November, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



687 



BEST QUEEN CAGE CANDY 



Historical Review of Processes Used. 



Important Discovery by Bureau of 



Entomology of Cause of Failures 



By E. F. Phillips and Jay M. Smith 



Such a candy 

 a German bee- 



FOR many 

 years it has 

 been the 

 practice of bee- 

 keepers to ship 

 queens by mail, 

 using a soft can- 

 dy for the nour- 

 ishment of the 

 queen and her 

 attendants on the journey, 

 was probably first made by 

 keeper named Scholz for feeding bees, and 

 his name is usually given to this candy by 

 European writers. In the United States this 

 candy is usually called ''Good candy," 

 named for I. R. Good, Nappanee, Ind., who 

 was the first to make this generally known 

 to American beekeepers, altho, before it was 

 described by Good, the reeijie for making it 

 had been published in an American bee 

 book (Langstroth, ed. 1870). 



On May 3, 1912, the postal regulations 

 concerning the mailing of queen bees were 

 amended to admit ' ' Queen bees and their 

 attendant bees, when accompanied by a 

 certificate of the current year from a State 

 or Government apiary inspector to the effect 

 that the apiary from which said queen bees 

 are shipped is free from disease, or by a 

 copy of a statement by the beekeeper made 

 before a notary public or other officer hav- 

 ing a seal that the honey used in making 

 the candy used in the queen mailing cage 

 has been diluted and boiled in a closed ves- 

 sel." Since in several of the States from 

 which queen bees are shipped in large inim- 

 bers there has been no provisictn for apiary 

 inspection, many queen-breeders found it 

 necessary to make the candy of boiled hon- 

 ey, and others who had their apiaries in- 

 spected used such candy as an additional 

 precaution. The regulation created some 

 new problems for the queen-breeder, who 

 was confronted by the necessity of making 

 a new kind of candy. On June 18, 1918, 

 the postal regulations were again amended 

 to permit the mailing of bees without combs 

 under the same limitations. 



It has been the experience of many queen- 

 breeders that candy made of boiled honey 

 is unsuited for the shipping of queen bees, 

 perhaps because of the destruction of ])art 

 of the sugars by the prolonged heating. To 

 overcome this difficulty and at the same 

 tune to conform with the spirit, if not the 

 letter, of the regulation, the use of commer- 

 cial invert sugar, made from cane sugar, has 

 become quite common. This is quite like 

 honey chemically, but is, of course, not 

 identical. When this is used, many queen- 

 breeders complain that the candy gets too 

 hard, resulting in the death of the bees and 

 queen if the journey is long. 



Review of Past Methods Employed. 



Before discussing experiments recently 

 made on this subject, it seems desirable to 

 review the experience of various queen- 

 breeders in the past; and, as the exact meth- 



ods by which 

 these men made 

 their candy are 

 important, it 

 will be well to 

 quote their ex- 

 act words in sev- 

 eral cases to 

 avoid misunder- 

 standing. This 

 will prevent a repetition of mistakes. 



The first descrii)tion of soft candy for 

 bees that has been found is that in the third 

 edition of Langstroth 's "Hive and Honey- 

 bee" (1870). He says: "The Rev. Mr. 

 Sholz [Scholz],- of Silesia, recommends the 

 following as a substitute for sugar candy in 

 feeding bees: Take one pint of honey, and 

 four pounds of pounded lump-sugar; heat 

 the honey, without adding water, and mix 

 it with the sugar, working it together to a 

 stiff doughy mass." The honey was heated 

 in this case and the ratio of honey to sugar 

 was 3:8. We have not located the original 

 description of Scholz candy. 



We have not been able to locate Good 's 

 first description of his candy, so that the ex- 

 act time of his discovery is in doubt; but in 

 1881 he said: "I use granulated sugar, with 

 honey enough added to make it stick to- 

 gether." (Gleanings in Bee Culture, IX, p. 

 374). The exact ratio is not stated and 

 nothing is said about heating the honey. At 

 this time there was considerable discussion 

 regarding the making of this candy, espe- 

 cially if the queens were to be shipped long 

 distances, and in 1882 Good wrote: "If you 

 wish to send queens long distances without 

 loss, use granulated sugar, with honey 

 stirred in for feed. * » * You can send 

 queens safely to California without water 

 with this kind of feed." (Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture, X, p. 562). So far as we have been 

 able to learn. Good always advocated the 

 use of granulated sugar rather than pulver- 

 ized sugar as was commonly advised at that 

 time and as is now used. 



The first marked success in mailing 

 queens across the Atlantic Ocean was that oi 

 Benton, then located in Munich, Germany, 

 and the bee journals of the period contain 

 frequent articles by him or by those to 

 whom he had successfully mailed queens. 

 In 188-1 he wrote Good regarding his suc- 

 cess, and this letter was quoted by Good in 

 an article in Gleanings in Bee Culture (XII, 

 pp. 728-729). The following is taken from 

 the Benton letter: "I have not, however, 

 made the candy just as you made it first, 

 but have employed pounded sugar in mix- 

 ing it. I have even taken sugar as fine as 

 wheat flour." He further states that the 

 candy on which he succeeded in mailing the 

 first queens to America has been abandoned 

 iu favor of the Good candy. In comment- 

 ing on the merits of the candy used by Ben- 

 ton, the editor, A. I. Root, states that it is 

 probably due to the fact that the sugar had 

 been pounded fine. Nothing is said of the 



