514 



June 13. 1907 



American Hee Journal 



snakes eat bees? 



Dr. Bohrer — I do not know whether 

 snakes do or not. I do not Hke them 

 about the apiarj-, though. I do not 

 like tTieir looks. 



Pres. York — I doubt if many bee- 

 keepers drink enough to see "snakes" 

 around the hives! 



Dr. Bohrer — I saw one, a blow-shake, 

 6 feet long. But speaking about toads, 

 I have heard them accused of destroy- 

 ing bees to quite an extent. I saw one, 

 I think nearly as large as my fist, sit- 

 ting on the alighting-board of a hive, 

 and I concluded I would watch and 

 see what he was up to. He was looking 

 indifferently at nothing, as far as I 

 could tell, but after a while a bee came' 

 in reach and it disappeared a whole lot 

 quicker than it could have gone into 

 the hive if it had done its best. I 

 watched him for a while, and he des- 

 troyed a number of bees, and I destroyed 

 the toad. He was the finest one I ever 

 saw, the finest one I ever raised in 

 Kansas, and it is a good place for toads. 

 They do well. They may catch some 

 millers, but I think my bees are strong 

 enough so that they will attend to the 

 millers; and I believe we ought to ex- 

 pel the toads from the apiary, as a rule, 

 from what I saw there. Mr. Quinby, 

 in his book, claims they are very de- 

 structive. They may be kept out by put- 

 ting a board around. 



Mr. Kimmey — I have seen a toad 

 catch a few bees, but it did not seem to 

 be very serious. I have seen the toad 

 near the entrance and the bee was gone. 

 There is no question the toad got it. 



Mr. Wheeler — When I asked if snakes 

 eat bees I was going to suggest that 

 they eat the toads. 



Pres. York — The snake may eat the 

 toad full of bees, I suppose! 



Danger of Overheating Buckwheat 

 Honey. 



"Why will not buckwheat honey bear 

 heating so hot as clover honey?" 



Mr. Arnd— Won't it? 



Pres. York — Without destroying the 

 flavor, I suppose it means. 



Mr. France — I do not know the na- 

 ture of the answer required, but when 

 I was in New York there was some 

 buckwheat honey brought in for me to 

 suggest whether it was suitable to feed 

 bees. I said, "No; not that wild honey." 

 "But that is New York State buck- 

 wheat," they said: I replied, "I can't 

 help it; I would not want to feed my 

 bees on it, because that honey is full 

 of pollen. You can feel it on your 

 fingers — the grain in the honey of the 

 pollen." One of our most extensive bee- 

 keepers lost 90 percent of his bees that 

 winter. I think for the same reason 

 of the pollen in it, if you -heat it too 

 much in liquifying, you will darken it, 

 and also increase the flavor of it. 



Dr. Miller — The question implies that 

 the heating of buckwheat honey injures 

 it more than heating clover honey. Has 

 any one testimony that that is a fact? 



Mr. Wilcox — I have very positively 

 proved that it is a fact. I have been 

 melting buckwheat honey for 20 years, 

 and I have been melting clover about 

 as long, and I know certainly I can 

 not heat buckwheat hotter than 140 de- 

 grees without impairing its flavor, or 



changing its flavor so that I can dis- 

 cover that it is what we call "boiled 

 honey;" and I heat clover honey or 

 basswood honey easily to 160. I have 

 tried it with a thermometer, again and 

 again. I will say further that it is al- 

 most impossible, with ordinary care, to 

 reliquify buckwheat honey without im- 

 pairing its flavor. I can not fully re- 

 store its former flavor. I am anxious to 

 know if there is any other explanation 

 than that given by Mr. France. 



Mr. Moore — How do you tell how hot 

 you have your honey? 



Mr. Wilcox — Put a thermometer in 

 it. 



Mr. Moore — Do you use a thermomet- 

 er at all times in heating honey over 

 the fire? 



Mr. Wilcox — Not at all times, but 

 frequently ; use it both in the water 

 around the honey, and in the honey. 



Mr. Moore — Can you overheat the 

 honey while there is a candied portion 

 in it? 



Mr. Wilcox — I shovel the honey into 

 the clothes-boiler, and when it is about 

 melted I have a thermometer and drop 

 it into it, and also in the water. 



Mr. Moore — The question is. Can you 

 overheat the honey while there is a 

 candied portion in it? 



Mr. Wilcox — Yes. If there is no 

 more than one pound melted, and that 

 is heated too hot, that will flavor the 

 whole body. The rest may be candied, 

 meanwhile. 



Ground-Moles in the Apiary. 



"How can ground moles be destroyed 

 in the apiary?" 



A Member — Catch them and choke 

 them! 



Another Member — The same way as 

 they can anywhere else. 



Mr. France — Use bisulphide of carbon. 



Dr. Miller— Plenty of cats. 



A Member — A good dog. 



Mr. Taylor — A cat won't catch one. 



Pres. York — ^Mr. Taylor says a cat 

 won't catch one "in his locality." 



Dr. Miller — They will in mine. 



Mr. Taylor — They won't in any lo- 

 cality. 



Dr. Miller — I would like to ask what 

 his evidence is that a cat won't catch 

 them in his locality. 



Mr. Taylor — .\ cat won't dig for 

 them. 



Dr. Miller — I don't know how they 

 got there, but I see them in the cat's 

 mouth in my locality. 



Mr. Taylor — You mean the meadow- 

 mole, don't you? 



Dr. Miller — They are short, and they 

 look as if they were blind. 



Mr. Taylor — They both look as if 

 they were blind. 



Mr. Kimmey — At one time on my 

 lawn I would get up in the morning 

 and would find where something had 

 gone under the ground quite a disance; 

 and sometimes I would see it working, 

 and dig down with a spade and get it. 

 I thought that was a mole. That _ is 

 what you are speaking about, isn't it? 



Mr. Taylor — Yes. 



Mr. Kimmey — That is the kind I 

 have seen with the cat. .1 don't know 

 whether she dug down, or how she got 

 it, but I have seen it repeatedly. She 



got them until she exterminated them 

 all. 



Mr. Wheeler— I have done it by dig- 

 ging down, in the hole and putting a 

 piece of parsnip or carrot with a little 

 piece of strychnine in it. 



Mr. Kimmey— Do your moles travel 

 the same path? 



Mr. Wheeler— Thy went back and 

 forth. 



Mr. Kimmey — Mine did not. 



Mr. Duby — Another good way of de- 

 stroying moles is a common castor-oil 

 bean. You see the track of the mole. 

 It is never deep. Just make a hole with 

 a stick and drop a castor oil bean in it. 



Dr. Miller— Do the moles hurt the 

 bees? 



Mr. Taylor— No, but they dig up the 

 ground and kill the sod. 



Dr. Miller— Then what do we care 

 about moles? 



Mr. Wheeler— Does the castor-oil 

 bean kill the mole or scare him away? 



Mr. Duby— Kills him. The next morn- 

 ing he will be on top of the ground. 



Mr. Wilcox— I want to get rid of the 

 moles. They are eating my wife's flow- 

 ers. They do not hurt the bees, but they 

 are destroying the flowers. 



Pres. York— Here is a question for 

 Dr. Miller to answer. Are you ready? 



Dr. Miller— Ready. 



How TO Succeed with Bees. 



Pres. York — "How can I succeed in 

 bee-culture?" 



Dr. Miller— I had the same question 

 asked me a number of years ago. A 

 lady in the State of Wisconsin wrote to 

 me, "Will you please give me your sys- 

 tem of bee-culture?" When I have it 

 written out for her I will pass it on to 

 you. 



Pres. York — Dr. Miller wants more 

 time, but he has had over 40 years now. 



Distance Between Queen-Breeding 

 Apiaries. 



"How far apart should queen-breed- 

 ing apiaries be situated in order to 

 prevent amalgamation ?"_ 



Mr. Horstmann. — 6 miles. 



Mr. Wheeler — According to Mr. 

 France, it should be 12 miles — 6 miles 

 each way. 



Dr. Miller — If I am not mistaken. 

 Father Langstroth said a distance of 

 half a mile; and others will make it 6 

 miles. If there is any definite informa- 

 tion on that point it will be important to 

 get it. If not, we would better not 

 spend much time on it. 

 Mr. Hudson — When I started rearing 

 Italian bees for sale there were black 

 bees around me — no Italians — and I 

 commenced to Italianize all the bees, un- 

 til I got all Itahans within the 3-mile 

 limit, and that eliminated the trouble. 



Mr. Abbott — When I first started in 

 - St. Joseph I had, about % of a mile 

 out, 150 colonies. My brother lived in 

 the city and we had in his yard in the 

 city 10 or 15 colonies of pure Italians. 

 Those out in the large apiary of 150 

 colonies were not all pure Italians, but 

 we kept drone-traps on them and caught 

 all the drones except the Italian drones. 

 We had one of those Cyprian queens, 

 and we wanted to get all the queens 

 mated, if possible, and the colony pro- 



