1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



16» 



discomfort follows. Bees breathe all over 

 their bodies; and if their primary and sec- 

 ondary organs can not get full play they 

 are not wintering under favorable circum- 

 stances." Well, he is well north of the fif- 

 ty-fifth parallel, and sees the value of sift- 

 ing out the moisture and retaining just the 

 heat. 



On page 748, Dec. 1, nearly a column is 

 taken up in discussing the non-swarming 

 race of bees. May I inquire what is meant 

 by a non-swarming race of bees? Are we 

 sure we understand each other when this 

 term is used? Do we mean a race, breed, 

 or strain of bees that will, under normal 

 conditions, but rarely swarm— say not more 

 than from one to four or five per cent annu- 

 ally? or do we mean a strain that will never 

 swarm under any conditions whatever? If 

 the latter is meant, and the same test is ap- 

 plied to non-sitting breeds of fowls, can we 

 say we have any non-sitting breeds of fowls? 



On page 32 Dr. Miller wonders why Mr. 

 Latham's honey should not granulate like 

 other folks' honey. I think I can see a 

 twinkle in his eye as he reads the editor's 

 comments, and saying to himself, "Simple 

 enough if you only know how." Mr. La- 

 tham teaches science in the schools of Nor- 

 wich, and practices it when he is at work 

 with his bees, and performs some stunts 

 with his bees and honey that would surprise 

 some bee-keepers older than himself. For 

 instance, he wintered some thirty or forty 

 nucleus colonies last winter in an out-build- 

 ing, without the loss of a single colony, and 

 an average consumption of only \% lbs. of 

 honey per colony. 



I do not think Doolittle is wise in advis- 

 ing what is practically a hexagonal plan of 

 apiary, see page 783, Dec. 15, unless there 

 are a good many shrubs and trees. I have 

 tried two such, and gave them both up aft- 

 er a trial as impractical. The loss of young 

 queens and even full colonies was too great. 

 No way suits me so well as to have the hives 

 in groups of ten, two facing north, three 

 east, two south, and three west. Where there 

 is much wind, say from the north or west, 

 face those on that side the same as on the 

 opposite side, when the bees will fly through 

 the center of the group. Wind is very bad 

 for bees, especially when wintered out of 

 doors. 



I suppose nearly or quite three-fourths of 

 the honey from Vermont has gone to mar- 

 ket this year in paper cases, and there 

 would have been a still larger proportion 

 had not bee-keepers had on hand a supply 

 of wooden cases. While we believe these 

 eases are better or safer so far as breakage is 

 concerned, yet we find that even they are not 

 "fool-proof;" and where honey is shipped 

 long distances in small lots, and likely to 

 be changed from one car to another, it is de- 

 sirable to crate them with a layer of straw 



or excelsior on the bottom, "Now, then, 

 will the bee-keepers of this day and age 

 wake up and put their honey in more up- 

 to-date cases? " as you say, page 778. 



Wesley Foster, p. 750, Dec. 1, says labels 

 on cases of comb honey should be six by 

 eight inches, and the words "Fragile! Han- 

 dle with care, this side up," printed in red 

 ink. Now, this is all right; but I like a red 

 or yellow paper with print in black quite as 

 well. He says, further, that honey in 60- 

 Ib. cans should have the cases bound with 

 strap iron if the honey is liquid, and he is 

 right. I wish some of those Western bee- 

 keepers could see some of their cases of 

 honey when they reach us here in the East. 

 It would do their souls good, or ought to. 

 Keep on hammering, my brother. 



On page 782, Mr. Scholl still talks "bulk 

 comb honey." I wish he would tell us how 

 we are to market, say, 25,000 lbs. of comb 

 honey and 10,000 lbs. of extracted, with 

 markets from thirty to two hundred miles 

 away. The bulk of honey is consumed this 

 way in cool weather. If we cut our combs 

 into chunks and fill with extracted honey, 

 say in September, it will be all solid in a 

 month's time. If we wait till later, the ex- 

 tracted will get solid before pouring it over 

 the combs. If melted and poured on them 

 it is likely to get solid again before it reach- 

 es the consumer. Besides, honey-consum- 

 ers hereabout are somewhat like the board- 

 er who found hairs in his butter, and told 

 his landlady that he did not object to hairs, 

 but preferred to have his hairs and butter 

 served on a separate dish. So our honey- 

 consumers seem to prefer to have their 

 comb and extracted honey served in a sep- 

 arate dish. 



At a recent meeting of the Vermont bee- 

 keepers, Mr. Terry, president of the Ver- 

 mont Horticultural Society, gave us a fine 

 address on the value of bees in the apple- 

 orchards of Vermont. Among other things 

 he said that in Grand Isle Co., where are 

 located some of the best orchards of the 

 State, the orchards all blossomed profusely 

 last spring, while only a part of them pro- 

 duced large crops of fruit. He said further, 

 that he and another party examined every 

 orchard with great care to discover, if possi- 

 ble, the cause of failure in some to produce 

 as heavily as the others. The results of ex- 

 aminations showed in every instance that, 

 where there were failures to produce abun- 

 dantly, there were no bees, or too few to be 

 of much use, and, further, that where a 

 good supply of bees was kept, there was in 

 every instance a large apple crop. A few 

 orchards produced heavily where there were 

 no bees kept in the immediate vicinity. 

 This puzzled them as to the cause until it 

 was discovered that every orchard produc- 

 ing heavily where no bees were kept was in 

 the immediate vicinity of heavy forests 

 where wild bees could do the work. 



