1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CUIvTURE. 



207 



BRITISH BEE JOURNAL. 

 The value of honey imported into the Unit- 

 ed Kingdom during last January was $6860. 



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The expert of the Cheshire Bee-keepers' As- 

 sociation examined, in 1899, 1229 frame hives 

 and 130 skeps. That probably shows to what 

 extent the new has supplanted the old in Eng- 

 land — ten to one. 



Mr. John Kibble, of Charlbury, speaks of 

 " a bee keeper who has lost sixteen stocks of 

 bees through the hives being immersed or 

 swept away by the flood. It thus follows that, 

 in locating bees, one not only needs to provide 

 shelter from the biting blast, but to make sure 

 the spot selected is high and dry. It must be 

 dreadful to a bee-man to find some morning 

 that his hives have gone sailing off on the 

 flood, to say nothing of the pecuniary loss." 



In regard to Mr. Doolittle's claim, that 92 

 degrees is the lowest point consistent with suc- 

 cessful brood rearing, one writer says he had 

 the ill luck to break one of the outside sheets 

 of glass. As a result the temperature was 

 lowered, and in the day time stood more than 

 once at 64 degrees. In the night it probably 

 went lower, he thinks. All this time egg-lay- 

 ing went on, and without exception the brood 

 hatched out successfully. He adds, "Hence 

 I think that Mr. Doolittle, admirable guide as 

 he is, is for once in error." 



A view of Mr. Miller's apiary is given, lo- 

 cated at Castle Combe. If one likes variety 

 of hive, here we have it. The apiary contains 

 sixteen hives, each as different from the others 

 as the 25 story sky-scrapers in New York and 

 Chicago are from the little rookeries beside 

 them. Mr. Miller secured last season 1252 lbs. 

 of honey, half comb. He says : " All is sold, 

 but not at the fancy prices mentioned in the 

 journals recently. In fact, there is little 

 chance in this district to sell retail while good 

 sections of honey gathered in 1899 were mark- 

 ed in windows at Bath and Bristol at 9 and 9}^ 

 pence each." 



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Mr. W. Loveday, of Hatfield Heath, says : 

 " I kept some lib. sections of the honey-dew 

 stored by my bees in 1898 for over 12 months, 

 and I find that, besides being quite wholesome, 

 honey dew keeps very well ; in fact, I think 

 it improved by keeping, losing some of the 

 strong flavor that is usual with it. ' ' Mr. Love- 

 day thinks there are very few places in Eng- 

 land where a shilling (24 cents) per lb. can be 

 had for honey other than heather. He says 

 he recently saw extracted honey advertised at 

 6 pence per lb., jars included. That would be 

 equivalent to 12 cents a pound here, or 9 cts. 

 for the honey alone. I feel pretty sure the 

 California people would be glad to sell all their 

 honey at that rate. 



A correspondent well says: "I have been 

 glad to read that many are making 10 pence 

 to 1 shilling (24 cents) per pound for their 

 honey; but on the other hand it seems there 



are plenty who are not so fortunate, and I 

 think there is no good in publishing the /ow- 

 est prices. The fact of our reading or hearing 

 that some one has bought or sold honey at the 

 lowest price is no guide as to its real worth. 

 Some people sell their surplus at any price 

 just to get it off their hands, only keeping 

 bees for a hobby, and ignoring the poor fellow 

 who is trying to sell his honey to help to keep 

 the wolf from the door. Others lose their heads, 

 it seems, when there is a glut, and the dealer 

 buys from them at a ridiculous price, to sell 

 at a good profit to himself." 



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Concerning bumble-bees, a writer says : 

 " They rapidly dwindle and perish as soon as 

 the cool autumn days begin to be felt. From 

 this period on until the sun has again become 

 fairly high in the following spring, the bum- 

 ble-bee continues its existence solely through 

 its young queens, which spend the winter in 

 solitary confinement, having burrowed into 

 the ground and there buried themselves to a 

 depth of from 6 inches to a foot or more. 

 They remain in a torpid condition till spring, 

 when they wake up and set to work to estab- 

 lish fresh colonies. " Wouldn't it be a good 

 idea to have a law to protect these useful crea- 

 tures as well as the feathered tribes? I don't 

 believe they have ever been appreciated as 

 they should be. 



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A correspondent asks the strange question 

 if there is any analogy between brood founda- 

 tion and " weed " foundation ; also if glucose 

 in the solid form (grape sugar) is a good bee- 

 food. The editor replies : " Brood foundation 

 is the kind used in brood-nests as distinguish- 

 ed from the much thinner and better quality 

 specially made for use by the bees when stor- 

 ing honey in surplus chambers. On the other 

 hand, ' weed ' foundation takes its name from 

 an American gentleman (Mr. E. B. Weed) who 

 invented the new and improved process of 

 sheeting by which it is manufactured. Glu- 

 cose is not only entirely unfit for bee food in 

 any shape, but we doubt very much if bees 

 would touch it in the form sent. The very 

 name of glucose used in connection with bees 

 is hateful to all honest bee-keepers, by whom 

 it is regarded only as the adulterant sometimes 

 fraudulently used by unscrupulous persons in 

 contact with honey gathered by bees." 



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AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



A correspondent says : 



The first step toward scientific comb-honey produc- 

 tion is the selection of the bees Any bee that will 

 gather honej' will do for extracted honey, but not so 

 for comb. Onlv those colonies should be selected that 

 are nearest perfect as comb-builders, and whose cap- 

 pings are the whitest. Onlj- such colonies as these 

 must be used as breeders. No drones must be allowed 

 to fly from any colony, except those having these de- 

 sirable qualities. No queen must be reared from any 

 but colonies having these qualities. 



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That "an apiary is a place where they grow apes," 

 as expressed in the composition of a little schoolgirl, 

 is rather contradicted by one of our amateur subscrib- 

 ers, who says he has " found out that bee-keeping is 

 no monkey business." 



