Jan. 12, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



19 



and one day the temperature being up to about 60 degrees, 

 as I expected to lose most of them any way, about half of 

 them were put out and had a good flight, and if any 

 who think bee.s never .spot clothes had been around I think 

 they would have changed tlieir minds, for not only every- 

 thing in the vicinity, but the vicinitj' itself was badly 

 spotted. 



Very soon afterward it turned cold, and the temperature 

 went down to about 20 degrees below zero, with a strong 

 wind from the north, to which these colonies were almost 

 wholly exposed. But altho they were unable to fly again 

 until, if I remember rightly, sometime in the latter part of 

 Marcli, a small majority of them survived. Of the SO coh)- 

 nies left in, about two-tliirds of them died, either inside or 

 .soon after they were removed from tlie cellar. 



Southern Minnesota. 



Prefers the Tall Sections— A Report. 



BY TH.MIDEUS H. KEELKK. 



I SEND a photograph of a case of aster honey just as it 

 came from the hive. The sections are the Ideal. 3>^x5xl'2 

 inches. The honej- was capt as white as any clover or 

 basswood I ever saw. I have fallen in love with the tall sec- 

 tions, and shall use no other than the Ideals. 



The honey crop for this section has been the poorest I 

 ever saw. I had a few civer 100 colonies in the spring, and 

 had only 8 or 9 prime swarms, and about 200 pounds nf 

 spring honey, gathered from clover with daisy or bull-eve 

 honey raixt with it. It was capt yellow, and tasted about 

 as good as a daisy smells. The fall crop was the best I ever 

 had ; some of my colonies filled two supers, the first coming 

 from golden-rod, and finishing up on aster. The frost held 

 off very late in this section. 



The photograph shows one of two supers taken from 

 one hive, being the last one put on the hive. 



Westchester Co.. N. Y. 



Why Italian Bees Store Better Honey than the 

 Blacks. 



BY A. B. B.\TES. 



IN coming to the front and telling why Italian bees store 

 better honey than other bees when all have access to, 

 and all store from, the same sources of supply, as Mr. 

 Eovins requests, m.-iy not be easily done ; nevertheless, it is 

 so, all the same. " The taste of the pudding is the proof." 



A great many facts exist without any knowledge of the 

 causes that produced them. 



A few years ago I had two colonies of blacks, located 

 side by side, and, judging from observation, about equal in 

 strength, or numljer of bees and energy. There was no dif- 

 ference observable in the working of the two colonies — one 

 stored surplus honey and the other consumed the honey in 

 store, and at the same time ; if any difference, the one that 

 stored the surplus honey contained the most brood to feed. 

 T\'hy was this so ? An answer to this might result in an 

 answer to the other. My opinion is. that the " reach " of a 

 bee is a more important factor in the characteristic of a 

 profitable bee than many of us are willing to believe. 



It is presumable wnth me, however adverse in the minds 

 or clearer lights in bee-culture, that where there is a meagre 

 flow of nectar it lodges in the bottom of the blossom-cups, 

 and while some colonies are as numerous in bees and are as 

 industrious, they are unable to reach it, and, if conditions 

 remained such any length of time would die of starvation, 

 while colonies possessing longer reaches would be storing 

 surplus. 



Now with regard to the question. Honey is heavier than 

 water, and as a natural consequence the richer of the sac- 

 charine substance would settle to the bottom, and while 

 black bees during a copious honey-flow might store as much 

 honey (less the weight <)f the evaporation of water it con- 

 tains), the Italian bee having a longer reach cleans out the 

 cup of the blosom-cell to the bottom, giving us not only a 

 richer and finer quality and flavor from the same bloom, 

 but the honey requiring less ripening or evaporation of 

 water ; the same quantity when first stored would result, in 

 weight and bulk when ripened, largelv in favor of the 

 Italians. 



My observation is that the same size comb when first 

 stored by the Italian is more dense, needs le.ss ripening, and 

 is therefore heavier than that of the black. 



I placed a 3-frame nucleus of Italian bees, one spring, 



on a stand by the side of a populous 8-frame black colony. 

 The season was poor, and the result was the Italians in- 

 creast to 18 frames (filling an 8-frame and a 10-frame hive), 

 and gave me 83 pounds of honey ; while the black colony 

 did not store a pound of surplus. 



The dift'erence in the reaches of the two strains, in my 

 opinion, was the cause of the difference of production, and 

 is also the cause of the difference of the qualitv in favor of 

 the Italians. Franklin Co., Mo. 



Honey as a Fat-Producer — Nuts to Crack. 



M"; 



liY DR. C. C. MILLER. 



C. WURSTER, page 782 (1898), wants me to tell 

 about honej- as a fat-producer. I don't know enough. 

 I'm not a scientist ; only a bee-keeper. Evidently Mr. 

 Wurster has been looking into the subject, and if he has 

 an}' new light, by all means let us have it. 



My knowledge of nutrition from the standpoint of a 

 physician was obtained a good many years ago, and in that 

 time some things have been unlearned by the profession. I 

 have always supposed that when the heat-producing ele- 

 ments were assimilated, and they were not needed for im- 

 mediate use, they were stored as fat, providing everything 

 was in normal condition. The theory that I must first lay 



Dr. C. C. Afillcr. 



up in my own body as fat, the fat of pork, before I can get 

 any benefit from it as fuel, is something new to me. That 

 only such elements as require extra preparation by the 

 digestive organs can be laid up as fat is also new to me. 

 Every farmer knows that corn is a good fattener. One 

 would be inclined to suppose that the sugar contained in it 

 and gotten out in the form of glucose ought still to be a 

 good fattener. If all the honey and sugar one ea1s must be 

 used up at once in producing heat, and none of it can be 

 stored up as fat, isn't there danger .soinetimes of one being 

 overheated when one has a big feast of honey ? But if 

 there's any new light, by all means let's have it. 



A. W. Hart wants me to crack some nuts that he g-ives 

 on page 782 (1898). I am left partly to guess at what he wants 

 me to tell, and any answer I give must be largelj' a guess. 

 If I could have seen both cases possibly I might do a little 

 better guessing. 



In the first case, the smaller bee was probably an ordi- 

 nary worker that entered the cell and was shut in there. It 

 happens rather often that after a queen leaves a cell a 

 worker enters, and the other bees fasten on the lid of the 

 cell as a practical joke on the bee inside— a fatal joke for 



