October, lyo;. 



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American Hee Journal 



high as a food, and used in the proper 

 connections with other food stuffs, it 

 may be regarded as, in actuality it is, 

 one of the most complete solvents for 

 assimilation that can be appropriated in 

 the human stomach. — Read at the Wash- 

 ington State Convention. 



We submitted the foregoing article to 

 Dr. E. N. Eaton, e.x-analyst of the Illi- 

 nois State Food Commission, who re- 

 ported as follows: 



"The conclusion to the article is un- 

 doubtedly correct. 



"I am inclined to doubt scientific ba- 

 sis for statement that certain foods 

 build up the higher faculties, or that it 

 is advisable to eschew eggs and milk 



~iff .•rf'ii'- 



because the (lesh of the animals which 

 furnish them is used for food. 



"As to the composition of honey, I 

 believe it to be a fact that dextrose and 

 levulose are present in nearly equal pro- 

 portion; that dextrin is hardly ever 

 present to the extent of 4 percent, and 

 that cane-sugar or sucrose is normally 

 in from 2 to 7 percent. 



"While the statement has frequently 

 been made that honey contains formic 

 acid, I do not regard it as positively 

 proven. 



"The amount of calorics or heat-pro- 

 ducing power of a food is not a criterion 

 of its food-value, but only of its energy 

 value, presuming that it is digestible. 

 Honey, however, has a hie;h value in 

 this line."' "F.. .V. E.mon." 



MS^^Tw 



'Bee - Keepiiij^ ^^ 



Conducted by E.M.MA .M. WlLSuN, .MarLiin", HI 



Beginning With Bees 



Dear Miss Wilson : — I write to ask 

 your opinion on getting some bees. I 

 have wanted a few colonies for years, 

 but not knowing how to manipulate 

 them, and having no one near to help 

 me, I have never started. I am not 

 able to take a course in bee-culture, but 

 do you suppose with the aid of a good 

 book on bees I could learn the work? 

 This is a very good locality for them. 

 (Miss) S.\RAH Harris. 



Concord, N. C. 



Whatever advantages there may be in 

 a course of instruction, the probability 

 is that the great majority of bee-keep- 

 ers began with no other advantages 

 than you have. Get a good text-book 

 and put in your extra time this winter 

 studying up on bees. Also take one or 

 more of the bee-papers. If you are 

 thinking of making a business of bee- 

 keeping you cannot afford to get along 

 without them. 



In the spring get 2 or 3 colonies of 

 bees, and you can begin to put into 

 use the knowledge you have stored up. 

 You will make mistakes, but that's the 

 way to learn. 



Starved Bees— A Sister's Report and 

 Experience • 



Dear Miss Wilson : — I mean to have 

 a good, solid "bee-talk" with you to- 

 day, and so beg your patience and kind- 

 ly interest. 



Our bees at Clovernook have had 

 a simply awful year of it. I need 

 not recall to you what last winter was 

 as to sustained and vigorous cold, and 

 you doubtless know what kind of a 



spring and summer this northern end 

 of Lake Champlain has caught. 



Our apiary usually numbers between 

 80 and 90 colonies, but during the last 



3 years has dwindled somewhat, so that 

 last fall we put into the cellar only 

 56 colonies. These, however, were in 

 good, healthy condition, and had plen- 

 ty of honey for all reasonable de- 

 mands. 



Last spring I lost all but 23 colonies. 

 There was no honey left in any of the 

 hives, and most of the bees must have 

 starved to death in the cellar. We have 

 caught only one swarm this summer, 

 and our bees were not ready for su- 

 pers until August IS, when we put on 

 II. There is but very little honey in 

 them now. 



All this summer I have watched for 

 a favorable condition of affairs to do 

 some artificial increase work in the 

 yard, for I am not content to let our 

 apiary rest in such a reduced condi- 

 tion; but if a suitable time did come, 

 my man was away, I was sick, or we 

 had a hurried shipment of ducks to get 

 off, so the summer had drifted by until 

 last Monday, when I became desperate. 

 With my man's help we placed 8 clean 

 hives on some of the empty stands, each 

 with 6 good worker-combs, and put into 

 the center of every hive 3 to 4 frames 

 of capped brood with the bees clinging 

 to them, from the 12 colonies I had re- 

 served for this work. Where they were 

 good and strong in brood we took 3 

 frames, in others but 2, and in a single 

 case but one. Several of the nuclei have 

 but 3 frames of brood. The rest have 



4 frames. 



We did this work in the afternoon, 

 and of course had wire screens over the 

 entrances to keep the bees in till accus- 

 tomed to their new homes. We also. 



after placing on the mat and cover, 

 put on extra covers to keep the heat 

 off the new colonics, and opened up or 

 took off the wire-screens the following 

 evening — Tuesday. 



I think our nucleus colonies are all 

 right so far; but of course the disad- 

 vantage of this method of increase is 

 that we can not tell for sure where the 

 queen is, and it is too late, really, for 

 the bees to secure queens for themselves, 

 as I think the probabilities are that we 

 will get frost within the next 2 weeks. 



My plan has been to use the surplus 

 honey from our 11 supers to help out 

 these young colonies, and to buy a few 

 queens to supply deficiencies. I shall 

 watch closely, and where I find freshly- 

 laid eggs, of course, I will know the 

 <iueen is present, and will mark that 

 hive "O. K." Where no eggs appear 

 we will reserve for the queens bought. 

 If they start queen-cells for themselves, 

 so we will have some extra queens, we 

 may possibly be able to make one or 2 

 more new colonies. 



The lowest I ever had my bees was 

 the first fall, when we put into the cel- 

 lar 30 colonies. I mean to work these 

 up to 80 colonies as fast as possible. 

 It seems very queer not to have a 

 pound of extra honey, when in times 

 past we have had as high as 5 tons from 

 64 colonies. 



I think the cause of our heavy mor- 

 tality in the winter was the jars and 

 slamming that went on overhead. I 

 could not seem to make my chore-man 

 understand the importance of keeping 

 the bees quiet. 



Best wishes and kindly greeting to 

 our "sisters" — and the "brothers," too, 

 if they care for it. F. E. Wheeler. 



Chazy, N. Y., August 22. 



Thanks for so full and candid a re- 

 port. It takes many and many a year's 

 experience to stear clear of starving 

 colonies in winter. Some colonies seem 

 to take a spiteful pleasure in starving 

 when they are as heavy with stores as 

 other colonies that winter all right. As 

 one cannot know which these excep- 

 tional colonies are, that require an ex- 

 tra amount of stores, the only safe way 

 is to treat all as exceptional cases, and 

 see that they have not only enough, but 

 a good bit more than enough to take 

 them safely through until they en gath- 

 er again. 



Early in the season preparation should 

 be made for having extra combs of 

 sealed honey ready for any emergency. 

 Then at the close of the season put these 

 heavy combs into the hives wherever 

 they are needed. 



We always weigh each colony nn'ess 

 we know that they are so very heavy 

 that they are away beyond the danger- 

 point. Whatever combs are not needed 

 in the fall will come in very nicely in 

 the spring to replace empty combs. We 

 would have been in bad shape last spring 

 had we not had 250 heavy combs of 

 sealed honey to give our bees, although 

 they went into the cellar very heavy, in- 

 deed, with stores. But we don't often have 

 such a very, very bad spring as we did 

 this year. The weather was so bad that 

 the bees would not have left the clus-- 

 ter to take feed and I feel sure we 

 would have lost heavily but for those 

 heavv combs of honev. 



