726 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



great essentials to safe wintering to 

 be these, viz: plenty of wliolesome 

 food, and proper protection from 

 dampness and cold. 

 Mt. Sterlin.s,K) Ills. 



For ilie Ainerlcan Bee JoumaL 



Acorn Honey— Report for 18 



C. TIIEILMANN. 



Never before this summer have my 

 bees gathered honey from acorns or 

 honey-dew that was noticeable, not- 

 withstanding I have seen them work 

 on oak-trees and acorns at times 

 through the summer and fall for a 

 number of vears ; but this summer 

 they have gathered over 3,000 pounds 

 of surplus from acorns alone, besides 

 storing considerable in the brood 

 department. The honey tastes very 

 noticeable to me of tannin, but some 

 people say tliey cannot discover any 

 by-taste ; the color is bluish white, 

 with a muddy appearance, though the 

 honey is clear. 



On a visit to St. Paul and Minneap- 

 olis, Minn.. I noticed a great deal of 

 this kind of lioney which ciime from 

 Wisconsin, Iowa, and tliis State. It 

 is easily detected by the bluish white 

 color of the capping on tlje combs. 

 Prof. Cook kindly tells us that the 

 acorns are pit-rced by an insect, and 

 the saliva of the insect foments the 

 starch of the acorn into lioney, which 

 flows from the acorns freely (as 1 have 

 observed closely), runs down on the 

 branches and scatters on the leaves 

 all over the trees, and in one instant 

 I have seen the leaves of corn 

 sprinkled with it, which grew under 

 an oak-tree. 



1 am not yet convinced whether the 

 honey is caused by the insect above 

 mentioned, or whether it is caused by 

 the weather under certain inhuences 

 which bursts the acorn, as nearly all 

 of them which 1 liave closely ex- 

 amined had an oblong cut or burst 

 horizontally or crosswise of the acorn. 

 When I first saw the bees working on 

 the oak leaves, honey-dew was my 

 first impression, and I have no doubt 

 that many would have called it louse 

 honey, even if they could not see any 

 lice ; if we always correctly un- 

 derstood the origin of what is called 

 honey-dew, w^e would have but little 

 louse honey. 



The milk-weeds which I have sent 

 to Prof. Cook for examination, and 

 which were dripping with sweets 

 when I cut them from the stalks, 1 

 have no doubt came from the lice on 

 them, as they have extracted some 

 clear.sweet substance similar to gran- 

 ulated sugar syrup, visible with the 

 naked eye, and with the microscope 

 they showed drops of crystals on the 

 under side of the leaves while folded 

 (underside to underside) and lying 

 over night on a window-casing ; but 

 the curii'Sity was, that the bees did 

 not touch the sweets on these milk- 

 weeds, which were in my pasture, 

 while at the same time they worked 

 thickly on their flowers. The leaves 

 were dripping with sweets from the 

 lice for over ten days, but I have not 



discovered a single bee working on 

 them, but on some stalks the ants 

 gathered it very clean. 



All of my 163 colonies which I put 

 into winter quarters last fall, came 

 out alive and in excellent condition. 

 I put ttiem out on April 10, and in 

 less than two hours they brought in 

 pollen and honey. The weather being 

 very favorable through April, they 

 filled their hives with brood very 

 rapidly, so that on May 1 they were 

 one month in advance, compared with 

 other years. 



I sold lo colonies and commenced 

 the season with 148, and increased 

 them by natural swarming to 197 

 colonies. My surplus honey was a 

 little over 11,000 pounds, all of which 

 was in one-pound sections, except 

 about 600 of extracted, the latter 

 being mostly from unfinished sec- 

 tions. I never leave over any honey 

 in unfinished sections to be finished 

 the next season, as there is a good 

 deal wasted and candied, and besides, 

 it makes very bad looking honey, 

 some of it being sour and unfit for 

 sale. If we care anything for our 

 good names as first-class honey pro- 

 ducers, we should always extract un- 

 finished sections. 



The flow of honey was slow, but 

 nearly steady from the time that 

 white clover commenced to bloom 

 until the latter part of August, when 

 it ceased, with abundance of bloom, 

 on account of the weather being 

 rainy and cold. They had only two 

 good days in September to gather 

 much honey. The past week the 

 weather was nice and warm, the 

 temperature being 7.5° to 80° in the 

 shade, but the bees could not get 

 much, as a heavy frost about ten days 

 ago had killed nearly all the flowers. 

 My bees all have natural stores 

 enough for winter, and are all pre- 

 pared ; some of them had not enough 

 and others had more stores than they 

 needed. I have equalized them ac- 

 cording to strength and other condi- 

 tions, by taking full frames of lioney 

 from the heavy ones and giving tliem 

 to those that were too liglit ; not be- 

 lieving in guess work, I went from 

 hive to hive, weighing and equalizing 

 them. I calculated that each colony 

 had from 25 to 35 pounds of honey, 

 according to strength, which should 

 be known by the apiarist, and calcu- 

 lations made accordingly. 



I think it is far more important for 

 the practical apiarist to have his 

 hives, or rather his frames, all of one 

 size, so that every frame fits every 

 hive he has. He then can change 

 frames from any and every hive, to 

 all. This is one of the most impor- 

 tant points in manipulating an apiary, 

 and there is where some leading bee- 

 keepers make great mistakes (except 

 for experiments) in allowing from two 

 to a dozen or more different frames 

 and hives in their apiaries. It is ab- 

 solutely untrue that they can get 

 more than double or even one-quarter 

 more honey with one hive, than with 

 another, other things being equal. It 

 not the hive that produces the 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Painted Hlves-Hatcliin£ Bee-EsES. 



A. J. COOIv. 



In reply to Mrs. O. F. Jackson, on 

 page 698, it may be said that paint 

 surely does stop up the pores of wood, 

 and so stop the passage of air. Hence, 

 if it is wise to secure this freer circu- 

 lation, which, of course, will remove 

 moisture, then no paint would be the 

 order. 



But under proper management 

 painted hives do well ; in other cir- 

 cumstances, all hives fail. I would 

 always paint my hives, not that it 

 will always pay in dollars and cents, 

 but for neatness sake. 



I prefer to have my hives closed in 

 the winter except at the entrances, 

 which I would have wide open, if in 

 the cellar, which is the best place I 

 think in this latitude. That bees will 

 winter well in some cases is shown in 

 the fact that I once had a colony win- 

 ter exceedingly well with a sealed 

 cover, and ice-closed entrance. Nor 

 was the ice melted at the entrance ; 

 it was still frozen in the spring. This 

 hive was painted. This might not 

 happen again, as the conditions must 

 be just right. I expected to lose the 

 colony. In most cases I probably 

 would not be disappointed. 



In the interesting article by Mr. 

 Doolittle, on page 693, he asks if bees 

 can retard the hatching of eggs. I do 

 not think they can, except as they 

 suffer them to chill. By putting eggs 

 of insects in ice-boxes, or in any cold 

 place, the hatching can be indefinitely 

 postponed. Thus I have known egga 

 to be kept three years before hatch- 

 ing, when normally they would have 

 hatched in less than one. Again, we 

 can hatch bee-eggs artificially if we 

 secure the proper heat ; hence we 

 disprove the chyme theory. In case 

 the queen keeps laying, the bees must 

 destroy the eggs, or suffer them to 

 become chilled, or else there will, I 

 think, be brood very soon. 



I want to add that I have tried the 

 solar wax-extractor thoroughly, and 

 think that it is worth all its inventor, 

 Mr. Poppleton, has said in its praise. 

 Agricultural College, 9 Mich. 



honey. This should be considered by 

 all bee-keepers. 

 Thielmanton,o. Minn., Oct. 16,1886. 



For tbe American Bee Jonmal. 



Colonies Refnsing to Unite, etc, 



M. W. MAHONY. 



About a month ago I found that 

 one of my colonies had dwindled con- 

 siderably in numbers. I thought the 

 queen was lost, but on examination I 

 found a small portion of brood in all 

 stages. I then concluded that she 

 must be a bad layer (though only S 

 years old), and was determined to 

 remove her and unite the colony with 

 another, but I could not find her 

 when I went to look. I did unite 

 them, however, by transferring combs 

 and bees of a swarm I got on July 4, 

 into the dwindling lot, putting the 

 the transferred bees at the back of 

 the hive and sprinkling both with 



