(Entered at tbe PostoeSce at Chicago as Becond-Claes Mail-Matter.) 

 Published Weekly at $1.00 a Year, by George W. York & Co., 334 Dearborn Street. 



GEORGE W. YORK, Editor 



CHICAGO, ILL, MARCH 7, 1907 



Vol, XLVII— No, 10 



itorial Md 

 and Commenfs 



y^x 



Carrying Up Dark Honey 



At the Ontario convention Mr. Alpaugh 

 said that under certain conditions there was 

 danger that bees might carry up dark honey 

 from the brood-chamber into the surplus 

 apartment; and Mr. Holtermann said he had 

 known buckwheat to be thus carried up.— 

 Canadian Bee Journal. 



Working at Bees When Sweating 



" Never work at a hive when you are sweat- 

 ing. Bees have a strong dislike to the exha- 

 lations of one in a perspiration." 



That is the advice given in a foreign bee- 

 paper. Some bee-keepers in this country, with 

 hundreds of colonies, will smile broadly upon 

 reading such advice. It would work best in 

 a locality where the flowers secrete nectar 

 only in freezing weather, if bees are to be 

 kept on a large scale. 



That Apis Dorsata Comb 



Among other interesting paragraphs in 

 " Gleanings from Foreign Fields," by W. K. 

 Morrison, in Gleanings, is one which reads in 

 part as follows : 



The American Bee Journal has a paragraph 

 calling in' question the statement that Apis 

 dorsata builds a comb with cells S^o inches 

 deep ; but this is an actual fact, and the thick- 

 ness of the comb is h inches and more where 



it is attached to the branch of a tree It is 



probably true the cells at the top of the comb 

 are not 6-6ided, because the stretching caused 

 by the great weight of so large a comb, to- 

 gether with the weight of one whole colony 

 of bees, would serve to draw the cells out of 

 shape. 



This undoubtedly refers to a paragraph on 

 page 1045 of the American Bee Journal for 

 1906, the statement in question being, "They 

 make a large osided cell about 2>o' inches 



deep." it is going rather far anelil lo defend 

 a general statement of that kind by saying 

 that there may be cells of that depth at the 

 upper part of the comb. The defense of the 

 5-sided cell is somewhat ingenious, but is it 

 possible that those bees make such bad calcu- 

 lations as to have their combs stretch at the 

 top? Suppose they should stretch, would they 

 be 5-sided? Take a piece of poultry-netting 

 with 6-sided meshes and stretch it. If by any 

 possibility you can stretch it so that there 

 shall be one 5-sided mesh in 1000, then it will 

 be time to talk about stretching the big bees' 

 cells into 5 sides. Even then would it war- 

 rant the general statement that their cells are 



5-sided? 



■*■ 



"Mow Bees Make Honey" 



Mr. M. M. Baldridge, one of the oldest con- 

 tributors of the American Bee Journal, as 

 well as one or two others, kindly sent us the 

 following which appeared in the New York 

 Tribune Farmer for Dec. 12, 1906: 



How Bees Makb Honet. 



" A great many people think that bees get 

 honey from flowers," says the Rev. Theodore 

 Wood, in the Loudon Tribune, but that is 

 quite a mistake, for there is no honey in 

 flowers. It is true that many flowers have 

 sweet juices. But sweet juices are not honey; 

 and before they can be turned into honey 

 they have to be swallowed by a bee. 



" When a bee goes out on a honey-making 

 expedition it depends a great deal upon it3 

 tongue, which is very long and slender, and 

 is covered all over with stiff little hairs, so 

 that it looks just like a tiny brush. With 

 this the bee sweeps out the nectar from the 

 blossoms into its mouth, and goes on swallow- 

 ing it, mouthful after mouthful, until it can 

 swallow no more. But the nectar does not 

 pass into its digestive organs and serve as 

 food. It only passes into a little pouch, just 

 inside the hinder part of the body, which we 

 call the ' honey-b»g.' When this bag is quite 



full, the bee Mies ofl to i ts hive, and by the 

 time that it arrives there the contents of the 

 bag have been turned into honey I 



" How this is done I am sorry to say I can 

 not tell you ; for nobody has ever been able 

 to find out. If we examine the honeybag 

 through the microscope, we can find nothing 

 to account for the change. It seems to be 

 just a bag of tough skin, and nothing more. 

 Yet, in two or three minutes after the nectar 

 has been swallowed that wonderful change 

 takes place. And if a bee is fed with sugar 

 and water instead of nectar, it will turn the 

 sugar and water into honey in just the same 

 strange way. 



" When the bee gets back to the hive with 

 its load, it goes straight off to a honey-comb, 

 pokes its head into one of the cells and pours 

 out the honey through its mouth until the 

 honey-bag is empty. Then it flies off again to 

 obtain more nectar, and make a further sup- 

 ply. And so it labors busily on from the first 

 thing in the morning till the last thing at 

 night, never being away from the hive for 

 more than a few minutes at a time, and 

 always bringing back a fresh supply of honey 

 in its wonderful little bag. 



"Now, perhaps you wonder how it is that 

 the honey does not run out of the cells as 

 soon as the bees have filled them. For these 

 cells do not stand upright, but lie on their 

 sides ; and if we were to lay an open barrel of 

 treacle on its side, that barrel would very soon 

 be nearly empty. As soon as the honey is 

 poured into the cell by the bees, however, a 

 kind of thick cream rises to the surface and 

 covers it. And this cream holds the honey so 

 firmly in position that not even the tinest 

 drop oozes out. 



" But when bees want to keep honey for 

 some little time — when they are storing it up 

 for use during the winter, for instance— they 

 are not satisfied with this creamy crust, and 

 are evidently afraid that the contents of the 

 cell may dry up. So they carefully cover it 

 in with a little waxen lid, which makes the cell 

 perfectly air-tight. Next time that you have 

 honey-comb for breakfast, if you examine it 

 carefully you will find that nearly all the cells 

 are closed in this curious way. 



" Now, why do you think that the bees take 

 the trouble to make so many small cells in 

 which to store away their honey >. Why do 

 they not make two or three really big cells 

 and keep it all in those? 



" Well, the reason is that they know per- 

 fectly well that if honey is kept in a large 

 vessel it very soon becomes thick, because the 

 sugar in it forms into crystals; and in that 

 case they can not feed upon it. But as long 

 as it is kept in the small cells of the honey- 

 comb it remains quite fresh and liquid, sa 

 that all through the winter they are able to 

 use it as food." 



As the foregoing appeared also in the Lon- 

 don Tribune, we sent the clipping to Mr. 

 Thos. Wm . Cowan, editor of the British Bee 



