198 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Maij. 15. 



low price of the latter, I reply that it is true, 

 and that honey never will compete with sugar, 

 even at the same price, only to a limited de- 

 gree. Bakers and inanufactui'ers might use 

 more if cheaper, and to a certain extent honey 

 might take the place of syrups: but if we de- 

 pend on realizing the millenium of our hopes in 

 our generation, that is, the time when honey 

 shall be a staple article in every family, and 

 brought home from the grocery as regularly as 

 sugar, we shall be disappointed. 



There is no use to deny the fact that honey is 

 a luxury. It isn't used in one family in a hun- 

 dred to the extent that sugar is. It can not 

 take the place of sugar in the culinaiy art as 

 practiced in our time. We must not sell it at 

 the price of sugar. A fine article of honey can 

 no more be compared with sugar than the best 

 home-made butter with oleomai'garine. People 

 want butter because they like it best, because 

 it is more healthful, and because they detest a 

 fraud. Oleo doesn't supply the place of good 

 butter. The comparison is not strictly true, 

 but people buy honey because it fills a want not 

 supplied by sugar. If we produce genuine '"gilt- 

 edged " honey, and can get it before the people 

 in perfect condition, they will not ask that it 

 be sold for the price of sugar. The consumption 

 of sugar in this country is so much greater than 

 the home supply, that it was public policy to 

 admit it free. Then to prevent the extinguish- 

 ment of the cane-sugar industry, which is con- 

 fined to a comiiarativcly small area in the 

 South, and to encourage the beet-sugar indus- 

 try, which is yet ill its infancy, a bounty of :.* 

 cts. per pound is given by tlie government for 

 all home-made sugar of a certain standard. As 

 a honey-producing country we are not in the 

 same condition. We produce honey nearly ev- 

 erywhere in all this immense heritage, biit we 

 do not yet produce enough to supply the people 

 if it could be properly distributed. Our only 

 competitor in comb honey is Canada, and we 

 have not thought it necessary to put a tariff on 

 that. I presume they find a better inarket at 

 home and in the mother country for their sur- 

 plus. 



The question, then, narrows down to this: 

 Do we need a bounty, other than what we now 

 have in the protective tariff on extracted hon- 

 ey? I doubt it, but yet am willing to listen to 

 arguments in favor of an increase. 



Forest City, Iowa. S^ugrne Skcoh. 



[We stated in our last issue that we would 

 have to declare the discussion on bounties at an 

 end; but the foregoing, coming from the source 

 it does, and covering the whnl(> matter of boun- 

 ties so fairly and well, very littingly closes up 

 the discussion, and we are glad therefore to 

 publish it.] 



ABSORBENTS, NOT SEALED COVERS. 



DADANT FUUNISHES SOME (U)OI) AH(U:- 

 MENTS FOR THE P'OICMEi;. 



Friend Ernest:— As I notice by your editoi'lal 

 that you arc becoming satislicd in your mind 

 that scaled air-tight covers and no absorbents 

 are necessary foi' successful wintering. I beg 

 leave to giv(^ you our experience on the snb.1ect. 



In the winter of IsTS we hud very long pro- 

 tracted cold weather, lasting some six weeks, 

 without a day warm enough for the bees lo Hy. 

 At that time we had been making chaff' hives. 

 one story, with chaff' cushion over the bi'ood- 

 chamber, and we had some 80 colonies locatisd 

 in this way. scattered in two or three of oui' 

 dift'erent apiaries, the rest of our bees being in 

 Langstroth-Quinby hive that we use. We 



then believed in a warm, air-tight covering 

 over the brood-chamber. We used oilcloths 

 over the frames, and leaves in the cap, wher- 

 ever no chaff' cushion was used. 



It happened that a number of our oilcloths 

 were rather worn, and had holes in them gnaw- 

 ed by the bees, while others were new; but all 

 these cloths were otherwise air-tight, having 

 been covered with propolis, and glued light by 

 the bees as customary. Now for the result. 

 When a warm day came we found that all the 

 hives that had air-tight cloths without holes 

 were in a pitiful condition, the thick frost hav- 

 ing thawed, and wet the bees so that most of 

 them looked as though they had been in a bath. 

 They would crasvl out and die. In a few days 

 the hives were empty and dity. Wherever the 

 cloths had holes the moisture had ascended in- 

 to the chaff' or leaves, and the bees were dry. 

 Those hives which had the worst cloth covers 

 were the driest. It was so uniform, that, after 

 oijeuing a number of hives, we could tell before 

 raising the cloth what would be the condition 

 of the bees. Remember, this was in a season 

 when all the hives, without exception, were 

 suffering from diarrhea, and when a number of 

 colonies had died outright from starvation, be- 

 ing unable to reach the honey placed on the 

 side of the cluster. But we were shown plainly, 

 that, when the combs were closely covered with 

 absorbing material that allowed the moisture 

 to pass out without losing the heat, the ultitnate 

 result was a clean hive, dry combs, and healthi- 

 er bees. True, you will find plenty of seasons 

 when a tight covering will do no harm : and it 

 is an accepted rule among old bee-keepers that 

 a hive which shows running water at the en- 

 trance during a middling cold day is sure to be 

 healthy. In this case the condensation is not 

 in great amount: it is only in the corneis. away 

 from the cluster, and the least rise in tempera- 

 true allows it to melt and pass out. But let a 

 very hard, protracted winter come, the frost 

 which has formed in the corners gains steadily 

 till it reaches the entire top of tlie hive; the 

 dead bees obstruct the floor and prevent the 

 draining of what does thaw. Then in milder 

 days when the temperature is still too cold for a 

 flight, the thawing frost wets a i)art of the 

 bees, makes them restless, and the colony is 

 doomed if thi' weather turns cold again. Per- 

 haps we are mistaken in our conclusions : per- 

 haps there are other things to be taken into 

 consideration ; hut we have passed through 

 several other winters since the date mentioned 

 — those of 1880 and 1884. and we have only 

 strengthened our belief by all the remarks that 

 we have made. E\en in such a winter as 

 the present, there are people whose bees suff'er 

 from this very cause, wet combs, and always 

 in instances where the ceiling is air and water 

 tight. Facts are stubborn things, for ihej 

 overthrow some of the best constructed argu- 

 ments. 



Now allow me to quote an autlioi-ity to whom 

 we all go back occasionally, ami « ho was ac- 

 knowledged one of the most careful observersin 

 his time — father ].,angstroth. 



Ill March, IS.Vi, 1 lost some of my best colonics un- 

 der the followinjr ci re ii instances: Tlic winter had 

 been intensely cold, and the hives, liavinjf no up- 

 ward ventilation. wen- tilled with fiost, and. in somtv 

 inst;inccs, the ice on thuir g-lass sides was nearly a 

 (luai'lcr of ;in inch thick. A few days of mild 

 WL'athei-. in wliich the frost Iwg'an to thaw, were fol- 

 lowed liy a it'iniierat ure below zero, accompanied 

 b.v furious winds; and in many of tlie hives, the 

 bees which weie still wet from tlie thaw were frozen 

 togetlun* in an almost solid mass. 



We are often wiser than our elders, and so 

 were we on this subject : for although we had 

 read the abo\e passage we were not convinced 



