266 



AMERICAN BEE jCURNAL. 



April : 



1899. 



Consumption of Stores in Severe and Mild Winters 



In the severe winter of 1894-95, amount of stores consumed 

 per colony from Nov. 1 to March 1 was 7.5 pounds, and 13.4 

 during- the same time in the mild winter of 1897-98. 



Fruit=Bloom Honey, Mr. Robertson thinks, is a bad 

 thing- to g-et mist with Hg-ht honey. He believes raspberry 

 is as bad as fruit-bloom, and, altho not very dark, rasp- 

 berry is about as poor flavored hone)- as there is. — Canadian 

 Bee Journal. 



Large Hives for Outdoor Wintering. — In an apiary of 

 80 colonies, 50 in Quinbj- ll-frame hives and 30 in Lang-- 

 stroth 10-frame, only one in 25 died the past winter in the 

 large hives, while one in three died in the Langstroth 

 hives, — Chas. Dadant, in Gleanings. 



Crimson Clover has for the fourth or fifth winter win- 

 tered beautif^illy in Medina Co., Ohio. Mr. Root sowed 

 some last August in wheat that grew so rank it fell down. 

 It looks fine this spring, except in some spots bare of wheat. 

 It is of some consequence to learn in what localities it is, 

 and is not, worth while for bee-keepers to sow crimson 

 clover. 



At what Stage Should Honey be Extracted? was a 



question discust at the "Meeting of the senate of Canadian 

 bee-keepers." Mr. Holtermann thought it should be left till 

 the honey has a glossy, shiny look in the cell. Mr. Robin- 

 son thought the longer left on the hive the better, so long 

 as the weather is warm and dry. Mr. Shaver had had sealed 

 honey become thinner when left on the hive, perhaps on 

 account of rainy weather. — Canadian Bee Journal. 



A Commission Man on Tall Sections.— H. Segelken, 

 of Hildreth Bros. & Segelken, New York, tells something 

 of the New York market in Gleanings, and thinks the 4'4X 

 4X .Sections have had their day. He thinks the tall sections 

 •will drive them out in time, just as- the one-pound section 

 drove out the two-pound section. The size preferred is 4x5 

 xljs, without bee-ways, with a leaning toward something 

 still narrower. The" demand is for sections of 12 or 13 

 ounces. He favors selling honey, not bv weight, but bv 

 the piece, and by the crate. "The demand for honey iii 

 paper boxes has fallen off somewhat for the past two "sea- 

 sons, and unglast has been in better demand than hereto- 

 fore. 



Strong Colonies for Results can hardly be repeated too 

 often. In the Progressive bee-keeper R. C. Aikin says : 



" Hold your forces together if you want surplus. ' Better 

 take a few bees from each strong colony, and make nuclei, 

 and ask nothing more of these, but to get in winter stores 

 and make colonies for winter, and see that the parent colonj' 

 gets you surplus." 



Doolittle endorses this, but says if little increase is 

 needed it is better to make no nuclei, but make strong colo- 

 nies at once, by using a big funnel and nucleus-box and 

 going from colony to colony till 7 to 10 pounds of bees are 

 obtained, then giving a queen. This keeps down swarm- 

 ing, and yet keeps all at work in the supers. 



Colorado Grading of Honey.— F. L. Thompson reports 

 in the Bee-Keepers' Review the system of grading comb 

 honey adopted by the Colorado As.sociation, and a very fine 

 half-tone picture shows six sections of each of the two 

 grades. The grades are as follows : 



"No. 1. — Sections to be well filled; honey and comb 

 white ; comb not to project beyond wood ; wood to be well 

 cleaned : sections to weigh not less than 21 pounds net, per 

 case of 24 sections ; but cases in lots must average 22 pounds 

 net. (That is, if a few cases in a lot weighed 21 pounds 

 each, that would not prevent the whole lot'from being first 

 grade honey, provided the" average of the whole lot was 22 

 pounds.) 



"No. 2. — Includes all amber honey, and all white honey 



not included in No. 1 ; to be fairly well sealed, and not 

 weigh less than 18 pounds net per case of 24 sections. 



"Culls. — All cull honey shall be sold in the home 

 market." 



One might ask why cull honey should be inflicted on 

 the home market if not fit for shipping. The reason given 

 is a very commendable one : On account of the use that 

 may be made of them to be cut up into strips to have glu- 

 cose poured over them. Cull honey is not defined. 



One of the hardest things for an outsider to see thru is 

 that matter of 21 and 22 pounds. If a lot averages 22 pounds 

 per case, and a 21-pound case is added, then a 23-pound case 

 must be added to balance it. When it comes to selling out 

 by the single case to the grocer, each 21-pound case is first- 

 class, then wh)- would not a whole lot of the same kind 

 grade just as high ? But it may be that demands of grocers 

 in the same market may vary. 



It is a very much easier thing to find fault with a sys- 

 tem of grading than to evolve a faultless one. 



Increase by Nuclei.— Remove or cage the queen. Ten 

 daj's later take two frames of brood with adhering bees, 

 put in an emptj- hive at one side, using a full comb of 

 honey as a division-board. Stuff the entrance with green 

 moss, grass, or leaves, packing it in very tig-ht. so not a bee 

 can get out. See that at least one good queen-cell is in 

 each nucleus. In two to five daj-s ^he bees will gnaw a waj- 

 out, and not a bee will go back to the old place. Each 

 strong colon)- should make four or five good divisions, that 

 will become good colonies in 40 or SO days. Enlarge the 

 entrance when the bees gnaw out. The old queen, if good, 

 may be freed in the hive on the old stand without fastening 

 in the nucleus. — \V. W. Somerford, in Gleanings. 



Parthenogenesis — as in the case of perfect male bees be- 

 ing produced from unfertilized eggs — seems a thing some- 

 what diflicult of belief to some people. Stranger things, 

 however, occur among other classes. The aphis, or com- 

 mon plant-louse, is only to be seen in the perfect winged 

 form in the fall. After mating, the female lays eggs in 

 the recesses of plants, these eggs hatching the next spring, 

 but producing only wingless lice. Without mating, these 

 wingless lice bring forth other wingless females, not hatcht 

 from eggs, but bor>i alive, and these in their turn bring 

 forth others, so that they often extend to nine or ten suc- 

 cessive generations, until the last brood brings forth males 

 and females with wings, and from these come the fertilized 

 eggs in readiness for the following spring. 



" Face the Hives South," says Somnambulist, in the 

 Progressive Bee-Keeper, endorsing Doolittle, "giving them 

 the advantage of more frequent cleansing flights during a 

 severe winter, and lengthening not only the season, but the 

 separate days which constitute the season ;" advising that 

 the apiarj- be placed where the general lay of the whole 

 country is to the south, as the southern slopes warm up 

 sooner and blossoms appear there in advance. That raises 

 the question whether Somm)-, who always dreams so 

 brightly, must not have been in an abnormal condition 

 when penning that. Wouldn't an apiary with a northern 

 slope get those southern-slope flowers all right ? - Or is the 

 slope to be continuous as far as the bee flies ? As to the 

 g-eneral question of north or south facing, or facing some 

 other direction, Cogitator probably has it about right — 

 " whole thing- a matter of climate." 



Sections Without Separators. — W. B. Ranson reports 

 in Gleanings that without separators he secures sections 

 with onh- 21 in a thousand bulged. His chief dependence 

 is upon very .strong colonies, with hives carefully leveled. 

 He encourages earlj- brood-rearing, and, when the colony 

 swarms, removes the queen and lets the swarm return. In 

 eight or ten da3-s they swarm with the virgin queen. He 

 removes the old hive and puts the new in its place with per- 

 forated zinc at the entrance, running the swarm into the 

 new hive, and allowing only the best young queen to go in. 

 On the hive is put an excluder, over this a super of sec- 

 tions, with starters, and on this the super of unfinisht sec- 

 tions from the parent. Then the bees from the old hive are 

 brusht into the new, the old hive closed with wire-cloth, put 

 in a comfortable place, and in 24 or 48 hours the bees again 

 brusht out into the new hive, and the third day the ex- 

 cluder removed from the entrance. That makes a powerful 

 colony with no danger of swarming again, and work goes 

 on so strongly in the sections that no separators are needed. 



