1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



711 



The chilly rains and gloomy fogs 

 Are heralds of a freeze ; 

 " Daub up the cracks, pull down the quilts," 

 Say all the thoughtful bees. 



It's up-hill work to apologize ; but a friend 

 in Florida points out the fact that I alluded 

 to Mr. Hill, the editor of the American Bee- 

 keeper, as having gone to Cuba instead of 

 Florida. Just allow me to transfer Mr. H. up 

 to the latter place, and my up-Hill work will 

 be done. 



a 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



A. H. Duff thinks the advantages of keep- 

 ing bees in a house are many, as work can be 

 done with them every day in spring, summer, 

 and fall. There is little doubt that house- 

 apiaries are receiving more favorable atten- 

 tion lately than for some years past. His 

 article was written for the Agricultural Epit- 

 ornist. It would be a good plan if more of 

 our bee-keeping friends would write for the 

 agricultural press. 



v</ 



A correspondent tells Mr. Doolittle that he 

 has an occasional crooked comb when not us- 

 ing separators, and wishes to know how to 

 avoid such. Mr. D. replies very pointedly : 



The very admission of both yourself and the writer 

 quoted, should convince you that the only way to pro- 

 duce section honey, in the most marketable shape, is 

 to use separators. When a person admits that occa- 

 sionally he has crooked combs by the non-use of sep- 

 arators, 1 always read between the lines that those 

 occasional crooked combs can be multiplied by ten 

 and not be far out of the way. And then those occa- 

 sional crooked combs condemn the use of any systtm 

 which gives an occasional faulty thing, when there is 

 a system equally good in evrry way that does not give 

 a single faulty section along the line of crooked 

 combs. 



It/ 

 FOREIGN MATTERS. 

 Our French exchanges show a great amount 

 of work in collecting information relative to 

 honey and bees. Bee-keepers of that country, 

 as well as of Germany, seem to be closely 

 related to each other through the numerous 

 associations they have formed. If a new use 

 for honey is found it is immediately printed 

 and passed around. Mr. J. B. Leriche, an em- 

 inent bee-keeper of France, has the following 

 to say relative to honey ; and although some 

 of it is familiar to most of us, it is a good plan 

 to give it to those who may not have seen it 

 before. I translate it from the Revue Eclec- 

 tique, of Paris, one of the best bee-journals 

 printed : 



"Honey is a healthful, concentrated; easily 

 assimilated food, offered to man by nature, all 

 prepared, extracted drop by drop from myriads 

 of flowers. Our ancestors made of it their fa- 

 vorite food. They knew no other sweet. The 

 introduction of beet sugar has lessened the 

 use of honey, so the latter is hardly ever found 

 now except in the home of the bee-keeper or 

 in certain medicines, or on the table of a few 



who know its virtues. We should go back to 

 honey, for it is well known that this food, 

 without rendering necessary any insalivation 

 or digestive work on the part of the stomach, 

 excites nervous energy, gives mental force and 

 tone to the vital functions, and is very benefi- 

 cial to persons of sedentary habits or those do- 

 ing much headwork. All those who suffer 

 from disorders of the stomach, and who have 

 difficult or bad digestion, or those subject to 

 constipation, should use honey daily ; and aft- 

 er several months they will find the digestive 

 organs restored to their normal condition. But 

 the use of it must be daily and prolonged. 



" To live long, one should take, every morn- 

 ing, some hot milk, sweetened with a spoon- 

 ful of honey, and dip bread in it. Taken at 

 night, honey favors digestion and wards off 

 sleeplessness. When Julius Csesar dined with 

 P. Rumillius, to celebrate the 100th birthday 

 of the latter, Csesar asked him by what means 

 he had preserved his strength of mind and 

 body. ' By eating honey,' replied the old Ro- 

 man. 



" But honey is not only a good food but a 

 good medicine, curing, without drugs, disor- 

 ders of the stomach, chest, and of the voice, 

 such as gastritis, bronchitis, colds, asthma, 

 and grip. The formic acid with which it is 

 impregnated by the bees makes of it an anti- 

 septic, purifying the disordered mouth and 

 breath. Rheumatism is practically unknown 

 among those who eat much honey. But the 

 honey must be pure ; and one buying it should 

 be sure of the standing of the house selling it. ' ' 



In the same journal Mr. Drappier gives good 

 directions for wintering, preparations for which 

 he begins in September. The first thing to be 

 seen to is plenty of food. By waiting later the 

 cold is liable to prevent the bees from uncap- 

 ping the honey ; and uncapped honey before 

 winter easily ferments, and may induce spring 

 dwindling. One writer says bees can winter 

 only on empty frames ; but at the same time 

 their honey should be so placed as to surround 

 the cluster, and as near them as possible. He 

 feeds from 30 to 40 lbs. per colony. Although 

 bees use but little food in winter he gives them 

 enough so he will not have to feed in spring. 

 He advises against spring feeding, as it may 

 induce an abnormal development of brood. 

 The best colonies will be hived in September 

 on a maximum of 12 frames. Will it be nec- 

 essary to remove the empty frames ? Mr. D. 

 says he does not. Mr. Bonnier has shown that 

 a filled frame is equal in value to a partition 

 so far as preservation of heat is concerned. 

 That is, empty frames, instead of taking away 

 warmth, tend rather to conserve it. Besides, 

 frames of comb in the hives are better protect- 

 ed in fall, winter, and spring, against the 

 moth-miller, by the bees running over them, 

 than the bee-keeper could do it himself. This 

 is for large colonies. Small ones run all kinds 

 of risks. The existence of drones in a hive in 

 September is presumptive evidence of queen- 

 lessness. Hives in the open air should be well 

 protected on top. All cracks should be plug- 

 ged up. Repaint covers, if necessary, so that 

 not a drop of water can get through. 



These foreign journals srive a vast amount 



