IS92 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



763 



of an atUMuliiiit. and tliut costs nionoy, or runa- 

 way swarms, and that costs money. Automatic 

 liivt'rs may bring relief, but thcij cost moiu'y. 

 If we can, tlicn, it would be cheaper to tal<e 

 away the desire for swarming at out-apiaries, 

 providing it does not mean a lessened honey 

 crop. 



Willi regard to your experience in iiilroduc- 

 iiig. there are rare instances, particularly those 

 winch have black blood in them, when any 

 method of introducing will fail. It is useless to 

 fuss with theni when llieyget into the mania 

 of queen-killing. They are lik(> .some people — 

 they don't know when they are well off. With 

 sucii a colony as you describe, we would scat- 

 ter the bees ithey are not supposed to have any 

 broodtin eight or ten colonies, and move the 

 hive aw av.l 



BEE DIARRHEA. 



DODI.ITTLK .X.NSWKHS A gUKSTION AHOIT IT. 



f,>i(f.vf(o;i.— Last winter my bees contracted 

 wliat is known as " bee diarrhea " quite early in 

 tile w inter, and I wish to know what should be 

 done with a colony of bees in winter quarters 

 when the first symptoms of this dis(nise appear. 



Ansucr. — If the bees wei-e in the cellar, and 

 the temperature of the cellar were above 48° F., 

 I would try cooling the cellar. On the other 

 hand, if the temperature were 40° or cooler. I 

 would try warming it up to the lemjierature 

 first given, or a little higher. When the tem- 

 perature of a cellar is just right it may be 

 known by the quietness of the bees. The air of 

 any room is always the warmest at the top. 

 wheie any warmth producing material is in the 

 room, and foi- this reason I always place the 

 strongest colonies in tlie bottom tier when put- 

 ting theni in the cellar: the colonies of medium 

 strength as to numbers in the ne.xt tier, while 

 all of the colonies having the smallest number 

 of bees are placed in tlie upper tier. I have 

 found by years of experience, that, if a strong 

 col(*My becomes uneasy while in the top tier, it 

 may be quieted by setting it on the cellar bot- 

 tom, and that a small colony which is in a roar 

 of disturbance can be caused to become as "still 

 as death " by raising it from the bottom of the 

 cellar up to the toiK also closing most of the 

 ventilation from the hive having the small 

 colony will cause it to become quiet; and re- 

 movins a whole top from an uneasy strong col- 

 ony will causi- them to quiet down and cluster 

 compactly together for the rest of the winter. 

 Hut all this should be attended to when the 

 Dees are Set ill the cellar, by putting them in 

 their proper places in the cellar and ventilating 

 each hive as it may require. If. in s\tlu\ of all 

 this precaution, some of them begin to spot the 

 hive. I will say that, after trying all plans of 

 cure. I now let them alone, for 1 consider it only 

 a waste of time to fuss with them. If the read- 

 er does not agree, he can try giving them a 

 flight in a warm room. Fix a box to set on top 

 of the hive, tln' same having a glass top: oi'. 

 should a warm day occur, carry tlu; bees out for 

 a flight: but after all this has been done, the 

 bees will generally be dead before .June, if they 

 have the diarrhea bad enough to spot their 

 combs and the inside of the hive during mid- 

 winter or earlier. 



One thing which is always against this fuss- 

 ing with single colonies of bees which have be- 

 come diseased is. that, by doctoring these, the 

 distui'bance required is apt to get othercolonies 

 uneasy and cause them to become diseased, 

 while otherwise they would have gone through 

 the w-inter quiet and all right. A change of 

 food is .sometimes beneficial: but, as I said be- 



fore, the greatest success comes by letting them, 

 alone after placing them in the cellar, provid- 

 ing the temp(>ratuie of llu^ cellar can be con- 

 trolled so it shall not go above 4.5 nor lower than 

 4".' Fahrenheit. 



HTOHINii (OMn IKi.MCV. 



t^hic-'^tiiiii. llow and wiieic should comb hon- 

 ey be stored during winter? Is it necessary that 

 the temperature in the room in which it is kept 

 shall never go lielow the freezing-point? Comb 

 honey which I trii'd to kee|) over winter last 

 year cracked badly. Is it necessary to keep 

 such honey in a warm room to keep it from 

 cracking? 



^[iisii'ir.—] looked all through this qu(>ry, ex- 

 pecting to find that this honey not only crack- 

 ed, but that it granulated also, for I do not 

 know that I ever kept any honey over winter 

 where no pains was taken to keep it from the 

 cold but that a part of it granulated, and the 

 granuhitingof honey in the combmakes it more 

 unsalable than almost any thing else which can 

 happen to it which does not entirely destroy the 

 comb. Comb honey should always be stored in 

 a warm dry place during the fall and spring 

 months at least, when a great change of tem- 

 perature is likely to take place: but during the 

 winter it may be kept in a dry basement-room 

 or cellar wher(> no frost ever reaches, provided 

 yon are on the lookout to take it out when the 

 teniperaturi^ on the outside rises much above 

 that in the basement, otherwise the warm, 

 moist, outside air. coming in contact with the 

 surface of the cold or cooler honey, will cause 

 moisture to stand in drops on the combs, when 

 the honey will rapidly deteriorate. If I were 

 trying to keep honey of any amount, which I 

 wished to preserve in salable form, I would not 

 let the temperature of the room ever go below 

 (50°, while from 70 to 90° would be better. I once 

 kept some section honey for three years, and 

 found it lietter at the end of the three years 

 than it was when taken from the hive. This 

 honey was placed on a shelf about four feet 

 from the floor of the sitting-room, right back of 

 a base-burner coal-stove, during the time the 

 stove had a fire; in it; while during the summer 

 months, when no fire was kept in th.e stove, the 

 honey was carried to an upper chamber, facing 

 the south, where the sun made the room very 

 warm, in addition to the warmth coming from 

 the kitchen stovepipe, which ran through this 

 chamber. In this way the lioney never '"saw " 

 a temperature of less than iVi . while from 80 to 

 100° was the rule much of the time. When I 

 cut this honey it was nearly "jack- wax."' and 

 for quality it vva< not surpassed by any I ever 

 tasted. I have often thought that it inight pay 

 to use this plan on a whole crop of honey dur- 

 ing years when the production exceeded the de- 

 mand, thus causing low pric<'S to pi'evail. while 

 the very next year might be a poor one, .so that, 

 thus keeping, it might double in price. When 

 combs of honey are to be given to the bees, the 

 cracking of the comb does no harm, for the bees 

 will fix it up during the next season so it can not 

 be told where tiie cracks were. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Borodino. N. ^■.. Oct. .3, 1893. 



[There is no doubt but that honey stored 

 away three years, as Mr. Doolittle describes, 

 behind the coal stove in winter and in the gar- 

 ret in summer, will surpass by far in (|uality and 

 richness any thing just taken from the hive. 

 We should like to in(|uire whether any one has 

 tried setting aside a vvhoh^ crop of honey, as Mr. 

 Doolittle suggests, keeping thi; same within a 

 range of temperature of toward UK)". It is a 

 question, however, whether such honey would 

 bring more money in the marki-t as people go 



