80<3 



GLEANIIS'G.S IN BEE CULTURE. 



Xov. 1. 



the name of the producer. The following letter, 

 forwarded to us by a prominent commission 

 house in the West, will explain itself: 



I will send you a sample of honry, and say that it 

 is composed of pure injiiedifnts. such as su^ar, bee 

 honey, and a few otlier articles, wliicb are all pure. 

 I have been selling it around tlie country here at 70 

 cts. a gallon. It cost quite a bit to manufacture. 

 I sell it under tlie name of "artificial lioney," 

 " honey syrup." I can send it in one-gallon cans or 

 kegs, or any way to suit the iiurchascr. Please 

 state wliat you can give for it, and pay the fieigbt. 



For obviovis reasons we leave off the name of 

 the writer. 



However honest he may be in stating the 

 truth in regard to the ingredients of the so- 

 called honey, we are not so sure that he would 

 be unwilling for the dealei' to .«e]l it as pure 

 honey. We tasted some of thi' stuff, and it was 

 simply vile. If you can imagine houey-dew, 

 sugar syrup, glucose, and a little cheap per- 

 fumery mixed together, you may get some idea 

 of what it tasted like. We woiild no more set 

 it on the table as an article of food than we 

 would introduce into our stomachs some semi- 

 poisonous mixtures. The house that forwarded 

 the letter on to us. apparently thought the 

 mixer intended in the first place to palm it off' 

 as pure honey; but in response to their inquiries 

 he finally admitted as above that there were 

 certain other ingredients besides the bee honey. 

 No, it won't do to give countenance to such 

 things. 



Litter.— 8\nce writing the above, the Bec- 

 lieepvrs' Revieiv for October has come to hand, 

 and we notice that we differ somewhat in opin- 

 ion with the editor and Prof. Cook in regard to 

 sugar fed honey. We know these same differ- 

 ences are honest differences, and it is possible 

 that we may be wrong in our position.] 



SOME THINGS ABOUT ROBBING. 



MII.t.KK TKLI.S ITS UNDK.i; WHAT f'lUf f.M- 

 STANCES IT MAY UK AI.LOWKD. 



Friend Root: — That item of your exp(>rience 

 on page 78".' is quite interesting reading, and I 

 think you are somewhat at fault that you do not 

 give us more of the details of your own apiary, 

 particularly the bad things. I am glad you have 

 learned that, under proper management, robbing 

 is not such a dangerous thing. It is hard to know 

 just what is the right ground to take in this 

 respect: for few young bee-keepers, until they 

 have had some sad experience, have any just 

 conception of the danger connected with rob- 

 bing. 



I would give something to make my assistant 

 as afraid of robbing as I am. In former years I 

 had such a .severe breaking-in that the sight 

 and sound of a single robber when I am at work 

 strik<'s me with alarm. But Emma has not 

 had the same experience, and can work on 

 placidly with the music of robbers about her. 

 I say 10 her. "You must be very careful oi-the 

 robbers will get the start of us.'" 



'■()hl I guess not. I haven't seen any yet." 



"Why. don't you see them there this vei'y 

 minute, right under your very nose?" and the 

 emphasis I give is perhaps not as pleasant as it 

 ought to be: for if there is any thing that de- 

 moralizes me it is to have I'obhers offer their 

 assistance when a brood-chamber is open. So 

 it is that it is considered not the orthodox thing 

 to say any thing in favor of allowing bees to do 

 the least thing in the line of robbing. Too oFi- 

 en.however.it is the interference of theolli- 

 cious bee-keeper that makes mostof thetroubl'-. 

 A weak, queenless colony is attacked; and tli'- 

 only thought in his mind is, that that thiuLr 



must be stopped. So the hive is taken away, 

 perhaps put in the cellar for a time, and the 

 robbers, not tinding their prey in its proper 

 place, pounce upon the nearest hives, which, in 

 their turn, are taken away and thus the trouble 

 spreads. 



On another occasion a similar case occurs, 

 but the bee-keeper is in blissful ignorance of it: 

 and the first thing—in fact, the only thing — 

 that he knows about it is, that the hive is 

 completely cleaned out— cleaned out several 

 days befor(> he noticed it. In that case no 

 harm is done. The colony was not worth sav- 

 ing, and perhaps it was a good thing to have 

 the honey transferred where it would do more 

 good. 



I very much doubt the coriectness of the 

 time- honored tradition, that, if a bre once does 

 any thing in the line of robbing, she will never 

 return to honest labor afterwaid. You know 

 very well, that when, by reason of had weather, 

 the honey flow suddenly stops, can- must be 

 taken not to start robbing; and if by some 

 carelessness it is started, and perhaps 20 pounds 

 of honey robbed. thousands of bees being en- 

 gaged in the plunder, if the next morning 

 opens up clear and bi-ight. honey yielding freely, 

 every bee in the apiary will seem to be hard at 

 work. Where are the thousands that yester- 

 day were robbers? Don't tell me that none of 

 them have gone back to honest ways. 



Last spring the disastrous losses left a large 

 number of hives untenanted; and the combs, 

 numbering more than a thousand, hafi more or 

 less honey in them. The fuller contbs were 

 convenient to put in colonies needing them, but 

 a great many had only a little honey in them. 

 What was to be done with them ? They might 

 stand as they were, btit on the whol<^ it was 

 perhaps belter that they should be emptied out. 

 Perhaps you may remember that they were 

 hung overhead in the cellar. W''ll. the door of 

 the cellar was left open and the bees were 

 invited to take possession. They promptly 

 accepted the invitation. 



Now. there were two things that surprised 

 me. Ouf was. that it took the bees so short a 

 time to clean mit those combs. Another was, 

 that it took them so short a time to settle down 

 quietly after they got through th(^ job. For a 

 half a day or a day after the honey was gone 

 there were more or less bees searching through 

 the cellnr. and at the end of that time there 

 was nothing in the apiary to indicate that any 

 thing unusual bad been going on. 



Another thing, if you allow a section of honey 

 to stand out. the bees will tear it all to pieces. 

 These combs I have been telling about were 

 not torn at all. Whether it was that they 

 were tougher, or that the bees had so large a 

 surface to work over, I do not know: but I am 

 inclined to the opinion that bees do not tear old 

 combs .<o badly. 



When the clover harvest closed, what little 

 there w as of it, all sections were taken off'. A 

 goodly number of supers had so little done in 

 them that th(! best thing was to hav<- the bees 

 clean them out. A somewhat large experience 

 in trying to get bees to empty sections on or 

 under the brood -chamber made me dissatisfied 

 with that sort of thing. So one day a number, 

 perhaps 1."). of such suix'is were piled up in the 

 cellar in such a way that not a very large num- 

 ber of bees could enter at a time. They were 

 promptly cleaned out: and ;.'4 hours after the 

 work was finished, there was no commotion in 

 the apiary. The same thing was I'epeated 

 with a larger number, and with the same re- 

 sult. 



Now I'll tell you what I think. If you had 

 allowed the bees to work on those combs that 

 you had piled up, without restiicting their en- 



