1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOUKNAI. 



359 



little kerosene in them, and even after 

 the kerosene is evaporated out of the 

 pans it keeps the ants at bay. Most 

 housewives have some favorite meth- 

 od of combating ants, so that, they 

 will be able to make the honey safe 

 in this line. 



Honey will absorb moisture from 

 the air if kept in a moist atmosphere. 

 I have seen cappings turn dark and 

 become almost transparent in ex- 

 tremely damp locations, so the wa.x 

 cappings will not be a full protection, 

 and extracted honey exposed to the 

 air would soon begin to thin up if not 

 in a dry, warm place. This thinning 

 results in souring if can-ied far. There 

 is nothing like thick, well-ripened 

 honey, and we should let it get fully 

 ripened before we take from the hives 

 and then store in a way to keep it 

 thick. 



Extracting combs that have a con- 

 siderable number of cells filled but 

 not sealed will result in thinner honey 

 and great care must be taken to keep 

 this fi'om fermenting. It is best to 

 leave such frames on the hives until 

 the flow is over entirely and then the 

 bees will either empty the unsealed 

 cells or fill them up, as the case may 

 be. If they cannot fill when the flow 

 stops entirely they will take out of 

 part of the cells and store in others 

 and seal what they have and leave the 

 other cells empty. I have taken off 

 frames where solid sealed honey filled 

 a third of the frame and the remain- 

 der of a two-thirds built out comb 

 was empty. Previously I had noted 

 that the empty part of the comb had 

 been full of uncapped honey, but the 

 flow stopped suddenly and did not 

 come on again. 



An attic or an upstairs closet is 

 often ideal for honey storing. If 

 where the temperature will be kept 

 comparatively even in winter, gi'anu- 

 lation will not be so bad as if subject 

 to quick changes. 



Kansas. 



UNITING SWARMS AND COLO- 

 NIES 

 By A. F. Bonney 



The writer, early in his career as 

 a beekeeper, had occasion many times 

 to unite bees, as swarms were num- 

 erous, and many were secured, and 

 after trying about every odoriferous 

 substance known to the druggist, fi- 

 nally settled on peppermint, and has 

 used it several years with uniform 

 success, but without paying much at- 

 tention to the why of his successes. 

 Finally, however, curiosity took pos- 

 session of his mind, and he began to 

 study. 



Next to peppermint, fair success 

 may be secured with anise, using the 

 oil dissolved in denatured alcohol, and 

 this mixture in water, as the pepper- 

 mint is used, but so much of it is re- 

 quired that it becomes quite expen- 

 sive, and even then there are times 

 when good results will not be .-ecured. 

 To mention other substances: caje- 

 put failed in most cases, wintergreen 

 gave poor results, oils of orange and 

 lemon were failures, ammonia drove 

 the bees out of the brood chamber in 

 a mass, chloroform puts them to sleep 

 and destroys memory, assafoetida acts 



as smoke does but in a mild way, 

 whole smoke and the odor of creo- 

 sote and pyroligneous acid seem to 

 have a tendency to make the bees 

 ball the queen. Carbolic acid was a 

 repellant pure and simple, as was 

 naphthalene (moth balls). 



While peppermint appears to tem- 

 porarily destroy the sense of smell 

 in beos, it differs from chloroform, 

 which renders the bees dormant, as it 

 does the human, and, as mentioned 

 before, destroys memory in the bees. 

 It is suggested that this agent will 

 prove valuable in introducing queens. 



Experimenting with peppermint, 

 and its active principle, menthol, I 

 found it ideal in every way, for the 

 bees do not object to it, and will tol- 

 erate even the pure oil, dropped into 

 the corners of the brood chamber, and 

 a veiy small amount, so little as four 

 drops, seems efficacious, and a very 

 weak solution of the essence in water 

 will enable one to unite swarms or 

 colonies, no matter how excited or 

 hostile they may be, and I finally de- 

 cided that the odor of the peppermint 

 had a paralyzing effect on the smell- 

 ing organs of the little animals, and 

 we know that the sense of smell is the 

 principal one possessed by bees. 



The factor of time is valuable when 

 using the peppermint, and, as strange 

 as it may seem, two colonies may be 

 united within one minute after a mod- 

 erately strong solution of peppermint 

 in water is used, say a teaspoonful of 

 the essence, which may be secured at 

 drug stores, in 8 or 10 ounces of 

 water. After uniting bees in this way 

 I have found bunches of them sat- 

 urated with the solution, and watch- 

 ing them carefully, found that they 

 did not seem at all injured after they 

 had dried off and gone to work. 



I shall remark here, entirely for 

 the benefit of the beginner, that if 

 you have two or more colonies or 

 swarms, with queens, to be united, 

 pay no attention to the queens, for it 

 is a provision of Mother Nature that 

 when two queens fight for supremacy 

 of the hive one will surely survive. If, 

 however, one queen is to be saved, de- 

 stroy the other. 



Iowa. 



POISONOUS SPRAY 



By Will H. Gray 



I have just read the letter by G. A. 

 Barbisch about the poisoning of his 

 bees by fruit spraying, and your own 

 notes on the subject. In my experi- 

 ence the fruit grower sprays, not 

 when it is best to spray, but when he 

 can get the spraying machine, regard- 

 less of the state of the blossoms. 



It ought to be easy enough to get 

 a law passed making it compulsory 

 for the fruit grower to notify the bee- 

 keepers in his vicinity of the day or 

 days that he is going to use summer 

 spray. The beekeeper then will have 

 the alternative of shutting in his bees 

 for. that day or claiming damages in 

 case of loss, as in the latter case proof 

 would be simple. The effect on the 

 "sprayer" of this law, would make 

 him realize that there were other in- 

 terests besides his own, and he would 

 be more careful. 



This fruit spray question is always 

 cropping up in the irrigated lands of 

 the West. It is generally thought 

 that in a number of cases the bees get 

 the spray in mistake for water, and 

 not necessarily on the flowers; in this 

 case water could be put out during 

 spraying operations. 



British Columbia. 



EUROPEAN FOULBROOD 



Something New (?) About It 



By Arthur C. Miller 

 The subtle spread of this malady is 

 baffling, as is also its rise in virulence 

 and oft its disappearance. 



It seems to come out of the thin 

 air; to linger along, doing little or 

 no harm, and then suddenly to de- 

 velop a virulence which at one leap 

 goes beyond control. But even that 

 burns itself out by de.stroying every 

 colony, and the very filth it leaves be- 

 hind forces the owner to either de- 

 stroy it all with fire or render the 

 combs into wax, thoroughly cleanse 

 hive and frames and make a fresh 

 start. 



Sometimes the re-established api- 

 ary remains clean for years, or the 



A close-up of the stinging bees. Bee on the left is beginning to sting, \ bile the one on the 

 right is finishing, leaving the sting in the arm. 



