AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



471 



You'll have to haul it home again." 

 Such information might be discouraging 

 when I had come with the intention of 

 finding sale for a wagon load. 



About 9 o'clock I had finished with 

 the dealers, and hitched my horses to 

 one of the liveliest business corners. In 

 about five minutes a farmer came along 

 and asked what was on my wagon, if it 

 was for sale, etc., and from this time I 

 was constantly busy with weighing and 

 making change, so that before sundown 

 I started for home with every keg and 

 can empty. In this instance, the dealers 

 " knew in exact proportion to their ex- 

 perience." 



The day I arrived in Los Angeles, I 

 went into a commission house where a 

 bee-keeper was disposing of eight cans 

 of extracted honey, and they were test- 

 ing it by licking their lead pencils after 

 dipping them in the screw-caps. Three 

 cans contained very thin honey, and in 

 five it was very thick. When the mer- 

 chant inquired the reason for this diflier- 

 ence, the bee-keeper said he could not 

 tell, as they were extracted right along 

 day after day alike. 



" Well," says the merchant", " I guess 

 the thin is just as good honey," and he 

 took them all at one price. There were 

 also several crates of sections which, 

 being much travel-stained and covered 

 with propolis, the merchant glanced at 

 and said he did not want, even at the 

 low price of 7 cents a pound. This bee- 

 keeper had 150 colonies of bees, had 

 been in the business several years, but 

 this season his orchard came into bear- 

 ing, and the bees were neglected. I 

 wished to ask if he had any green grapes 

 or decayed peaches to sell. 



Did the reader never extract honey 

 one day when it would pile up as it ran 

 from the extractor, and the next day it 

 splashed like water? Furthermore, 

 there are whole honey seasons of such 

 honey. In 1889 I knew colonies to 

 gather from basswood 60 to 70 pounds 

 by actual weight in seven days, and 

 when it was evaporated to the consis- 

 tency of ripe honey, there was not 

 enough for their winter stores. 



At Longmont, Colo., about the middle 

 of the honey harvest, I inquired at a 

 leading grocery for new honey, and was 

 handed a pail containing apiece of comb 

 honey which was granulated solid, and 

 which was surrounded by new extracted 

 honey. On examination, I remarked 

 that the liquid was new, but the comb 

 in it had been broken from a section left 

 over from last year. At this he grew 

 vehement, and offered to bet $20 that 

 all of it was new. 



When I told him that it was too early 

 in the season for honey to be sealed, and 

 explained the nature of granulation, and 

 said I would sooner bet my "whole pile" 

 than anything less, he concluded that I 

 knew what I was talking about. Then 

 I went out on the street and a laborer 

 told me he had once obtained some real 

 honey, but of late he thought that bee- 

 keepers stirred sugar into it ! 



I suppose the producer of this pailful 

 thought that if he hastened it upon the 

 market before other bee-keepers brought 

 their ripe new honey, it would be as 

 forced to sell as the people were crowded 

 off the Brooklyn bridge. In the lan- 

 guage of EamDler, such honey occupies 

 the whole railroad, side-tracks and all ; 

 and as to moving, there is a smash-up 

 ahead with the wrecking crew on a 

 strike. 



Pasadena, Calif. 



(Concluded next week.) 



How to Protect Colonies 

 Bees from Ants. 



of 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY E. S. LOVESV. 



Many good points have been brought 

 out through the agitation of this ant 

 question. They have come as a new 

 enemy or pest to the bee-keepers in some 

 localities within the last two or three 

 years, hence some of our bee-keepers 

 lost many of their bees before they 

 awoke to the fact that the ants were in- 

 juring their bees. 



Out of about 200 bee-keepers that I 

 have visited this summer, I have found 

 those ants in from 20 to 25 places, and 

 in a few places they were very trouble- 

 some. I visited one man three times, 

 and not until the ants had destroyed 

 more than half of his bees, could I con- 

 vince him of the havoc that they were 

 milking ; but he is now keeping them off 

 as I have, and he says that the bees are 

 getting along all right. 



While I have not been able to find 

 anything yet that will exterminate them 

 entirely, I have been successful in keep- 

 ing them off of the hives by making 

 stands to set the hives on. If the ground 

 is nearly level, I cut six posts about a 

 foot long, with three cross pieces and 

 two long scantling for each stand. Then 

 I paint a 2-inch ring around each post. 

 I first used tar, but it dries too quickly. 

 Now, after many experiments, after 

 putting on two or three coats of tar to 

 form a body, I use a mixture of about 

 3/10 of lard.. 3 /lO axle grease, 3/10 



