116 



GLEAXL\XiS IX BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



pected, of course, that a nice grade of ex- 

 tracted honey shall be spread on the pan- 

 cakes to be "eaten. We tried this recipe at 

 our house, and we all voted that we had 

 tasted better cakes. They were too sogcry 

 to suit us. To our notion, the honey on the 

 cakes aT}er they are baked makes a better 

 combination. —Ed.] 



If your bees are like Mr. Doolittle's. apt 

 almost all to return to their old home, you 

 may find it best to form nuclei as he de- 

 scribes, page 79. Before taking so much 

 trouble, however, it may be worth while to 

 see whether your bees are not like mine. 

 Merelv take "frames of brood and bees from 

 any colony that has been quceiiless a day or 

 more, and put them where you want them 

 to stay, adding some extra bees. Mr. Doo- 

 little and I have never been able to come to 

 any undei-standing as to why our bees act so 

 differently, but I'm telling you about what 

 I've trieci hundreds of times. Even bees 

 that are not queenless don't leave the hive 

 as badly as his do. 



Twelve bees were freed simultaneously 

 with twelve pigeons at the same distance 

 from their homes, five kilometers. The 

 first bee beat the first pigeon by a quarter 

 of a minute. Three other bees be.it the 

 second pigeon, the remaining bees and pig- 

 eons being on an equality. —Pafriofr TIlus- 

 tre. [This is interesting, but I should like to 

 know how long it tx>k the first bee to make 

 those five kilometers ; and, further, what 

 would be the average flight of ail the bees 

 for that distance ? We have commonly said 

 that bees can go a mile a minute: and after 

 seeing these big racing automobiles whizz 

 by, almost at arm's length, at the rate of a 

 mile in 53 seconds, on an oval track. I tell 

 you it is fast time. — Ed.] 



"Bees, naturally, are not taught, but 

 learn their ways of Ufe by imitating those 

 before them. " "says Ralph P. Fisher, page S3. 

 If that means merely thSt they do things in 

 the same way their predecessors have done, 

 there can be "no exception to the statement. 

 If it means there's any conscious imitation 

 on the part of the bees, trying to do things 

 as they have seen others do. facts will 

 hardly "carry it out. A case was reported in 

 one of the" foreign journals in which some 

 bees that by no possibility could have seen 

 comb built by other bees made a perfect job 

 of it the first time trying. [Say. doctor, you 

 ought to label this as a goak—as if we had 

 to go clear across the water and hunt over 

 the" foreign journals to prove that bees know 

 how to build comb -without being taught or 

 seeing others do it I— Ed.] 



A FIELD-BEE from a diseased colony, re- 

 turning from the field and entering a wrong 

 hive, will carrv the disease into that hive, 

 savs C. E. Wo'odward. page 77. But if it 

 starts out empty, and returns with only 

 nectar from the flowers, can it bring dis- 

 ease ? You may remember that M. M. Bald- 

 ridge's cure for foul brood depends on the 

 bees leaving the diseased hive through an 

 escape and returning from the field to a hive 



in which there is no disease. [Mr. Wood- 

 ward's statement is entirely correct. This 

 is the expei'ience in our own yard, which has 

 been demonstrated over and over again ; 

 but whether, when the bee starts out empty, 

 and returns only with nectar from flowers, 

 it will bring disease, is something I can not 

 answer. I should be a little afraid of it. 

 It would take more time for a bee to get 

 rid of the germs than a mere flight to the 

 field would take. — Ed.] 



I LEARN, pages 64 and S3, that at Medina 

 you pick up a hive with hive-hooks, and two 

 men carry it out of the cellar. That will 

 work nicely ; but here one man does it just 

 as quickly, and with nothing but his hands. 

 But then my hives have cleats full width of 

 hive. Sometimes two men carry two hives 

 on a handbarrow. A wheelbarrow doesn't 

 work so well where steps go down into the 

 cellar, as here. [Yes, we use hive-hooks, 

 and I might have said that one man with 

 these same hooks can carry in one hive. 

 Where hives are not too heavy, this is the 

 way they are carried in if the bottom-board 

 is loose; but wlien I spoke about hive-hooks 

 I was talking about hives with loose bottom- 

 boards, and you can, therefore, see it would 

 make no dift'erence whether the cleats were 

 long or short on the hive. The hooks would 

 have to be used just the same or else the 

 bee-keeper would have to bend clear down 

 and reach his fingers under the bottom- 

 board, and pick up hive and all. This is no 

 easy job. —Ed.] 



Brick butter is the way you get the best 

 butter here, right in the heart of the noted 

 Elgin daily region. The grocer wraps up in 

 prepared paper a pound brick, and there 

 you are. Well, I've had a brick of the same 

 kind sent from Medina, only, instead of but- 

 ter, it's candied honey. It's great at least 

 for winter trade— ought to increase sales no 

 little. [Brick honey is a new product of the 

 r.piary. Until Mr. Aikin kept hammering 

 at the problem of selling candied honey to 

 consumers direct, very little effort was made 

 to sell honey in that lorm. Now, fortunate- 

 ly-, times are changing. The brick and bag 

 honey are finding a certain and positive de- 

 mand in many quarters ; and the more the sale 

 of these is encouraged, the less distrust will 

 there be when liquid honey clouds or turns 

 to a granulated condition. The fact is, bee- 

 keepers have for years sought to keep their 

 honey in the hquid condition. Consumers 

 have become educated to honey in that 

 form ; and when, perchance, it does cloud 

 or granulate, as it must necessarily do in 

 spite of all that can be done, they are dis- 

 trustful at once. I believe it is high time 

 we go at the problem from the other side. 

 Show the public that honey in the candied 

 condition is the natural state of most honey 

 in winter. Consumers do not know that yet; 

 and because they do not know it they may 

 refuse to buy any more bottled honey be- 

 cause, forsooth, they have a little at home 

 that has ' ' turned to sugar, ' ' as they call it. 

 -Ed.] 



