310 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May IS, 1902. 



consideration open any hive at such a time, for the robbers 

 will be ready to pounce in if you do. 



You can very easily start robbing working with the 

 bees without leaving any honey exposed, *hen there is a 

 dearth of honey. If you are inexperienced they can get 

 quite a start before you realize that they are robbers. If on 

 opening a hive you see some bees flying with quick, dart- 

 ing motions, trying to get in ; or if you see a bee alight on a 

 comb, and it is promptly seized by one or more of the bees 

 of the colony, you may be sure they are not honest bees ; 

 and if at the same time the bees of the colonj- you are work- 

 ing at are angry and excited, stinging without apparent 

 provocation, you may be sure robbers are at work, and you 

 would better close up operations, no matter how anxious you 

 are to work. The only safe way to work at such a time is 

 under a tent, where no outside bee can get in its work. 

 Sometimes, by leaving the apiary undisturbed for a few 

 hours, things will quiet down and you can go to work again. 

 But you must be on the alert, and at the first sign of robbers 

 you must be ready to close up promptly. 



If a frame of brood or any honey has been left exposed, 

 and the bees have got started on it, do not take it away 

 from them and leave nothing in its place. If you do they 

 will probably pounce upon the nearest hive and there will 

 be a royal battle. You can take it away and put a comb 

 without any honey in its place, or one that has a very little 

 in it. That will satisfy them. 



Dr. Miller often tells me that I am not as afraid of rob- 

 ber-bees as I should be. We have never had a very bad case 

 of robbing, at least none that ended very seriously. The 

 most we have suffered from robbing is having weak colonies 

 robbed out in the spring. But they have got started enough 

 a number of times to show what they might have done if we 

 had not been able to control them. 



A year or two ago Dr. Miller was called up in the middle 

 of the night, and asked if he would not come and straighten 

 up a man's bees. The man lived some six miles away. It 

 was his hired man that came for Dr. Miller. He said that 

 several hives had been knocked over, and the man had been 

 so badly stung that he had had to go to bed, and send for 

 the doctor, and there was no one else that could touch the 

 bees. Dr. Miller told him that he could not do anj'thing 

 until daylight, but that he would come early in the morning. 



I assure you it was a scene of desolation that we looked 

 upon when we reached that apiary the next morning. He 

 had quite a little apiary, had kept bees for years, but I imag- 

 ine he had never had such an experience before. He had 

 tied a young calf, with a rope long enough to reach the bees, 

 to an apple-tree near the apiary. The bees stung the calf, 

 and the calf commenced a mad race among the hives, as far 

 as the rope would allow him to go, overturning hive after 

 hive. In some cases the combs had been thrown entirely 

 out of the hives, and it looked as if the calf, in its mad 

 career, had run over them several times. Broken brood- 

 combs filled with nice brood, combs of honey, bees and sec- 

 tions, were in a sad mix-up, and the bees were fast waking 

 up to the fact that there was plunder to be had. 



We straightened things up as best we could ; got the 

 hives back on their stands, and whenever it was possible we 

 tied the brood or honey into the frames that were left whole ; 

 put the bees back into the hives where we thought they be- 

 longed, etc. Fortunately there was not much honey in the 

 sections, so that simplified that part of it somewhat, but it 

 was a little the worst wreck I had ever had anything to do 

 with. 



I think that man has had his lesson. I do not believe 

 he will ever tie any animal near his apiary again. But it 

 was expensive. McHenry Co., 111. 



Bleaching Combs to Make the Honey White— Bees 

 Don't Hear. 



BY C. P. D.\DANT. 



ON page 52, a Mr. Krause proposes to bleach the combs of 

 the extracting-cases in order to secure white honey, and 

 suggests a weak solution of sulphuric acid for that pur- 

 pose. 



In the first place, I am not fully satisfied that the dark 

 combs always give a color to the honey. We have been in 

 the habit of extracting our honey for some 32 years, and the 

 readers all know that we have been the champions of the 

 special system of extracting all the honey. Yet we have 

 harvested just as white honey as any one else ever did, when 

 the nectar in the fields was white. We have used old combs. 

 In fact we are still using combs which were built by bees in 

 1870, and we much prefer these to others .because the bees 



seem to have strengthened them season after season by re- 

 building the damaged cells. Yet I wouldn't like to set myself 

 up against the numerous testimonials which say that honey 

 is colored by being stored in old combs, but I hold that this 

 coloring is exceedingly slight, and that in the instances 

 where people claim that its color has been very perceptibly 

 deeper the fault has lain more with an inaccurate examina- 

 tion. The bees do not separate their different grades of 

 honey when harvested at the same time ; but some colonies 

 do get lighter honey than some other colonies, probably be- 

 cause their fields are different. For instance, I have seen 

 some colonies harvest honey-dew when colonies adjoining 

 them did not get a drop of this, their labors taking them to 

 other crops. 



Now, taking for granted that this coloring of the 

 honey is a fact, and we have tried to remedy it, the most 

 active agent in this change of color would be the yellow 

 coloring matter which the bees seem to gather so plentifully 

 when harvesting yellow pollen in the fall. This, in my 

 opinion, is caused by the deeply colored pollen, and is so 

 powerful as a dye that it is difficult to get rid of it. Wax- 

 bleachers are well acquainted with it, and say that this is 

 one of the most obstinate colors they have met. It seems to 

 stay with the beeswax, and often will not allow it to bleach, 

 but will remain in it. Acids have no effect upon it. This 

 we know by our own experience, and we find that the red 

 beeswax, which is produced in countries where these fall 

 blossoms are found, still remains a deep yellow after purify- 

 ing. Sun-bleaching changes this deep yellow to a paler 

 shade, which never becomes quite white. If this is the 

 coloring-matter which darkens the honey, it is useless to 

 expect to get rid of it except by melting up the combs. 



Now to come to the proposed process of soaking the 

 combs in a solution. Even if we were to expect a decided 

 change in the color of these combs by the use of a solution, 

 it would be unadvisable to use it because it would be sure to 

 leave a smell that would be objectionable to the bees, and 

 very probably also a taste which would damage the honey 

 more than the slight amount of coloring-matter which it 

 was sought to remove. 



Now as to combs blackened by brood-rearing. The only 

 way in which these combs could color the honey would be if 

 the latter was so thin that its presence in the cells would 

 liquefy or dilute" the hard substances which have gone to- 

 wards making this dark color. Otherwise there is no possi- 

 bility of a change in color. If the soaking of the combs in 

 a solution of sulphuric acid were resorted to, the result would 

 be a dissolving, by the action of the acid, of all the cast- 

 skins of the bee-larva?, and of all the refuse that colors these 

 combs ; but, as this exists in large quantities in old combs, 

 there would be a very large amount of residue, and unless 

 the cells could be washed clean afterwards, by repeated 

 drenching, it seems to me that there would still be enough 

 coloring-matter remaining to stain the honey. It is out of 

 the question to make a dark comb white, short of melting it 

 up in the rendering kettle. 



If the extracting-combs are removed shortly after the 

 crop, and put away till the following season, and if they are 

 put upon the hives only a few days before they will be 

 needed for storing the crop, there seems very little chance 

 of their getting much stain. Of course they will get some 

 color ; this is unavoidable. But what percent of extracted 

 honey is produced in new combs ? Undoubtedly a very 

 small quantity. And if there is any very light-colored 

 honey produced with the extractor, it is evident to me 

 that in many instances, at least, old combs have been used 

 without injury to the color of the honey. 



BKES DO NOT HE.\K. 



On page 62, A. H. Homersham (a quotation from British 

 Bee Journal) says that he has proven to his own satisfaction 

 that bees cannot hear. Well, we have all made those tests 

 ourselves. There is probably hardly a bee-keeper who has 

 not tried shouting when next to a hive of bees. But on 

 these questions Cheshire says : 



" Should some alien being watch humanity during a 

 thunder-storm, he might quite similarly decide that thunder 

 was to us inaudible. Clap might follow clap without secur- 

 ing any external sign of recognition ; yet let a little child 

 with tiny voice but shriek for help, and all would at once be 

 awakened to activity." 



We might add also that as the beesemit different sounds 

 at different times, there is very likely some response to 

 these. The only thing that we can knowingly assert is that 

 there is no response to whatever noise wk may make, when- 

 ever this noise does not act as a disturbing element. Thus, 

 as far as we are concerned, the bees do not hear. 



