1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



491 



other hand, I have seen some strains of five- 

 banders that produce a white capping, but 

 no whiter than was made by most Italians. 

 -Ed.] 



how much honey per colony? 



There are a good many fruit-trees in my 

 locality, and also a good many locust-trees, 

 lots of white clover, and also peavine clover. 

 I don't suppose there are over 50 colonies of 

 bees within a two-mile circle. In a good 

 season how much surplus honey should I get 

 from a fair-sized colony in an eight-frame 

 Dovetailed hive? Did you ever have any 

 bees drown in the Doolittle division-board 

 feeder? I have lost over a pint from one 

 colony this fall. I got scared and quit feed- 

 ing. J. H. Stenger. 



Whitcomb, Ind., Jan. 30. 



[This is a hard question, as so much de- 

 pends upon the management and the sea- 

 son. I should say, on an average anywhere 

 from 25 to 75 lbs. of comb honey, and a 

 third more of extracted. 



We have had some complaint of bees dy- 

 ing in Doolittle feeders ; but if directions 

 are followed there will be no trouble. The 

 remedy is to use a float, i. e., a stick long 

 enough and narrow enough to slip in the 

 feeder. Perhaps you did not receive the 

 directions.— Ed.] 



give the consumer the honey that he 



IS USED to. 



In looking over your issue of the 15th 

 inst. my eye caught the title "The Preva- 

 lence of the Belief in the Comb-honey Lie." 

 I now wish to endorse the remedy that Mr. 

 Bender offers as being the most effective 

 (in my ju igment) of any that can be brought 

 against the prevalence of derogatory stories 

 concerning honey and its production. 



The concluding sentence of Mr. Bender's 

 communication reads, "After all, our best 

 argument is a chunk of fine honey. " I would 

 add this qualification: " Yes! if the chunk of 

 honey is the kind that the person's taste has 

 bgen educated to; for the secret of satisfy- 

 ing any one with honey lies largely in this 

 fact, that the kind of honey which he will 

 pronounce to be pure must possess the taste 

 that he has been accustomed to find in hon- 

 ey. The man who has eaten honey produc- 

 ed in Northern Illinois all his life, given a 

 piece of the finest honey produced in Colora- 

 do would be very likely to pronounce the 

 Colorado honey manufactured stuff provid- 

 ing he had heard of such a thing as being 

 possible; yet no one method is sufficient for 

 all emergencies, and it is well to explain er- 

 ror when occasion offers." 



Chicago, 111., Mar. 21. R. A. Burnett. 



[Mr. Burnett is to a great extent right. 

 A good deal of the foundation of the comb- 

 honey lies is due to ignorance in regard to 

 the various flavors of honey; but if it had 

 not been for the comb-honey lie in the first 

 place, and for the continued cropping-out of 

 a new version of the same story, the general 



public would never have questioned the puri- 

 ty or genuineness of honey in the comb, and 

 would be ready to accept any flavor without 

 any hesitation. So after all it is the news- 

 paper stories that are responsible for the 

 distrust in any comb honey that does not 

 taste like the product consumers have been 

 used to.— Ed.] 



IS IT BEE-PARALYSIS ? 



In one of my colonies a dozen or more 

 bees are carried out each day that are so 

 bloated as almost to resemble a queen. 

 They are not dead when carried out, but 

 live and struggle for even 48 hours, and oc- 

 casionally recover enough to re-enter the 

 hive. They do not resemble the paralytic 

 bees, so often described, by getting black, 

 but, on the contrary, look like perfectly 

 healthy bees, full of honey, and chilled sa 

 they can move but slightly. They tremble 

 every now and then, and draw up as if suf- 

 fering from colic. Their tongue is invari- 

 ably extended its full length. It is the only 

 one in my apiary of 200 colonies that is un- 

 healthy. Can you tell me what it is? 



H. S. Philbrook. 



Oxnard, Cal., Jan. 6. 



[The symptoms you report describe very 

 closely bee paralysis. In stages of this dis- 

 ease the bees are not black and shiny. If 

 it is of long standing you will, after a while, 

 see the black fellows showing all the other 

 symptoms you describe. Better destroy the 

 colony or isolate it from the other bees, es- 

 pecially in a warm climate like yours. Bee 

 paralysis is not particularly dangerous or 

 destructive in a cold climate, but is often 

 very destructive, and much harder to cure, 

 than black or foul brood in a climate where 

 the bees can fly almost every day in the 

 year.— Ed.] 



BEES disappearing MYSTERIOUSLY IN NO- 

 VEMBER. 



A peculiar thing, to us at least, happened 

 to some of our bees. A neighbor had a large 

 nice colony of bees. The middle of Novem- 

 ber he went to place them in his cellar for 

 winter, and every living bee was gone. 

 He knew they were good and strong a week 

 before, with no dead bees about the hive, 

 while now there were only about 15 bees 

 clustered in one corner, and all dead. No 

 queen was to be found. They had left about 

 60 pounds of nice honey. Another neighbor, 

 with seven colonies, lost three the same 

 way. They were working nicely just a few 

 days before. Four different men tell the 

 same story, having had similar experiences 

 about the same time in the neighborhood. 

 Now, what happened to these bees? What 

 became of these swarms? Why did they 

 leave or disappear so mysteriously? They 

 did not go into neighboring hives, for the 

 first one mentioned was the only colony on 

 the farm, and no other bees nearer than five 

 miles. 



These men came to me for the solution, 

 and I gave up, having handled bees for 



