218 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 13, 



I fancy I hear Mr. Miner and Mr. 

 Thomas saying, " We told you so, 

 when you were writing upward venti- 

 lation, and a good season with your 

 dwindled down colonics, and now you 

 find it as we told you." Well, gentle- 

 men, you did well in your discussion 

 of the matter, and I am willing to let 

 it drop where it is, for if I should 

 write further trying to prove myself 

 correct, we should only get into a con- 

 troversy instead of a friendly discus- 

 sion. A friendly discussion benefits 

 all, as it gives both sides of the matter 

 under consideration ; but a contro- 

 versy benefits no one, and is anything 

 but tasteful to the readers of our much 

 esteemed American Bee Journal. 



Borodino, N. Y., June 27, 1881. 



Why Did Mr. Root's Bees Die \ 



L. L. LANGSTROTH. 



[The following article is taken from 

 the July number of Gleanings in Bee- 

 Culture. Mr. Langstroth wrote Mr. 

 Root 5 questions, which, with the an- 

 swers, are given in the article. The 

 whole article will be read with inter- 

 est.— Ed.] 



Your heavy losses in bees affect me 

 painfully. While 1 admire your cheer- 

 ful spirit under such reverses, 1 know 

 that the failure to winter your bees is 

 much harder to bear than the mere 

 pecuniary loss. I speak from a vivid 

 recollection of past experiences. Be- 

 fore I discerned what precautions 

 were necessary for wintering bees suc- 

 cessfully in movable-frame hives, I 

 more than once found myself in the 

 spring in a plight almost as bad as 

 your own. I can fully indorse 

 your explanation of some of the reas- 

 ons why your reverses have been so 

 much greater than those of some large 

 bee-keeper in your neighborhood. I 

 often met with great losses when my 

 apiary was managed chiefly for the 

 sale of Italian queens. At the close 

 of a poor honey season my apiary of- 

 ten had many weak colonies. The 

 temptation to winter every such col- 

 ony which had a good queen was 

 very great, as the demand at high 

 prices for such queens in the spring 

 was usually greater than could be 

 met. It was only the fact that my lo- 

 cation was a poor one for honey, and 

 that I could get large figures for 

 nearly all the queens that I could 

 rear, that at all justified my course. 

 If in addition to the queen business, 

 the selling of bees quite late in the 

 season by the pound had been prac- 

 ticed, the condition of my apiary af- 

 ter an unusually cold winter and late 

 spring would probably have been very 

 similar to that of your own. 



I give some comments on your re- 

 plies to questions which I sent to you. 



1. " Did you spread the combs fur- 

 ther apart?" 



" I did not. Although recom- 

 mended, so far as I know it has been 

 mostly abandoned." 



Mr. Harrison, of Buffalo, first called 

 attention to the importance of keep- 

 ing the combs in which the bees clus- 

 ter for winter '}& of an inch further 

 apart than the natural breeding dis- 

 tance. In the old box hives there are 

 usually spaces in which bees can clus- 

 ter in much larger numbers than m 

 movable frames properly spaced for 

 the working season. In the very cold 

 winter of fs72-:t I wintered in the open 

 air in hives only % of an inch thick, 

 until February, a number oi colonies 

 which were estimated not to have 

 over 2 quarts of bees per hive. All 

 the bees of a hive were placed between 

 2 combs full of honey, which were 

 kept nearly 3 inches apart, and they 

 formed a single cluster, shaped like a 

 ball If the combs of these colonies have yet seen. 



1808, without the loss of one, spreads 

 the combs. 



2. " Did you make winter passages 

 in the combs ? " 



" Perhaps half of the combs have 

 winter passages. I have never been 

 satisfied it made any material differ- 

 ence." 



In this you differ from those who 

 have had the best success in winter- 

 ing bees. Mr. Hill, for instance, never 

 neglects this point, and I am satisfied 

 that the power of passing from comb 

 to comb through the heart of the 

 \\:n in cluster, besides saving the lives 

 of many bees, greatly encourages 

 early breeding. In the old box hive 

 the 'holes around the cross-sticks for 

 the support of the combs give the 

 best of winter passages. 



3. " Did you place burlap or any 

 other non-conductor of moisture over 

 the frames? " 



" We used burlap, wood mats, and 

 enameled sheets, but saw no differ- 

 ence in favor of either." 



Whatever the material used for con- 

 fining the bees below, it should, as a 

 matter of course, permit the ready 

 escape of superfluous moisture. With 

 weak colonies in very cold winters, 

 this is a point of great importance. 



4. " Did you give the bees a good 

 space above the frames for clustering 

 in V " 



'• A part of them, perhaps nearly j£, 

 had an empty frame, or a frame of 

 stores placed over the cluster. Our 

 Palestine bees went into this upper 

 chamber and starved, having plenty 

 of stores below." 



Reference to the back volumes of 

 the American Bee Journal show 

 that Bickford's quilt (afterward im- 

 proved by you) is credited by him to 

 the successful experiments which he 

 witnessed in my apiary. I discarded 

 the honey-board in wintering, using, 

 instead, woolen rags, old carpets, etc., 

 through which all superfluous mois- 

 ture could pass, while sufficient ani- 

 mal heat was retained, explaining at 

 length that the principle was the same 

 as using suitable bed covering to keep 

 ourselves dry and warm in cold 

 weather. I have always regarded the 

 elucidation and application of this 

 principle as a great advance in practi- 

 cal bee-keeping. The letters of II u- 

 ber, published only a few years ago, 

 show how much his bees suffered 

 from dampness ; and before I so fully 

 expounded my ideas in the London 

 Journal of Horticulture, our English 

 friends found that they could not use 

 wooden boxes with any satisfaction. 

 My plans, as seen by Mr. Bickford, 

 and verv fully described in the Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal, not only gave 

 this free escape of moisture without 

 too much loss of heat, but especially 

 provided an ample warm space for the 

 bees above the frames, so that the 

 cluster could contract or expand at 

 will. This saved the lives of many 

 bees which, in very cold weather, 

 even with the best winter passages, 

 often failed to regain the center clus- 

 ter, and died because they could not 

 keep up the necessary heat. 



I believe that, even in such a winter 

 as the past, that with winter passages, 

 combs properly spread apart, and a 

 warm clustering space for the afore- 

 said purposes, bees could be better 

 wintered in the open air in hives '„ of 

 an inch thick, than with any amount 

 of chaff above, around, or below them, 

 where these precautions are ignored ; 

 for in sunny weather such thin hives 

 will warm up so as to dry out and al- 

 low the bees to reach their stores, 

 while the chaff hives may remain cold 

 and damp as a cellar. I will send you, 

 in due season, an unpatented device 

 used by Mr. Hill, for securing a warm 

 nest above the clustered bees, which 

 answers the end better than any one I 

 Is there a man in all 



one pound of surplus than two in the 

 more favored northern locations. 



had been left in their summer posi- 

 tion, no amount of chaff used in any 

 fashion could have saved them. Mr. 

 J. S. Hill, of Mount Healthy, <>., who 

 wintered last season 11 2 colonies with- 

 out losing one, and who has wintered 

 on an average 80 colonies a year since 



our northern country who can claim 

 equal succeess witli Mr. Hill in win- 

 tering bees V It hardly need be said 

 that he is a pattern of skill, energy, 

 and promptness. He has made his 

 bees pay in a region where I think it 

 is ordinarily more difficult to secure 



5. "Did you feed your bees for 

 winter with a mixture of grape and 

 cane sugar 'i " 



" Only apart of them, as I stated on 

 page 278." 



I think your losses were owing in 

 part to your use of grape sugar. It is 

 not at all necessary that grape sugar 

 should contain any impurities to make 

 it a very hazardous food in such a 

 winter and spring as we have just had. 

 From its low sweetening power as 

 compared with honey or cane sugar, 

 your bees which used it were forced 

 to eat more than they otherwise would 

 have done, and thus to suffer from a 

 greater accumulation of feces. You 

 say, " Had our usual April weather 

 come on, we should probably have 

 saved about 50 colonies that we lost." 

 Is it not highly probable that, with 

 the weather just as it was, you might 

 have saved many of those colonies, if 

 they had not been forced to succumb 

 under the excess of feces produced by 

 the undigested starch which so largely 

 enters into the composition of grape 

 sugar V 



In noticing my account of Mr. D. 

 McCord's heavy losses from wintering 

 his bees on a syrup largely made from 

 grape sugar, you express surprise that 

 he '' should have done so foolish a 

 thing ;" but you published last fall his 

 account of the mixture he proposed 

 to feed, without a word of disapproval 

 or caution. You also say, in June 

 Gleanings, " 1 have never advised the 

 use of grape sugar for wintering." 

 Surely, friend Root, your memory is 

 at fault in this matter. In Gleanings 

 for October, 1880, page 189. Mr. Crow- 

 foot, in a letter to you, says, " Will 

 you please tell me what you would feed 

 bees that have got just about half 

 enough honey to carry them through 

 the winter V I have about 700 colo- 

 nies of bees, with about half enough 

 honey to winter on." 



To this you reply,"If I had 700 colo- 

 nies with half enough stores for win- 

 ter, 1 would supply the deficiency witti 

 frames of candy made of coffee A 

 and best grape sugar in about equal 

 proportions. If it is less trouble to 

 you to feed in the form of syrup, make 

 the syrup as described in the "A B C." 



They may die with this feed, but 



they may also die with natural stores, 

 as past reports fully demonstrate ; but 

 I think, if properly done, such stores 

 are just as safe for winter as natural 



stores Very likely the grape sugar 



that is made now would be safe of 

 itself ; but to be sure of being on the 

 safe side, I would use half coffee A, as 

 above." 



Certainly you have sometimes cau- 

 tioned your readers about, grape sugar 

 as a winter bee-feed ; but there can be 

 no doubt that, as in your reply to Mr. 

 Crowfoot, you have fully indorsed it as 

 a safe food to enter at least )i into 

 the preparation of winter stores. 

 When you review carefully all your 

 utterances, I believe not only that you 

 will admit this, but that, with the ex- 

 periences of the last winter, you will 

 condemn its use for winter stores so 

 plainly that no one can mistake your 

 position. Perhaps it needed such a 

 winter and spring as we have just 

 passed through to demonstrate that no 

 prudent bee-keeper can afford to use 

 grape sugar as a winter feed in any 

 proportions however small. 



You say, " I am very sorry that 

 grape sugar is used for bad or dishon- 

 est purposes ; but even if it is, I can- 

 not see why this should lie a reason 

 why we should not use it while rear- 

 ing queens, and bees by the pound." 

 So enormous are the frauds practiced 

 by the adulteration of our commer- 

 cial sweets by grape sugar and glu- 

 cose, that it seems tome that Bee- 

 keepers should lend no countenance 

 in any way to those who nuke them. 

 Already such suspicions have been 

 awakened as greatly to curtail the 

 sale of pure honey at remunerative 

 prices. On selfish motives alone, 

 those who deal in honest honey, and 

 those who have the control of our bee 

 periodicals, should set their faces as a 



flint against articles made almost ex- 

 clusively for bad purposes. 



You say that the Buffalo Crape Su- 

 gar Co. have produced a sugar which 

 '■is as pure and simple a sweet as the 

 best grades of maple sugar." Have 

 you any warrant for such an assertion? 

 and even if you had, is it right for you 

 to call down a blessing from heaven 

 upon a company which is making such 

 enormous profits by selling their pro- 

 ducts almost exclusively to men who, 

 by their adulterations, are cheating 

 the poor man in his honey, candies, 

 syrups, and sugars V If ever grape su- 

 gar and glucose are made as pure as 

 the best maple sugar and syrup, and 

 it becomes desirable to mix them with 

 our other sweets, let them be offered 

 at reasonable prices under their own 

 names, so that we can do our own 

 mixing ; or let the mixtures be sold 

 as such for what they are worth. 



Friend Root, you have gained a host 

 of warm friends by your candid ad- 

 mission of mistakes into which you 

 have fallen, and by your readiness to 

 notice improvements of others, even 

 when they have superseded what has 

 cost you much time and money ; nor 

 have you, from a false pride of con- 

 sistency, been wont to persist in advo- 

 cating what time has proven to be er- 

 roneous. It seems to many of your 

 best friends, however, that on this 

 grape sugar question you have acted 

 under the influence of prejudices 

 which have strangely warped your bet- 

 ter judgment. We cannot question 

 your sincerity, and only hope that, 

 when you weigh well this matter in 

 all its bearings, you will feel that you 

 ought to enlist the great influence of 

 your name and journal against a busi- 

 ness which, as it is now conducted, 

 enables unscrupulous men to commit 

 such monstrous frauds. 



Your sincere friend, 



L. L. Langstroth. 



Mr. A. I. Root's reply to the above 

 article is as follows : 



May the Lord bless you, my good 

 kind friend, for your frank and faith- 

 ful way of taking your old friend to 

 task. I certainly had forgotten giving 

 the advice you quote, and felt sure 

 that I had never said anything favor- 

 ing grape sugar so strongly for win- 

 tering. At the same time, I have no 

 reason for thinking it any worse than 

 stores of honey. More than 10 years 

 ago we had abundant proof of the ad- 

 vantages of sealed stores of coffee A 

 sugar syrup over natural stores, and 

 the past winter has abundantly cor- 

 roborated it again. I have always 

 sold grape sugar under its true name, 

 and, as far as I know, so also have 

 the manufacturers of whom I bought 

 it, and also those to whom 1 sold it. If 

 the experience I have had of the 

 world is worth anything, I am sure I 

 am right in feeling that the unjust 

 (and I might say foolish) prejudice 

 against grape sugar is going to pass 

 away, and it will come out and stand 

 as safely as a valuable product from 

 Indian corn as does starch. Eviden- 

 ces of this are now scattered through 

 our papers. Notwithstanding this 

 conviction, as grape sugar seems, 

 without question, to " make many of 

 my brothers to offend," I will, for the 

 present at least, drop it. I feel sure we 

 shall winter better next winter, but 1 

 think it will be greatly due to some- 

 tiling more important than the 

 substitution of granulated sugar for 

 grape, viz : giving the bees more of 

 my brains individually. As an excuse 

 and aplogy to our readers for the in- 

 consistencies friend L. has so kindly 

 pointed out, I would say that I am 

 getting to have a great business on 

 my hands. In my zeal for getting 

 boys and girls to work (that immortal 

 souls may be saved), a great traffic 

 has opened in supplies. Brains are so 

 much needed at every turn, ami so 

 many points are gone over in a single 

 day. that I am no longer able to re- 

 member what 1 have written and ad- 

 vised, as I did a few years ago. In 

 the next edition of the " A B C," and 

 also in our price list. I will, at least 

 for the present, advise against the 

 use of grape sugar. 



