than 

 any other except 21 days after swarming, and many think that 

 through transferring in fruit-bloom, the bees are incited to 

 enough greater activity to make good all loss that comes 

 through destroying so much brood by cutting through it. 



At the time of 21 days after the prime swarm has issued, 

 all of the brood will have emerged from their cells, except 

 perhaps a few drones, and the young queen will have only 

 just begun laying, or have laid only a few days at most — not 

 long enough so there will be much but eggs in the combs — so 

 that all we have in our way at this time is the honey which 

 the combs may contain, which will not be a great amount if 

 the colony has been at work in the sections : for as soon as 

 the young queen begins to lay the honey is quite generally 

 hustled out of the brood-combs, up into the sections, to 

 give room for the eggs necessary to yield the bees for the future 

 prosperity of the colony later on in the season. And as this 

 comes at a time of the year when bees are generally securing 

 all the honey they want, and the weather is always warm, so 

 that there is no danger of brood or bees becoming chilled, no 

 matter liow slow we may work or where we are, we can now 

 do our work right in the bee-yard, this being much more con- 

 venient and giving a better prospect of success all around. 

 So far, I have been looking at the matter from the stand- 

 point of the old way of transferring, as it is styled. If we 

 should desire to use the Heddon or modern plan of transfer- 

 ring, by driving out the bees and hiving them in a hive filled 

 Willi comb foundation, this is just the time, and the only time 

 in whicli it can be done successfully, for the combs are free 

 from lirood, so only one operation !< needed. Otherwise we 

 must first drive o\it a swarm and hive it in a hive whose frames 

 are filled with foundation, taking our chances of getting out 

 the right proportion of bees, and leaving the right proportion 

 in, and then wait 21 days till the bees have all emerged from 

 the cells, at which time there will very likely be a honey- 

 dearth on, so we will be troubled with robber-bees, while the 

 young queen, in this case, will have already begun to lay.. 



When using the Heddon plan we do not have to tit any 

 combs into the frames, but the old combs are cut out full size 

 from the old hive, and wlien w(^ so work, at the time above ad- 

 vised, there will he no brood in the comlis to hinder, and noth- 

 ing to prevent our taking the old hive riglit to the solar wax- 

 extractor and doing the work right beside it, so that in an 

 hour or two we can have both the honey and the wax from 

 the old hive in shape to use. thus saving time and delay which 

 would result at any other time of the vear. 



Onondaga Co., N. Y. 



Winter Bottom-Board for Outdoor Wintering of Bees 



BY H. DUrRET. 



Fig. 1 is the winter bottom-board, with the movable parts 

 shown separately, a is a Syi inches tliick combination bottom- 

 board made of three layers nailed together: the middle one.r, be- 

 ing 114 inches thick, "in order to provide a 1 '2 inch space under 

 b, the bottom-board proper (as in Fig. 2). Length and widths 

 to suit th(^ hive which is to rest on A', A". A'. 



b is the movable bottom-board proper. When in place, it 

 will rest on 2>4 inch blocks t, t. nailed to the Hoor V, in the 

 rear : and in front, on another longer movable block k. Two 

 or three holes in h serve as entrance-holes under the frames. 



