1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



363 



there for 12 or 24 hours, they will be in 

 good humor to accept any virgin that may 

 be given, and this is generally true. But 

 the beginner may find it better, perhaps, to 

 use an introducing-cage, erring on the safe 

 side. 



Our author explains that a swarm can be 

 divided up into many little clusters; and the 

 bees, when allowed to fly, of course will 

 stay where they are placed. He also says 

 that loafers hanging on the outside of any 

 hive, where they will do nobody any good, 

 much less themselves, may be scooped up 

 with a teacup, put into these little boxes, 

 and made to perform useful work. In any 

 case, where the bees have just been taken 

 from the queen they need to be kept con- 

 fined from 12 to 24 hours in order to impress 

 on them their utter queenlessness, and to 

 make them stay wherever they are placed. 

 One, however, could let the bees fly the 

 same day, providing the boxes used were 

 taken to some outyard where the queens 

 may be mated, then brought back to the 

 home yard, where the queens can be shipped 

 out as fast as they begin laying. 



In short, Mr. Pratt says, take bees from 

 any place where they are most accessible, 

 but do not take so many from any one colony 

 as to ruin it entirely "unless you elect to take 

 the entire lot.'' Italics mine. This is a good 

 point. Better break up a whole colony than 

 to take a few bees from a lot of them. 



FIG. 6- 



-HOW PRATT FEEDS SYRUP TO THE 

 BABY NUCLEI. 



In Fig. 5 is shown a view of the Pratt 

 queen-rearing yards, photo taken by John 

 M. Hooker, where Mr. Pratt has his mating- 

 boxes in actual operation by the hundred. 

 Some of them are placed on T stakes, others 

 on the ground, and still others on the fence, 

 the object being, I suppose, to give the bees 

 and also the virgins an opportunity to mark 

 their own little homes. 



In Fig. 6 is shown a method of giving one 

 of these "babies" a small supply of food, not 

 exactly with a baby-bottle, iDut by means of 

 a glass tube and a rubber bulb. The syrup 

 is drawn up into the tube, when the end is 

 introduced through the flight- hole. A slight 

 pressure on the bulb forces a small quantity 

 of feed on the bottom of the box. If our 

 friend keeps on improving his methods he 

 will end up by merely turning a crank and 

 grinding queens out by the peck. 



This little book of Mr. Pratt's is worthy 

 of careful reading, not only on the part of 

 the queen-breeder, but of the producer of 

 honey as well. And that reminds me that 

 bee-keepers who produce honey only, tell me 

 at conventions that they can not afl^ord to 

 rear queens. In this I think they are mis- 

 taken. By the new plan one needs to break 

 up only one or two colonies at most, and 

 rear all the queens he can possibly use for 

 the home and out yards in a comparatively 

 short time, and at a very small expense. I 

 verily believe that the day for the use of two- 

 frame nuclei, standard Langstroth size, for 

 mating queens, has gone by. It is a waste 

 of good money and time to use six times 

 more comb surface covered with bees than 

 is absolutely needed for doing the work. 



WINTERING THE BABY NUCLEI. 



We have never tried to winter these small 

 boxes of bees, but I have just received a 

 letter from Mr. Pratt, wherein he says he 

 has been very successful in the wintering of 

 these little Ijoxes of bees, even outdoors. 

 While that might be done in the mild cli- 

 mate around Philadelphia, it would not do at 

 all in a colder climate like ours. There is a 

 possibility that they may winter in the cel- 

 lar if the temperature can be kept at exact- 

 ly the right point. We'll try it next winter. 



PUTTING UP EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Flowers Impart Certain Volatile Oils to Honey 



which Gives it the Peculiar Flavor ; Put 



up Immediately after Extracting 



to Retain Flavor or Aroma. 



E. D. TOWNSEND. 



From the August 15th, 1904, Review I copy 

 the following: "In handling honey after it 

 is extracted, we work on the theory that, 

 the quicker it is canned after the impurities 

 have separated, the better the honey. . . . 

 Probably the greatest point in favor of can- 

 ning honey as we go is the fact that not 

 more than one bee-keeper in a hundred has 

 a suitable place for keeping honey, so that, 

 the longer it is left open, the poorer it gets 

 in both body and flavor." 



Since writing the above another season 

 has passed— a season in which the weather 

 was very unfavorable for the production of 

 a superior article of extracted honey. Our 

 crop was reduced by half, and what we did 

 get was below the average as to quality. 



But after producing good honey the next 

 step is to extract and handle the crop in 

 such a manner as to preserve the body and 

 aroma, in order that it may be delivered to 

 the customer in the best possible shape. 



Our practice for several years has been to 

 provide tanks large enough to hold a day's 

 extracting, at least, for the honey is emp- 

 tied directly from the extractor to the tank, 

 without straining, by simply letting it stand 

 over night. In the morning it is skimmed, 

 and drawn off into cans from gates at the 

 bottom of the tank until signs of scum begin 



