American Bee JonrnaTj 



November, 1909. 



let them gather up full strength and 

 send them into the supers later. But 

 such localities are the exception. In 

 this locality the flow is long enough, 

 but mighty uncertain, intermittent, and 

 variable. The first portion is less liable 

 to fail than the last. So, as a rule, it 

 will be best in the majority of cases to 

 have the bees at work in the sections 

 as soon as the flow is strong enough to 

 justify it, and the weather sufficiently 

 warm. 



If the bees are too weak, or, rather, 

 if the brood-chamber is not sufficiently 

 full, what is to be done? 



The process generally followed is to 

 contract the brood-nest, leaving the 

 brood in preference, and take away the 

 empty or partially empty combs rather 

 than the others. That does network 

 to the best advantage, at least not with 

 me. The contraction of the brood- 

 nest starts the swarming fever at once, 

 and the reduction of brood-rearing 

 weakens the colony. The result of this 

 reduction is that during the latter part 

 of the flow the colony is too weak to 

 do the best work possible. 



I prefer to take combs as full of 

 brood as possible from a few of the 

 weakest colonies, and exchange them 

 for the empty or nearly empty combs 

 of the strongest, so as to give me at 

 the beginning of the flow the largest 

 number possible of strong colonies to 

 work for honey and a few weak ones 

 which are expected only to build up 

 strong for the following year. I get 

 far better results that way. Very 

 strong colonies always give more sur- 

 plus than a larger number of somewhat 

 weaker ones. 



Comb vs. E.xtracted Honey. 



The advice is often given to secure 

 the white honey in the comb, and the 

 dark as extracted. That is probably 

 right when it comes to ship to the 

 large cities, but it certainly does not 

 work in this market. The dark honey 

 from whitewood, or honey-deiv from 

 the white oak and hickories, when con- 

 tained in new, white combs, sections 

 or chunk honey, will sell without diffi- 

 culty. The color in a cell of white 

 wax is not very apparent. Neither 

 when spilt on a white plate, on ac- 

 count of its being in a very thin layer. 

 But extract it and put it in a bucket, 

 and it will look dark, sure enough, and 

 be often unsalable. 



The fact is that a honey which in a 

 white, new comb will present an am- 

 ber color, will be dark, even very dark, 

 when looked at in a large quantity 

 when extracted. This, I think, has 

 never been considered yet in the api- 

 cultural press, but is certainly worth 

 knowing. 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



Feeding Bees On Sugar Syrup 

 for Winter Stores 



BV C. P. DADANT. 



Very few apiarists enjoy the task of 

 furnishing sugar syrup to the bees for 

 winter. Not only this is a very posi- 

 tive sign that there has been an insuffi- 

 cient crop, or that the honey was 

 of bad quality, but there is also the un- 

 pleasant feature of having some jealous 



or ill-natured people casting remarks 

 about feeding sugar to make honey. 

 We do as little as we can of this sugar- 

 feeding, but there are plenty of occa- 

 sions when feeding must be resorted 

 to. So it is well to know all the ob- 

 stacles in the way of success. 



On page 335, Dr. C. C. Miller protests 

 against my crediting him with the idea 

 of feeding percolated sugar syrup, and 

 assures us that he was not the origina- 

 tor of this method. We are well aware 

 that Dr. Miller is too modest to accept 

 credit which he does not deserve. He 

 can well afford to refuse that which 

 does not belong to him, since he has 

 already so much to his credit in the 

 way of apiarian information. The rea- 

 son I quoted him was that I have a 

 very plain recollection of his praising 

 this method. There was a time when 

 we could hunt up the source of infor- 

 mation on such subjects and give credit 

 where credit was due. But the amount 

 of bee-literature has grown to such 

 proportions that seeking such informa- 

 tion in the back numbers of the bee- 

 papers could be readily compared to 

 the old proverb of looking for a needle 

 in a hay stack. I have on my shelves 

 49 years of the old American Bee Jour- 

 nal, 37 years of Gleanings, some 22 

 years of the Review, 42 years of L'-Api- 

 coltore, of Milan, and numberless vol- 

 umes of French bee-publications. I 

 have long ago quit hunting for authori- 

 ties for lack of time. 



But Dr. Miller, in the article quoted, 

 says something on which I wish to 

 comment. He writes : 



"I don't believe there is any great advan- 

 tage in it (percolating). Sugar stirred in 

 water till dissolved is as good as anything." 



Now as to my experience: The first 

 occasion I had to feed syrup to bees 

 was, I believe, about 1873. I remember 

 very distinctly that in a number of 

 hives the sugar syrup crystallized and 

 became exactly like rock candy, so 

 hard that the bees could do nothing 

 with it, and even with moisture con- 

 secutively for a number of days much 

 of the sugar was thrown out in lumps, 

 and much remained untouched. A 

 number of colonies starved to death 

 on these stores, as well they might in 

 such conditions. Yet we had a good 

 authority for following this method. It 

 was no less than Mr. Quinby. We 

 have since used about a fifth of pure 

 honey mixed with the sugar, or a small 

 quantity of cream of tartar, say a tea- 

 spoonful to every 30 pounds of feed. 



It is quite possible that there was 

 some fault with the sugar used, or with 

 our method of mixing it, when we ob- 

 tained rock candy for our sugar syrup, 

 but the experience was such that I 

 would not like to see the same thing 

 happen to others. As I understand it, 

 the percolating method did away with 

 the danger of crystallization, and I 

 take it for granted that by this method 

 the water loads itself with only such 

 proportion of the sugar as it can readily 

 carry in the liquid state. However, 

 we want our syrup as thick as possible, 

 and find that a mixture of honey will 

 help. 



There is still another method of feed- 

 ing bees which would prove very use- 

 ful if resorted to at times when the 

 weather is too cold to feed bees with 

 liquid food. This method is also the 



best for feeding bees in the cellar. It 

 is the " candy method." One of our 

 Western apiarists, an experienced vet- 

 eran, tells me that he always winters 

 his weak colonies in the cellar and 

 feeds them with candy over the top of 

 the ccftnbs with the best results. The 

 method is not new. It was first recom- 

 mended in America by Mr. Langstroth, 

 over half a century ago. He had found 

 it in the German " Bienenzeitung," as 

 given by a bee-keeper of Silesia, Mr. 

 Weigel. 



Dissolve the sugar, put a teaspoonful 

 of cream of tartar to each 20 pounds 

 of sugar. Boil until sufficiently evap- 

 orated. To know when it is done, dip 

 your finger first into cold water then 

 into the syrup — if what adheres is brit- 

 tle when chewed, it is boiled enough. 

 It should be kept stirred while heating so 

 as not to burn. Pour into pans that are 

 slightly greased, so that it will slip out 

 easily. Then cut into pieces of proper 

 size. It takes less of this candy than 

 of syrup to sustain a colony. Mr. 

 Langstroth actually wintered colonies 

 on 4 pounds of candy in the cellar, and 

 he. asserted that it would serve the 

 same purpose as twice the quantity of 

 honey. When the candy is properly 

 made, there is no danger of any loss by 

 its becoming too hard for the bees to 

 consume. It does not attract robber- 

 bees, does not load the bees with an 

 unnecessary amount of water, can be 

 carried about without leakage or loss, 

 and procures the nourishment in as 

 compact a shape as it is possible to 

 have it. 



This candy, however, is not desirable 

 as bee-food when it is necessary to in- 

 duce the bees to breed. Moisture is 

 wanted then. The candy being as de- 

 void of moisture as it is possible for 

 bee-food to be, is good for protracted 

 confinement. But if we want the bees 

 to breed, either in early fall or spring, 

 we had best give them liquid food, 

 warm if convenient. 



To feed the candy to bees in the cel- 

 lar, I would recommend to place it 

 over the cluster at the top of the brood- 

 chamber, laying it flat over the combs 

 and covering the hive with an ordinary 

 cover or super. Very weak colonies, 

 if healthy, may be brought through in 

 good condition, and with very little 

 loss of bees with this method. 



Since writing the above, I see the 

 matter of making sugar syrup for bee- 

 food discussed in the Review and in 

 Gleanings. In the Review, Elmer 

 Hutchinson says : " Some think it bet- 

 ter to add part honey, or a little tar- 

 taric acid in order to prevent granula- 

 tion, but we have fed a great many 

 barrels of sugar prepared in this way 

 * * * and we never yet have 

 known it to granulate." (Review of 

 October, page 306.) 



In Gleanings the editor, page 623. 

 says : " With regard to the use of 

 either acid or honey, we have never 

 found it essential. We simply mix up 

 the sugar and water, stirring until the 

 sugar is all dissolved." 



Judging by the above authorities, 

 there must be very little danger of the 

 crystallization which occurred in my 

 case. Whether the sugar was of a dif- 

 ferent quality from the average now 

 sold or whether we used too little 

 water, let me repeat it, the syrup did 



