184 



GLEANINGS IN 13EE CULTUKE. 



Mar. 



FROM DIFFERENT FIELDS. 



TESTING EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Jfn N inquiry has been made by a friend, who 

 ?flsi nses honey as a medicine, and he wishes to 



j^K** use it pure. How can extracted honey be 

 -*-'^ tested, to discover any adulteration that may 

 have been made '/ Probably you would be 

 pleased to notice this inquiry in GLEANiN(iS. 



Klkhart, Ind., Feb. 11,1880. J. S. Coffman. 



Friend C, there is no way tbat can be laid 

 down in books and journals for testing ex- 

 tracted honey, that 1 know of, that wouldn't 

 be expensive and rather impracticable. Yon 

 can test the presence of cheap glucose by 

 sweetening a cuj) of tea with a teaspoonfnl 

 of the honey. If it contains glucose, it will 

 make the tea black. A few days ago some 

 milk was left in a tin dish, from which the 

 tin was worn oft" so as to expose the iron. 

 As soon as the milk was poured into the tea, 

 the mixture looked like ink. The tannin 

 (Contained in the tea makes a delicate test 

 for the presence of iron. If the quality of 

 the glucose, however, were very good, there 

 would be no trace of iron about it, so the 

 test is by no means infallible. To get a 

 chemist to test honey usually costs from five 

 to ten dollars, and he may make a mistake, 

 even then. I do not see any better way 

 than to buy your honey of some reliable 

 lirm, or get it with the name of the producer 

 on the package. Certainly not one bee- 

 keeper in a thousand would put his name 

 on a package of honey that was not pure. A 

 good many samples of honey have been sent 

 me since otu- late discussion in the matter, 

 but I am quite certain that all that liave 

 been sent me have been absolutely pure 

 honey, made by the bees, although some of 

 it*is very poor in quality. 



I decided that the larvae of the moth were just 



i the thing to feed their young, and probably 



j did a thriving business, as the quantity of 



I brood you mention attests. You give us 



I another strange fact ; and that is, that these 



Avasps will use combs built by bees. VV^hy 



did you kill the waspsV Why not let the 



wasps' brood hatch out itself, and then your 



I combs would have been as good as ever? 



VELI.OW WASPS, AN ENEMY TO THE SIOTH MILDER. 



Last spring, as 1 had no place to keep the combs 

 from the hives in which the bees died during the 

 winter, I hung four or five in a hive, and placed 

 five or six hives, one on top of the other, with a bot- 

 tom-board between each hive. 1 had six such tiers. 

 When I used them in June and July I found thou- 

 sands of the wings and legs of the bee-miller under 

 each hive, and but five or six m«ths in the whole lot 

 of combs. A nest of very large yellow wasps, or 

 hornets, had taken possession of one of the hives, 

 and filled three of the combs nearly full of brood. 

 They got so strong that I had to burn them. I 

 think there was three pints of those big yellow fel- 

 lows after I had got them killed. A strange part of 

 this freak Is, that in a short time after I had killed 

 the ugly " varmen," what combs were left became 

 so full of moth worms that I had to remove them to 

 a safe place, and brimstone them. Now, what I 

 should like to know is, did the wasps kill all these 

 millers? If not, what did? At any rate, they spoil- 

 ed three combs for me, as the bees would not clean 

 the wasps' brood out of them. Wm. L. King. 



Sodus, Herrien Co., Mich. 



Friend K., your remarks remind us of 

 what 1j. L. Langstroth recently wrote in re- 

 gard to spiders as a protector of empty 

 combs. The yellow wasps, without doubt. 



WHAT IS SPHAGNUM MOSS? AND SOMETHlNfi AHOIT 

 WHEKE TO GET IT. 



Please tell what sphagnum moss is. Is it the kind 

 that grows on old logs, in low ground? 



The Bend, Defiuoct Co., (). F. W. Moats. 



AVhy, friend M., it is the kind of moss you 

 refer to, but I suppose any sort of moss 

 would do for making seeds grow, on the 

 plan given by Mr. Henderson. We get ours 

 from a peat swamp that we underdrained 

 last fall, for the privilege of drawing away 

 as much peat as Ave wanted. AVe spade up 

 the moss m great chunks as big as a man 

 can lift. It is then dried over our steam- 

 boiler, when it is rubbed through the hands 

 until fine, and then sifted over the seeds. 

 We have formerly got sphagnum from fiorests 

 and from nurserymen in the cities; but the 

 kind we get from our own swamp here at 

 home works nicer than any we can purchase. 



SOME WISE COUNSELS FROM CUBA. 



1 feel like thanking G. M. Doolittle for his article 

 on page 13, " Few or many Colonies: which?" and T 

 do not know that I should slight you for the remarks 

 you make upon his article. If the beginners could 

 be made to understand that success in l>ee-keeping 

 does not so much depend upon the number of col- 

 onies as upon the amount of honey secured from a 

 few colonies when the range is not overstocked, 

 there would be more satisfaction and better-filled 

 pocket-books. Let's have no more colonies than 

 our range will support, and lots of bees in each col- 

 ony. A. W. OSBURN. 



Havana, Cuba, Jan. 23, 188r>. 



M.iRKING A BEE WITH PAINT. 



I see in your last issue that you suggest putting a 

 drop of white paint on the back of bees to mark 

 them, so as to see how long they would live aftei- 

 their sting has V)een removed. I would say, that oil 

 of any kind, put on to a bee or other insect, will kill 

 it in half a minute, as it gets into the breathing- 

 pores and strangles it. C. C. Mii.ES. 



Des Moines, la., Jan. 22, 1886. 



So says theory, friend M.. but the facts do 

 not agree. A little bit of thick paint on the 

 fur of the bee's body does not hurt him, as 

 several have proved. One friend let the 

 paint run through a crack in the roof of the 

 hive while he was painting it, and, without 

 trying to, he marked several of the bees ; 

 and, strange to say. tlie queen was among 

 them. ^ 



HOW TO GET SPIDEU-PLANT SEEDS TO (JKOW 

 EVERY TIME. 



It is natural for all wild-plant seeds lo lie in the 

 ground and freeze through the winter. We must 

 follow nature if we want them to grow. You want 

 to plant, or, rather, bury the seeds, in the winter. 

 Take a small bag, put the seeds in it, and bury it in 

 the ground one or two inches deep, where they will 

 freeze during the winter; and after the ground is 



