1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



33 



Carbolic solution. Little is heard about 

 it nowadays, so it may be prettier in theory 

 than in practice, quoth ye editor, page 26. 

 Possibly less is said about it now because it 

 has become a settled thing. Cowan's Guide 

 Book, p. 98, says it is frequently used, and 

 gives instructions for using. Digges' Prac- 

 tical Bee Guide says, " By some the carbolic 

 cloth is preferred to the smoker. In certain 

 operations it is somewhat easier to work 

 with than is the smoker," p. 67. To sub- 

 due bees, lay over them a cloth moistened 

 with a solution. Cowan says 1 oz, of Cal- 

 vert's No. 5 carbolic acid to 2 oz. of water. 

 Digges says 1 to 10. I've heard of its taint- 

 ing the honey. 



Once I had two nuclei in the same hive. 

 One of them, becoming queenless, united 

 with the other. I suppose it united with- 

 out flying out, merely- crawling the short 

 distance from one entrance to the other. 

 At any rate I found one side of the hive de- 

 serted, and part of the field bees regularly 

 entering its entrance, and then solemnly 

 marching out again, and walking across to 

 the other entrance. This they kept up for 

 days, I suppose as long as the original field 

 bees livtd. I leave Ralph P. Fisher to rec- 

 oncile their actions with his experience that 

 "bees invariably seek the shortest way 

 home" [At our north yard, where we use 

 200 twin baby nuclei, we find it a common 

 thing for some of the bees of the queenless 

 ?ide of the nucleus to desert and go over to 

 the side that has a fertile queen. — Ed.] 



Is THERE a better name than "extracted"? 

 page 3. The fact that much discussion, sev- 

 eral years ago, failed to find the better word, 

 it looks as if there were none. "Extracted" 

 is a better word now than it was then, be- 

 cause it has had all these years of reputable 

 use. The editor strikes at the root of the 

 matter. It is not so much what the name 

 is, as what the public knows about the thing 

 itself. My Chicago daily — and likely other 

 dailies— contains a full-page ad. of beer — 

 not beer of this or that make, just beer — its 

 food value, its tonic effect, nourishing, sooth- 

 ing, livening, cleansing, etc. That ad. cost 

 a pile of money, and on the face of it the 

 beer-makers must have got together to pay 

 for it. If it pays them to raise big money 

 to pay for lies about their vile product, why 

 should it not pay bee-keepers to get together 

 to tell the truth about the most delicious 

 and wholesome sweet in existence? In that 

 way the public would learn just what ex- 

 tracted honey is, and the name would mat- 

 ter little. Will they ever do it? 



Ye EDITOR "silenced for ever" all ques- 

 tions as to beet sugar being inferior for win- 

 tering, p. 733. Now comes one of the big 

 feeders, Wesley Foster, who breaks the "for 

 ever " silence by saying. Ranch and Range, 

 34, "The reason for using cane sugar in 

 place of beet sugar is that syrup made from 

 beet sugar turns to crystals much quicker 

 than syrup made from cane sugar; in fact, 

 cane-sugar syrup fed to hee^ does but rarely 

 granulate." [Beet and cane sugar look ex- 



actly alike, and chemically are precisely 

 the same. Very often local dealers will sell 

 what they suppose is cane sugar, when in 

 reality it is beet, and vice versa. We have 

 never been able to get granulated sugar 

 from the sugar-refiners which, was guaran- 

 teed to be either beet or cane. The ques- 

 tion of crystals forming from the syrup 

 would depend more on the way the syrup 

 was heated, we should say, than upon the 

 material out of which it was made. Our 

 friend Mr. Foster we consider one of our 

 most re'iable correspondents. We simply 

 raise the question as to whether he is mis- 

 informed as to the source of the sugar. We 

 have tried ordering a granulated sugar made 

 of sugar cane; but so far the sugar trust 

 has not seen fit to give any information, 

 any more than to state that they guaran- 

 teed it to be first class, and equal to any 

 granulated sugar sold. — Ed.] 



"At what date would you advise feed- 

 ing for stimulating or for increase in the 

 spring?" is the common question of all be- 

 ginners after they have been reading a lit- 

 tle about bees, and have somehow got the 

 idea that bees will not build up as they 

 should without that sort of attention from 

 their owners. The proper answer to that 

 question — an answer given with emphasis 

 — should be "At no date." If bees do not 

 have plenty, yes, abundance, of food, they 

 should be promptly fed (and that feeding 

 is better done the summer or fall previous) ; 

 then, having abundance, the safe thing is 

 for a beginner to let them alone. It's the 

 safe thing, as well, for the veteran. A sort 

 of exception occurs in places where there is 

 so great a break in the early forage that the 

 queen jstops laying. [You are sound, doc- 

 tor, all the way through, but once in a 

 while a beginner finds his colonies, during 

 mid-winter, with almost dry combs. If he 

 has no combs of sealed stores from other 

 hives or in reserve in his honey-house, the 

 only thing he can do is to give slabs of 

 candy, laid up on top of the frames. We 

 recommend hard rock candy, made only of 

 granulated sugar; there should be no fla- 

 voring of any sort. Generally speaking, it 

 should be made by a professional candy- 

 maker who knows how to do the work with- 

 out overdoing it. A slightly burned candy 

 is almost sure to be fatal to the colony be- 

 fore spring. Where one can not secure the 

 rock candy, the orcinary queen-cage candy 

 does very well. One objection to it is the 

 waste, as the granules of the sugar rattle 

 down between the frames, and the first 

 warm day, or fly day, are carried out and 

 deposited at the entrance. We find nothing 

 of this kind when rock candy is used. 

 Again, unless the candy is made of the 

 right stiffness, it softens from the warmth 

 and moisture of the cluster, and sags down 

 between the frames, daubing up the bees. 

 This difficulty can be overcome by putting 

 the candy in wooden butter-dishes. Metal 

 or porcelain dishes should not be used, as 

 they are too cold for the cluster. — Ed.] 



