132 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Fkb. 15. 



is plain that, in similar ciroiimstanct'S, it is mon- 

 profitable to increase the colonies than to pre- 

 vent swarming. True, \v<' have some bad hon- 

 ej' years, and the last three years in succession 

 were such in my locality. This is the reason I 

 did not recommend artificial increase. If the 

 spring is so unfavorable that the colonies do not 

 build up very fast, and consequently do not 

 swarm, we should damage our colonies by arti- 

 ficial swarming. These swarms would be in a 

 poor, starving condition; and if the horsemint 

 will give some honey, swarm and parent colony 

 are not strong enough to give any surplus. We 

 may be glad if they store enough honey to pull 

 through summer, fall, and winter. If thi- colo- 

 ny remains undivided it will give more or less 

 honey in even a bad year. It takes an experi- 

 enced bee-keeper, who is acquainted with his 

 locality, to decide when artificial swarming shall 

 be practiced and wlu-n not. 



I recommended the giving of starters to new 

 swarms only. After many experiments with 

 combs and full sheets of foundation I settled on 

 this practice, and recommended it for many 

 years in the ApiciiUurist when all the other 

 bee-keepers of the United States used and 

 abused foundation. The reason, and my ideas 

 about wax-secretion. 1 will give in another issue. 



MY MAX,\GEMEXT. 



This, at swarming time, is the same. I work 

 for extracted honey, and use large hives to 

 make use of all the laying capacity of any 

 queen; but neverthel(>ss, my bees swarm. In 

 the home yard I take the natural swarms. In 

 out-apiaries I make artificial swarms if the 

 spring is favorable. If the spring is so unfavor- 

 able that the bees do not store any new honey, 

 but use up some of the old stores, it may happen 

 that a sudden honey-flow may cause my colo- 

 nies in the out-apiaries to swarm, and I should 

 lose ♦hem. To prevent this I set one of my 

 shallow cases with full sheets of foundation un- 

 der every hive (in the out-apiary), and one of 

 the brood-cases without queen on top over an 

 excluder. This previ'nts swarming for at least 

 two weeks; and if the conditions change I can 

 make artificial swarms of them just as well. 



When the horsemint-flow is over, and all the 

 honey extracted, and I do not wish to increase 

 the number of colonies. I reunite. This is done 

 very easily. I set the first hive with comb, 

 brood, bees, and queen, on a new stand, and the 

 secoiid one on top of it. without any ceremony. 

 I let the bees decide which queen they want. 

 The old bees will My hack to the old stand, and, 

 finding no hive there, will unite with some 

 neighboring colony. If some of them are not 

 accepted it is no loss for me. They would die 

 before winter, and there is nothing more for 

 them to do this year. According to my obser- 

 vation, very few are lost this way, but are usu- 

 ally accepted. Both colonies losing their home, 

 the old bees are not inclined to bile or fight. 

 They unite peaceably, and I do not rememb(M' 

 that one of these colonies became queenless. I 

 call this a short cut. Thus I have a great force 

 of bees in the main honey-flow, and few bees 

 when tliey use up their stores. I let the bees 

 build up to a strong colony, and, if possible, to 

 even two strong colonies, and have only one col- 

 ony all the rest of the year. Bui 1 like to have 

 this one colony strong all the time, because a 

 weak colony in the fall will not be stronger in 

 spring, and a weak colony in spring does not 

 grow fast enough in even a good year; w hih; a 

 good colony with a good (lueen will be a rous- 

 ing one in a very short time without any fuss- 

 ing, such as spreading the brood, stimulative 

 feeding, etc., and this is another sliort cut. 



L. Stachei,hausf:.v. 



Selma. Texas. .Ian. :i(). IStf.'. 



Ud/es- Conversazione. 



THE APPEARANCE OF HONEY IN STORE 

 WINDOWS. 



MISS WII.SO.V MAKES A GOOD St GGESTION. 



I fe(^l very much aggrieved, and my special 

 grievence is with commission men this time. 

 1 wonder why they don't make their honey look 

 a little more attractive. In passing down South 

 Water Street, Chicago, I saw very little, if any, 

 honey chat looked very tempting. Perhaps i 

 don't know very much about the cii'cumstances, 

 and it may be they were making the vei'y best 

 display they could with what they had on hand. 

 It is very easy to find fault. 



However. I know that one house might Iiave 

 done b(>tlei'. for they had some very nice honey 

 upstairs, while the display in the window was 

 very pooV. The I'oom upstaii's was dark, and 

 the htmey could be seen only by scratching a 

 match, or by the use of a lamp. The reason 

 given for not having a better display downstairs 

 was, that they were expecting a very much nicer 

 lot of honey in a few days, and were waiting for 

 that. 



It may be that it was a very inopportune 

 time to "visit. Perhaps they were all waiting, 

 expecting something nicer. I hope so. I'm sure. 

 I hope they got it. too. and made their windows 

 look so nice with it that people passing felt they 

 wanted some of that honey right away. 



I know that comnussion men have a great 

 many obstacles to contend with, and not the least 

 of tliese is a lack of room. With much of the 

 honey seen, the fault was not with the commis- 

 sion men, as no amount of painstaking on their 

 part could have made it look attractive. I only 

 wondered if it was the best they had on hand. 

 If so, the trouble was with the producers, and 

 they were to blame for sending it to market in 

 such sliape. and ought not to complain if they 

 did not get a good price for it. as much of it 

 could not have gone any higher than fourth 

 grade by either the Chicago or the Albany grad- 

 ing. To be sure, some sections in some of the 

 cases might have passed for first grade, if they 

 had not been mixed with the others. Some cases 

 shown were mostly nice, white honey, but sev- 

 eral sections containing a good deal of pollen 

 had been put in. There were other cases con- 

 taining sections of beautiful white comb and 

 honey, but a few of the sections were soiled, 

 and a few containing honey-dew had been put 

 in. Now, the commission man was not to blame 

 if he did not get a good price for that honey. 

 Putting the bad in with the good did not bring 

 the bad up to a higher grade, but did bring the 

 good down to a lower grade, and the producer 

 has no right to expect the commission man to 

 assort his honey for him. putting it in the 

 grade where it belongs. He must do that for 

 himself, or be willing to take the lower price 

 his honey will bring on account of the shape in 

 which it is put up. 



I must say my fingers fairly ached to have 

 some good honey with which to arrange some of 

 those windows, to make them look attractive. 

 When we are getting our honey ready for mar- 

 ket, we take a great deal of pains to pile it up 

 to look nice just for our own gratification, al- 

 though it is going to stay there only a few days, 

 and its looking nice will make no difference in 

 the price to us. This year we piled the cases all 

 around the sides of the honey-room, glass side 

 facing us. and. when ready to ship, we had a 

 room completely walled with honey; and unless 

 you have tried it you have no idea how nice it 

 looked. Of course, commission men have not 

 the same chance, as they haven't sufficient 



