58 



AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL 



Jan. 20. 1899. 



Dilute Honey Before Boiling, in case of boiling- foul- 

 broocly lioney. says Revue, by adding 25 percent of water. 

 Otherwise the honev will be burnt. 



Taylor's Swarming Device is not a success with some, 

 says Editor Holtermann, of the Canadian Bee Journal, be- 

 cau.se they put the bees in the new hive too soon, before 

 they have time to settle. Let them first settle in a cluster 

 in the catcher, then they will stay quietly where they are 

 put. 



How to Rear Giant Queens — C. T. Bonney uses the 

 Doolittle method of rearing- queens and by making- cell-cups 

 'i or '2 larger than common, he has reared the larg-est and 

 most prolific queens he has ever seen. — Gleanings. But 

 does not Doolittle say that medium-sized queens average bet- 

 ter than very large ones ? 



Comb vs. Extracted Honey.— The editor of the Cana- 

 dian Bee Journal has been doing some figuring. Sections, 

 foundation and shipping-cases are estimated to cost about 

 2'4 cents a section. Deducting this leaves 6!4;;to 18-;4 cents 

 a section for Canadian comb honey. Extracted sells within 

 'i to 2^4 cents of this price, and considering the difference 

 in amount obtained, he thinks it does not pav to produce 

 comb honey with the present market difference. 



A Good Colony of Bees in Early Spring was some 15 or 

 20 years ago defined by the New York Bee-Keepers" Asso- 

 ciation to be a colony with bees clustered i'.i five to seven of 

 the spaces between the combs, the bees nearly touching the 

 sides, bottom, and top of the hive in the center ranges, and 

 at the outside covering a surface as large as the hand, thus 

 occupying four to six combs on a cool morning in the fore- 

 part of April.— G. M. Doolittle, in Progressive Bee-Keeper. 



How Long Bees Live on Honey they Can Carry.— M. 



de Layens put bees in a dark cellar with onlv what honey 

 they had in their .sacs, leaving them in quiet. No extra 

 mortality was shown till the 8th day, when the bees began 

 dying, and would soon have starved if they had not been 

 fed. G. Butet thinks they would not stand it so long under 

 ordinary circumstances, and thinks it wise to feed a new 

 swarm in four or five days after hiving if the weather is 

 such that they can get nothing from outside.— Bulletin 

 Bourguignonne. 



Bees for Honey.— While in a good season the difference 

 in colonies is not .so noticeable, the past poor season has 

 brought out a strong contrast, says Harry S. Howe, in 

 Gleanings. Young queens gave best results, especiallv 

 queens reared after the honey-flow the previous season. He 

 has preferred blacks heretofore because he can work faster 

 with them, but the past season has convinced him that he 

 will get more honey with Italians or Carniolans. \V. L. 

 Coggshall is with iiim in his change of opinion, and will 

 spend S50 in the spring for queens to change his stock. 



The Honey Harvest and its Signs.— In general, wet 

 years are not good honey-years. Those tolerably dry but 

 not too dry are best. Bright sunshine is favorable, if not 

 too dry. Flowers yield most when giving out the strongest 

 fragrance. Especially is this true of buckwheat, which 

 yields no honey when it yields no fragrance. When a good 

 yield is on. the bees start out eagerly earlv in the morning, 

 the alighting-board is black with bees that drop heavily 

 with their burdens, and in the evening the ventilators are 

 very busily occupied. But the best way of judging as to 

 the gain is by means of weigh-scales.— BuUetin^Bourguig- 

 noime. 



Sweet Clover in a Dry Spell was a boon to Thaddeus 

 Smith, as he reports in Gleanings. It afforded his bees 

 good pasturage in a very dry spell in July and August, when 

 there was nothing else for them. Ho foinid the honey dark 



and unpleasant in taste. A. I. Root thinks there may be 

 some mistake about this, saying he never saw any sweet 

 clover honey that was dark or unpleasant. As a forage 

 crop, Mr. Smith says of it : 



•• I am pleased with my experiments with sweet clover. 

 Cut when young, and fed to cows, in stall, they ate it greed- 

 ily. It will bear cutting two or three times or more. I 

 plowed some under in my young peach-orchard, and planted 

 late sweet clover. Turning under such a large amount of 

 tops and roots can't help being beneficial. I am satisfied 

 there will be no trouble to prevent its spreading where I 

 don't wish it — not more than other clovers or weeds." 



How Long Shall FouUBroody Honey be Boiled?— I 



shall be glad to believe that it is necessary to boil foul- 

 broody honey only " several minutes ;" but please I'emember 

 that we have the following to face, which stands yet as a 

 fact : "Prof. Mackenzie secured growth from spores after 

 they had been kept at 212 degrees — not approaching, but at 

 212 degrees ; that is, they were brought to a boil, and kept 

 boiling- for two full hours. If there is no mistake about this, 

 is it safe to advise less than something more than two 

 hours ? [The only question in mV mind is whether these 

 scientists did not make a mistake ; and ought their single 

 scientific experiment to overbalance the results of practical 

 experience for years ? — Ed.] — Gleanings. 



Winter Apiarian Work.— When bees are settled in 

 winter quarters, the next thing- to do is to prepare for the 

 coming honey harvest. Repair and clean unoccupied hives, 1 

 make needed new hives, put foundation in brood-frames | 

 (don't worry about its getting old ; it is just as good if pre- 

 pared years before needed), and get all surplus arrange- 

 ments ready. Such is the advice of G. M. Doolittle, in the 

 American Bee-Keeper. He thinks best to count on 150 

 pounds of comb or 250 extracted for each colony. Less than 

 this finds him left behind about one year in five. Have bait ■ 

 sections in section supers. Then study over what is to be 

 done the next year, read over again the bee-papers, and 

 write to them some of the new things you have learned in 

 your own experience. 



Disadvantages of Large Hives.— C. P. Dadant has in a 

 .series of articles in Gleanings been giving the arguments 

 in favor of large hives in such strong manner as perhaps no 

 other could do. and having g-iven their good points, he now 

 gives their disadvantages in a manner that is remarkable 

 for its fairness. The large hive costs nearly twice as much 

 as an 8-frame dovetailed. It is not suitable for comb honey 

 unless under special management, for honey will go in the 

 brood-combs that oug-ht to go in the supers, especially in a 

 bad -season. It is bulky as well as heavy, needing two men 

 to move it in the apiary, and it is twice as much work to 

 cellar as the smaller hive. The worst thing- is transporta- 

 tion. A wagon that will take 28 small hives will take only 

 12 large ones. Freig-ht on the railroad is twice as much as 

 for the small hives. But in view of the fact that the Da- 

 dants do very little moving of hives, the better wintering in 

 the large hives, the less danger of spring dvrindling-, and 

 the greater scope for a prolific queen, they feel warranted 

 in continuing- the u.se of large hives. 



Sectional Hives are a bone of contention between 

 Messrs. Aikin and Doolittle in the Progressive Bee-Keeper. 

 Mr. Aikin makes this pleasant picture of a hive composed 

 of sections 15 inches square and 5 inches deep : " Friends, 

 just look at it. With these sectional hives the apiarist can 

 make increase or not as he pleases, can make any and all 

 colonies work in supers, can cause all (nearly) of the honey 

 to go into supers, can at any time make the size of the hive 

 conform to the needs of the case, whether increase or honey 

 is wanted. You can contract and squeeze white honey to 

 the surplus, and then enlarge and get the dark for winter 

 stores." 



Then Mr. Doolittle replies: "I wish to ask him and 

 the readers if they think it will pay to have our bees brood- 

 ing sticks and empty space, during the spring, instead of 

 queen's eg-gs, larva and pupa bees ? Just sit down and fig- 

 ure how much of that kind of a thing must be done when 

 two sections of his wonderful (?) hive are placed tog-ether 

 for a brood-chamber. Do you see that row of bottom-bars 

 clear across the hive ? Then all that vacant space between 

 them and the top-bars. necessary for a bee-space ? Next, all 

 of those top-bars ? Thousands of bees could be reared were 

 this idiit/) with the same economy of heat, etc." 



