58 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



would not candy, and I could not tell 

 my customers that my honey would 

 not candy ; so I had some labels 

 printed with a note commencing, •' If 

 this honey candies," etc., leaving a 

 doubt in the matter. Now I know 

 that all pure honey will not candy on 

 tlie approach of cold weather, for the 

 greater part of mine on hand is clear 

 yet, although some has candied ; and 

 last year it candied more slowly still. 

 I have known some honey to go over 

 until June and still be clear, and that 

 the best grades of heart's-ease honey. 

 The neighbor mentioned above ex- 

 pressed his surprise at its not being 

 solid by Dec. 1, but this was his first 

 year in ^Nebraska, and will be his 

 last, as he possessed the true Heddon- 

 ian spirit and wanted to leave me the 

 field ; (but rather, he wanted to go to 

 Kansas). 



Now I have told some good things 

 about bee-keeping in Nebraska, and I 

 ought to tell the other side. There is 

 nothing for bees in June, and a great 

 many have died of starvation just as 

 our Eastern bee-keepers were being 

 almost flooded with white clover and 

 basswood honey ; but clover is mak- 

 ing rapid strides for the AVest. 



Seward, o, Nebr. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Strong Colonies for tlie Honey-Harvest, 



C. THIELMANN. 



There is much said by some of our 

 most able apicultural writers, about 

 liaving the colonies the strongest or 

 most populous " at the right time," or 

 for the main honey-flow, thereby 

 securing the most available honey 

 harvest. This would be no secret to 

 the majority of bee-keepers, if they 

 could only know the time when that 

 large honey-flow would come, or if 

 some of the writers could tell them of 

 its coming every year, so that they 

 could prepare for it and have their 

 bees strong for the harvest. 



There may be some localities where 

 the main honey-flows come regularly 

 at the same time or about the same 

 time of the season ; but from nearly 

 all the reports and accounts that we 

 read, and also from my own experi- 

 ence during the past 17 years, this 

 rule, on the whole, has not proved to 

 be true. The main harvest here has 

 come only 3 or 4 times at about the 

 same time of the year, all the others 

 having come either before or after 

 the above-mentioned time, though all 

 of them began from the middle of 

 June to the middle of August, ex- 

 cepting one, which began on Aug. 22 

 and continued till Sept. 23, and gave 

 me a surplus of about 3,.500 pounds of 

 honey. Ina number of years there 

 was a honey-dearth, when at about 

 the same time of other years we had 

 the best honey-flows. One year I had 

 to feed about 20 colonies of the less 

 stronger ones, to keep them from 

 starvation, witli abundant white 

 clover in bloom, too. 



I am sorry to say that I have not 

 as yet reached that" excellency of api- 

 culture to know just exactly, every 



year, when the largest honey-flow is 

 coming. I have learned how to win- 

 ter my bees best, but as yet I have 

 failed to learn when the best honey- 

 flow will be here. I would be very 

 grateful to any of our fellow-bee- 

 keepers if they would tell me every 

 year when my honey-flow will be at 

 hand. It seems to me that this is one 

 of the questions that can no more 

 correctly be settled than to foretell 

 what the weather will be in the 

 future ; therefore I think that it is 

 best, for the majority of bee-keepers 

 to' keep their bees as strong as they 

 can all summer, so as to reap the 

 harvest whenever it does come ; and 

 it surely will do no harm if the colo- 

 nies go into winter quarters strong 

 in bees. I also find that the strong 

 colonies stand a honey-dearth a great 

 deal better than do the weaker ones ; 

 therefore I fail to see any advantage 

 in this latitude, with so many differ- 

 ent honey-producing flowers at times, 

 to prevent or lessen the increase of 

 our colonies at any time in the sum- 

 mer; and, as a rule, they lessen 

 enough themselves in winter and 

 spring. I can never get my colonies 

 too strong, but sometimes 1 fail to 

 have them all strong enough. 



Here white clover is generally 

 abundant, but in some years it fails 

 to yield much honey, and other years 

 it yields plentifully. Basswood is also 

 abundant, and blooms about the same 

 time as it does in Mr. Doolittle's 

 locality, but we have more failures 

 from it than honey-flows. Corn 

 generally comes immediately after 

 basswood, but on an average it does 

 not yield honey liere once in 3 or 4 

 years. I was much surprised to read 

 that Mr. Doolittle had never seen bees 

 gather honey from corn ; if he had 

 been here the past summer, I could 

 have shown liim where they gather 

 it. My bees stored about 1,000 pounds 

 of honey from it, with which they 

 finished about 2,-500 partly-filled sec- 

 tions of the linden honey. It is the 

 best and finest honey that they stored. 

 If I mistake not. the last was the 

 fourth season that my bees have 

 gathered honey from corn (any 

 amount worth mentioning) in 17 

 years. It is of a yellow whitish color, 

 and can hardly be distinguished from 

 the color of the red clover honey. All 

 of it was very thick, and had a fine, 

 smooth taste and aroma, being free 

 from any after-taste. 



In the season of 1884 my bees gath- 

 ered considerable honey from birch, 

 and very fine honey it was, too. It 

 was no louse honey, either ; nor was 

 it gathered from the blossoms of the 

 trees. When I examined it I was 

 almost convinced that what ancient 

 bee-men have said was true, viz : 

 " Wlien it honeys even the stones will 

 yield honey." The honey from the 

 birch was gathered in June, on the 

 young twigs at the joints or junctions 

 where the leaves connect with the 

 twig. There was a little leaf or cup 

 on each side of the junction, which 

 contained the honey. I had never 

 noticed this before, nor did I see it 

 last year. 



Three years ago I obtained the 

 larger part of my surplus honey in 



August from horse-mint. I am not 

 able to say whether I ever got any 

 honey from that source before that or 

 not, but I can say that I have not 

 obtained any since that, with large 

 quantities of horse-mint bloom within 

 80 rods of my apiary the last two 

 seasons. 



Under the above circumstances the 

 readers can see that a certain time of 

 the season could not be ascertained in 

 which to have our bees in prime con- 

 dition ; nor would the subtraction- 

 plan be of any advantage, as we do 

 not know when the main harvest is 

 coming. 



Thielmanton,o, Minn. 



For tbe American Bee Jonmal. 



Ventilation anfl Temnerature in Winter. 



C. W. DAYTON. 



As a specialist in the bee-business, 

 I endorse nearly all of the article on 

 page 6 ; however, I would differ 

 slightly by giving upward ventilation 

 and maintaining a temperature of 43^ 

 or 44^^. Some way or another I have 

 failed in wintering bees without up- 

 ward ventilation, though I have had 

 moderate success by contracting the 

 brood-chambers so that it would be 

 entirely filled with bees. Virtually, 

 tills would be upward ventilation, 

 there being a draft passing out at the 

 bottom of the hive. 



While hibernation may be (and I 

 believe that it is) a key to the winter 

 problem, the old dift'iculty remains, 

 viz., failure in making the bees hiber- 

 nate not only in the forepart of the 

 winter, but in the latter part also. 

 To make bees hibernate for a time is 

 an easier task to perform than it is 

 to follow them up and find out what 

 caused them not to hibernate. Each 

 of these tasks I think that I have to 

 some extent accomplished, and to 

 give an idea to what extent, I might 

 state that in an August number of 

 the Bee Jouhnal for 188-5, 1 related 

 how, in the previous fall, I prepared 

 60 colonies with upward ventilation 

 and 40 colonies without upward ven- 

 tilation, to be wintered in the same 

 cellar ; how in mid-winter I found 

 moisture on the under side of the 

 covers over the cluster of the un- 

 ventilated colonies ; and that on May 

 1 the 40 colonies were nearly all dead, 

 while the (iO remained healthy. Again, 

 last fall I prepared 111 colonies with 

 ventilation and 1 without ventilation, 

 and placed it in the same cellar with 

 the 111; at this time that solitary 

 colony is afflicted with disease, while 

 all the others are healthy. 



Let beginners not be led astray in 

 the belief that upward ventilation or 

 downvi'ard ventilation, high tempera- 

 ture or low temperature, natural or 

 artificial stores, comprise all and the 

 only requirements for successful win- 

 tering, as it will be found that they 

 are only a few of the many factors to 

 be considered. The soonest way of 

 finding out the necessary factors for 

 their cases, is to get extensively into 

 the business, read, experiment and 

 lose bees with the rest of us, and 



