THE AMERICAJM BEE JOURNAL. 



423 



adopted he would unquestionably 

 have died. While the soda is an ex- 

 cellent remedy, perhaps a better thing 

 to have used would be a solution of 

 ammonia. It is well known that a 

 little of this will quickly relieve the 

 pain when a person is stung, and it 

 would doubtless act much quicker on 

 the horse than would the soda solu- 

 tion. However, either is good, but 

 the application of laudanum to quiet 

 the suifering animal seems to be a 

 novelty in veterinary practice. 



Cayuga Advocate. 



MMM Bee-Keepers' Couveiitioii, 



The Haldimand Bee-Keepers' As- 

 sociation met at Hagersville on Sat- 

 urd.ay, June 5, pursuant to adjourn- 

 ment. The minutes of the last meet- 

 ing were read and approved. 



The President expressed himself in 

 favor of natural swarming ; if in- 

 crease was desired, dividing was the 

 most rapid plan, providing queens 

 were given to the new colonies. 



Mr. Armstrong said that if increase 

 was desired, artificial swarming was 

 the way to do it, but it was necessary 

 to rear good queens for the new 'hives, 

 or buy them ; he preferred artificial 

 swarming, as it could be done when 

 convenient, and obviated the neces- 

 sity of watching the hives to prevent 

 swarms from absconding. A good 

 plan, if you want honey, is to allow 

 one natural swarm, and prevent 

 after-swarms by cutting out queen- 

 cells. 



Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Rose gave 

 their plans, and approved of what had 

 been said by tlie previous speakers. 



The President gave his plan of 

 dividing, which was slightly different 

 from that usually adopted. 



Mr. Armstrong took three or four 

 frames of brood and adhering bees, 

 out of a strong colony, and put them 

 into a new hive, and gave them a 

 laying queen, and they soon became 

 a good colony. 



Mr. Smith thought natural swarm- 

 ing the best unless a laying queen 

 was given to the new colony. 



The President said that the best 

 queens were reared in the natural 

 way by the bees themselves ; he had 

 reared them both ways, and preferred 

 the natural way, but a queen-nursery 

 is very valuable. 



Mr. Ross thought the best way was 

 to rear queens only from the best and 

 purest colony. 



Mr. Atkinson spoke in favor of 

 rearing queens in a two or three frame 

 nucleus. 



Mr. Armstrong described his plan 

 of rearing queens, which is the same 

 as that practiced by D. A. Jones, and 

 exhibited a queen-nursery. 



Mr. Jeffrey thought as good queens 

 could be reared by the bee-keeper, as 

 were reared under the swarming im- 

 pulse. 



In answer to Mr. Rose, how to win- 

 ter bees, the President advocated 

 plenty of feed, a good, strong colony, 

 and protection from the cold weather. 



Mr. Armstrong believed in plenty 

 of protection from the cold, plenty of 

 stores and good ventilation. 



A general discussion took place on 

 hiving swarms, and Mr. Armstrong 

 exhibited a swarraing-box he used for 

 the purpose— a very handy and useful 

 implement. 



The statistics of those present were: 

 4(jl colonies in the fall ; 330 in the 

 spring. 



Moved by Mr. Smith, seconded by 

 Mr. Anguish, that tlie next meeting 

 be held at Caledonia, on Monday, 

 Aug. 23, at 11 a.m. 



E. C. Campbell, Sec. 



Head at the National Convention. 



Tie Influence of Honey on Wintering, 



en. DADANT. 



Nobody will question the influence 

 of the food on health. Plants cannot 

 thrive in a soil unsuited to them ; 

 man, as well as every kind of animal, 

 needs a food easily digested and able 

 to sustain life ; bees ai'e not an ex- 

 ception to this rule. Nay, more than 

 man, more than most of the animals, 

 they sometimes eat some kinds of 

 food which, according to circum- 

 stances, can sustain their life or cause 

 their death. 



You have 2 colonies of bees entirely 

 destitute of honey ; you give one of 

 these colonies for food a comb of good 

 and well ripened clover honey ; you 

 give the other colony some molasses. 

 Both colonies will seem to thrive 

 equally well, if you make the experi- 

 ment "in summer, when they can en- 

 joy a daily flight. But if you shut up 

 both hives for two days, when you 

 release them the bees of the one with 

 clover honey will go out to void their 

 intestines without you being able to 

 see their feces. These will be so 

 small, so light in color, that they will 

 fall unnoticed, as in the every day 

 purifying flight of a healthy colony. 

 On the contrary, the bees of the 

 colony fed with molasses will let large 

 drops of dark and foul matter soil all 

 the neighboring objects. 



If, in lieu of the two days' confine- 

 ment you prolong it for eight days, 

 then, attheopeningof both entrances, 

 the bees of the colony with clover 

 honey will act the same as after their 

 two days' confinement, while the bees 

 of the'colony fed with molasses will 

 crawl out, discharging their feces 

 around the entrance; some, if not the 

 greater part of them, will have their 

 abdomens so much distended that 

 they will be nnable even to void their 

 contents. These poor bees will crawl 

 everywheie around their hive, and 

 perish on the ground. 



I can give another illustration of 

 the influence of honey on bees during 

 a close confinement : For years the 

 importation of Italian queens into 

 this country was attended with much 

 loss; sometimes half of a shipment 

 were alive. Such a result was then 

 considered as a lucky one, for most of 

 the time hardly one queen was re- 

 ceived alive, to show that the bees 

 were not all dead when put in the 

 boxes. 



Of course such a business was far 

 from being pi'ihtable, and more than 

 one enterprising bee-keeper was de- 

 terred from continuing it, after a few 

 trials. 



What was the cause of such ill suc- 

 cess y The main, if not at times the 

 only cause, was the quality of the 

 lioney given to the bees for food dur- 

 ing the journey. 



in Italy bees gather largely from a 

 diversity of plants. Persuaded that 

 success in that branch of business 

 was possible, I began, with my ship- 

 per, a series of experiments to ascer- 

 tain which kind of honey was the 

 best for sucli a long confinement. 

 After several careful experiments 

 during two years, we succeeded so 

 well in the selection of honey that we 

 have many times received boxes con- 

 taining queens which had barely a 

 dead worker bee after a journey of 22 

 days. Then our importing business 

 became a success, and paid back all 

 the money lost in seven years of un- 

 successful importation, giving hand- 

 some profits besides. 



Both these illustrations show what 

 happened during the winter to the 

 bees, according to the quality of the 

 food that they have to eat. 



Every bee-keeper has noticed that 

 when, after winter, we find some of 

 our colonies dead, if they have not 

 starved or smothered they have 

 perished with diarrhea, and that this 

 same malady, if we can call it malady, 

 has also made sad havoc in the popu- 

 lation of some of our colonies, while 

 some others have passed through the 

 winter safely. I have even noticed 

 that in such a diversity of fate, a few 

 colonies were so free of diarrhea that 

 I was unable to see a drop of foul 

 matter around their hives. 



Now let us see what had produced 

 such a diflference in the condition of 

 these colonies. The indispensable 

 food for bees is sugar, and chemistry 

 shows tliat the most easily and most 

 thoroughly digested form of sugar is 

 cane sugar. Iloney contains sugar in 

 two different forms— cane and grape 

 sugar. Some plants give honey with 

 more cane, others with more grape 

 sugar, consequently a honey contain- 

 ing the most of cane sugar, such as 

 clover honey, will prove more nourish- 

 ing than fall honey, which contains 

 more grape sugar, and leave besides 

 in the intestines of the bees a smaller 

 quantity of undigested residues. Our 

 bees in winter are confined for weeks, 

 even for months, and it is easy to un- 

 derstand how tlie colonies with good 

 honey, having less residues in their 

 intestines, were able to remain in 

 good health : while the colonies which 

 bad a poor quality of honey to eat, 

 perished more or less rapidly, accord- 

 ing to the quality of this honey— the 

 bees with juice of fruits or honey-dew 

 being ahead. 



When the honey is stored in cells 

 partly filled with pollen tlie bees eat 

 some of this pollen au'l their intes- 

 tines are readily filled up. The same 

 result follows when the honey is not 

 sealed, for, not only is it watery, but 

 the quantity of water that it contains 

 is increased by the property that it 

 possesses to absorb moisture. This 



