28S 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1: 



conducting some experiments, which, later 

 on, will be made pubhc. This is true, that 

 a stirred candy permits of the granules rat- 

 tling down between the frames, and wast- 

 ing, while a transparent rock candy will all 

 be consumed; for the bees must mix their 

 saliva or water with it, thus making a 

 syrup of their own. It may be that experi- 

 ments will show that honey is not a good in- 

 gredient to prevent graining, because it is 

 easily susceptible to scorching. We shall 

 see.— Ed.] 



Temperature of cellar should be some- 

 where about 45° till the last end of winter, 

 when some say it should be warmer. I do 

 not remember any one saying it should be 

 colder at the last end except D. F. Lashier, 



E. 239. I wonder which is right. Possibly 

 oth. Mr. Lashier gives his bees midwinter 

 flights, after which it may be better to have 

 the cellar cooler; but it may be better to have 

 it warmer if the imprisonment is unbroken. 

 [But should it be colder or warmer? Is it 

 not true that the right temperature at one 

 time is the right temperature at another? 

 The almost invariable temperature in spite 

 of us will be warmer in the spring on ac- 

 count of the warm temperature outside. I 

 have always noticed that the bees are quiet- 

 er at 45 than at 50 or 55, in the spring. I 

 have noticed, too, that when the temperature 

 goes below 40 for any length of time there 

 is Hable to be a spotting of the hives. — Ed.] 



Midwinter flights, says D. F. Lashier, 

 need a temperature of as much as 55 to 60, 

 and you, Mr. Editor, prefer 65 to 70, believ- 

 ing that at 45" bees may be chilled and not 

 get back, p. 63. From a good many obser- 

 vations I have changed my views no httle. 

 Beginning with your present views, I have 

 come to believe that it is not a matter of 

 exact temperature so much as the kind of 

 day. Feb. 28, at 1:50 P.M., it was 45, calm, 

 with a bright sun. I carried out five colo- 

 nies. They began flying very soon, and did 

 not cease flying till 5 p.m. at 42°. I think 

 no more bees were lost than if it had been 

 warmer. A snowbank was directly in front 

 of one hive; and when a bee lit on the snow, 

 which was rather compact, it seemed to 

 have no trouble in rising again. [I feel 

 more and more satisfied that the thermome- 

 ter will not be an entirely safe guide as to 

 when the bees may be allowed to fly. Of 

 this I am sure, that a still atmosphere is 

 one important condition. The thermometer 

 might show 60 or 65 and a chilling wind, 

 while a temperature as low as 45, with a 

 still atmosphere, would be far better for 

 the bees.— Ed.] 



" What IS honey?" If bee-keepers can 

 agree upon a definition there will probably 

 be no difficulty in getting it accepted at 

 Washington. J. A. Green is right in his 

 views, p. 220, and his first definition is good 

 if ' ' from natural sources ' ' includes every 

 thing gathered by the bees that is not di- 

 rectly fed by man, and bars out every thing 

 fed by man except honey. I don't know 

 whether it does that or not. Another thing: 



As bee-bread is a mixture of pollen and 

 honey, would it not come under the head of 

 " sweet substance "? Possibly it ought to. 

 Don't bees sometimes store water in cells? 

 If they do, ''liquid," in his second defini- 

 tion, might not do. But the two might be 

 combined into "sweet liquid." I fancy I 

 can see the twinkle in Mr. Green's eye as 

 he says, " Well, doctor, if you don't like my 

 definition, give us a better one." Don't 

 know enough, Jimmie. [The fact that bees 

 sometimes store water in their cells would 

 not in the least affect Mr. Green's proposed 

 definition. An excess of water in honey 

 would not be regarded by the chemists as 

 an adulteration, for the amount of water 

 varies according to the amount of ripening. 

 If man were to adulterate good honey with 

 water he would spoil it at almost any price, 

 and there would, of course, be no temptation 

 to put it in. — Ed.] 



Say, Ernest, it looks this blessed minute 

 as if it might be warm enough for bees to 

 fly this 8th of March, 1 1 : 25 a. M . I' 11 go out 

 and see. . . It's 35 north of the house, 

 but I don't Hhink that's fair, for there's 

 quite a bank of snow and ice there. North 

 of the shop, where there is no snow, it's 38. 

 It's a bright day, very few clouds, very lit- 

 tle air stirring, some snow on the ground, 

 covering perhaps 10 per cent of its surface. 

 Now I'm going to carry out a colony. Don't 

 you wish you were here? . . Well, I took 

 out four. It took them about 5 minutes to 

 wake up enough to fly. No. 234 was a little 

 spotted in front, and the bees were hanging 

 out just a little. That colony did not need 5 

 minutes to wake up. . . Now 15 minutes 

 since the last one (234) was taken out, and 

 it's flying fairly well— the others not so 

 well. The breeze is increasing more than is 

 pleasant. . . Now 1^:25. They've been 

 out 40 minutes, and are making a fairly 

 good flight. Gone up to 39, of course at the 

 shop. . . At 1 o'clock it's 4u; bees not 

 flying quite so well. . . At 2:40 it's 42, 

 and bees are flying about a third as much as 

 when at their best. . . At 4:30, at 41°, 

 the hives came in shadow, the bees ceased 

 flying, and were promptly cellared. Ought 

 they not to stand confinement now till May 

 or June? [So far we have not given any of 

 our indoor bees a winter flight, as they have 

 been so quiet, and the outside has been so 

 cool or cold. In the first place they did not 

 need it; and in the second place they could 

 not have had it if they would. Here is the 

 way I see it: Winter flights are necessary 

 when the outside temperature is so high as 

 to affect materially the temperature within 

 the cellar, making the bees within uneasy, 

 consuming largely of their stores and con- 

 gesting their intestines. When the tem- 

 perature outside would not permit of flights 

 from fall to spring there is not much need 

 of such flights. But when there are many 

 fine days outside, when the bees might just 

 as well have a flight, the probabilities are 

 that one flight, at least, will be highly ben- 

 eficial. See editorial elsewhere on this sub- 

 ject.— Ed.] 



