NO\ EMBER, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



865 



HEADS OF GRAIN T iG^^Qfl DIFFER ENT FIELDS I P 



sugar, but let the bees wiiitei- on any sealed 

 honey they have. 



The three grades are sold at the same 

 price, and we feel that we give value re- 

 ceived. The public has learned to know the 

 difference in the grades, and yet to buy and 

 eat it all. They buy the darker grades in 

 5 or 10 lb. lots, some of it for winter use, 

 but most of it for summer, since it is just 

 as good for canning fruit, and while in the 

 liquid form is quite as good to eat. Then 

 for winter use we fill the five-gallon cans 

 with our white honey, as it granulates with 

 a finer grain than the darker honey, and also 

 has a better flavor after granulation. 



We stand behind every can of honey we 

 sell; and people know that, if they are not 

 satisfied, the money will be cheerfully re- 

 funded. But so far we have never had a 

 single can come back, which seems to prove 

 that the dark honey has given good satis- 

 faction. M. L. Skougard. 



Parowan, Utah. 



Disturbing the Some beekeepers say in 



Bees in the effect, "Don't monkey 



Cellar with the bees in the cel- 



lar during the winter." 

 Well, it may be good advice to some people, 

 and perhaps to most; but I have a habit of 

 placing all light colonies where I can "mon- 

 key" with them. 



Of course some will immediately exclaim, 

 "You should not have light colonies," and 

 I at once reply, "Locality!" 



Our honey-flow often does not start till 

 August and lasts till the first heavy frost 

 in September, and it may happen that some 

 particularly good honey-gatherers have a 

 craze for putting it in the supers and leav- 

 ing the brood-chamber weighing only 50 

 pounds — cover, bottom, and all. Then a 

 heavy frost may be continuous for a few 

 nights, succeeded further by such chilly 

 weather that it is diflScult to feed. And now 

 a further excuse: I have to help with the 

 thrashing and we and the neighbors are al- 

 ways short of help. Thus it results that 

 there are always a few light ones to go into 

 the cellar. 



About New Year 's day I open the light 

 hives and lay a frame of honey on top. 

 Sometimes I draw out an empty and insert 

 one near the cluster. So far I have never 

 seen anj'thing wrong with this practice. Of 

 < ourse the queen starts laying. Last year 

 I fed onl}' one, which was a weak colony 

 with a fine-looking queen of good Italian 

 stock; and when I carried that hive out in 

 the spring there were ten frames of fine- 

 looking bees. I fed some combs of honey 

 and divided, getting a queen from Alabama, 

 and soon had two strong colonies. 



There was one fly in the ointment, how- 

 ever — the queen of the fed colony soon 



started laying drone eggs too frequently, and 

 I was obliged to kill her and introduce an- 

 other at a cost of 75 cents. Taken all 

 together I consider the increase I made in 

 the winter as profitable as any manipulation 

 I ever made with bees. I have four or five 

 hives at present; and if I have continued 

 success I plan to build a new cellar with 

 more room and to keep all late swarms apart 

 for cellar increase. W. J. Boughen. 



Valley River, Manitoba. 



Good Eeturns The accompanying pic- 



from a Colony ture shows the honey 



in a City Block I took from a colony of 



bees which I have in 

 my office on the third floor of the Vatet 

 Block at the corner of Jackson and High 

 streets, Muncie, Ind. This colony is located 

 in the center of a city of about 28,000 popu- 

 lation, and yet I took from them last season 

 252 sections of honey. I think this a pretty 

 good production for such a location. 



Honey produced by one colony in a third-story 

 window of a city office building. 



The bees were in an observatory hive 

 which I placed in my office in order to cre- 

 ate an interest in bee culture among the 

 schoolchildren of Muncie and Center Town- 

 ship. As it turned out, I learned a few facts 

 myself — one being that bees consume great 

 quantities of honey. I also learned that, 

 tho the temperature of the Toom was never 

 lower than 65 degrees, still the queen did 

 not begin to lay until about March first. 



Muncie. Indiana. W. D. Carter. 



