THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



163 



to cover by exi)ancling the cluster. 

 Now conies a cold wave sweeping 

 over the country, very likely bobbing 

 the thermometer down to freezing ; 

 the bees have to cluster compactly to 

 keep from chilling to death, and leav- 

 ing a large share of the new tender 

 brood to perish with cold. All these 

 young bees that sliould have been 

 saved to keep the old stock strong are 

 lost, leaving the colony in worse con- 

 dition than if tliey had started on 

 brood at all, for old bees die very fast 

 in the spring ; during tlie winter tliey 

 lie dormant and very few die during 

 tliose months. But when warm 

 weather comes to quicken the bees 

 into active life and work, the old ones 

 drop very fast, and nnless young bees 

 are raised to lill their places the 

 colony will dwindle and become weak. 

 Such colonies have to be nursed pretty 

 carefully if they are going to be got- 

 ten up strong enougn to be of any 

 prolit to the bee-keeper during the 

 season, for it is the colonies tliat are 

 " chock full '' of bees when the honey 

 flow comes thatare going to get us tlie 

 best yield of honey. 



Most colonies begin to rear brood 

 in tlie cellar in February, more so 

 than those out of doors, the tempera- 

 ture being more even and higher, 

 making tlie chances for spring dwind- 

 ling much stronger tlian those colonies 

 wintered out doors, which have ex- 

 tended their brood as far as they 

 could keep it warm. The bees in the 

 cellar having had a warmer place, 

 have sjiread their brood farther ac- 

 cordingly, and when placed on their 

 snmmer stands are not in fit condi- 

 tion to witlistaud sudden changes of 

 temperature, like a man who has been 

 housed up for weeks. Hence we see 

 that something ought to be done to 

 help retain lieat in the hive. With 

 our common hives made of inch boards 

 it is a good practice in the fall to con- 

 fine the bees in the center of the hive, 

 giving them well filled sealed frames 

 of comb honey, judging of the amount 

 needed by the number of spaces oc- 

 cupied by the bees on a cool morning; 

 place a division board down each 

 side close to the outside combs, cover 

 the frames with a good qnilt of duck 

 or burlap witli a stick or two on top of 

 the frames so the bees can go over the 

 top of them, and fill the cap of the 

 hive and down both sides of the divis- 

 ion boards with clean, dry oat chaff, 

 or straw if the chaff cannot be had. 



If you did not do this last fall, do it 

 now when you take the bees out, and 

 thus save very much if not all of the 

 spring dwindling, and a consequent 

 loss of honey by and by. Very often 

 the hives and combs come out of the 

 cellar quite damp, which is another 

 cause or chilled bees, which the straw 

 packing will absorb and carry off. 



Healthfiilness of Honey. — The Texas 

 Agricultural Journal delivers itself of 

 the following : 



" If the people were properly im- 



Eressed witli the facts in regard to the 

 ealthfulness, economy and delicious 

 comfort of the daily use of honey, 

 tliere would be nothing heard of over 

 stocked markets. 



Shoiihl Fruit-(Jrowers Encourage 

 Bee-Keeping? — Mr. 11. Sherfy, at the 

 recent Pennsylvania State Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Association gave a lecture from 

 which we extract the following : 



Almost simultaneously with fruit- 

 growing I associated bee-keeping, not, 

 however, without doubt as to its pro- 

 priety from what 1 had previously 

 read. Believing, however, that our 

 All-wise Creator made all things for a 

 useful puspose, I at once concluded 

 to investigate the question of fruit 

 and bees. The first fact that we 

 notice is tlie love the bee has for the 

 nectar and pollen of all kinds of fruit 

 blossoms; its assiduous visits, crawl- 

 ing over stigma and anthers, dipping 

 in here and there for nectar, patting 

 the i>ollen upon the thighs, passing 

 swiftly from blossom to blossom, 

 carrying pollen from anthers tostigma, 

 and never visiting but one kind of 

 blossoms on the same raid. 



Are tliese assiduous visits intended 

 to benefit the bee, or is it not one of 

 the gi-eat designs to bring about fruit- 

 fulness V Is not this little insect fill- 

 ing a place for the benefit of man, 

 both in fruitfulness and in the in- 

 crease of the colony, to assist in gath- 

 ering a richer harvestin midsummer V 

 We do not claim that the bee is the 

 only agent to assist in fertilization ; 

 there are many other agencies. There 

 are two facts that we have noticed, 

 viz : That a bee will never visit an 

 open blossom that has been injured 

 by frost or cold ; and that fruit never 

 fails to set well where bees have reaped 

 a rich harvest from the blossoms. 



After fruit blooming the bees turn 

 their attention to other fields of pas- 

 turage until the fruit matures or rots. 

 Here is where many fruit-growers 

 complain. Tlie cry is " the bees are 

 eating my peaches, plums or grapes," 

 as the case may be, and in one sense 

 they are right. Countless numbers 

 are "diving" into the fruit — and 

 here we investigate. Hale's early 

 peaches are swarming full, fruit not 

 ripe but rotting. Every bee stops 

 short at a rotten spot. Remove every 

 peach that is not sound ; the bees run 

 over the balance of the fruit in a wild 

 and apparently frantic manner, then 

 off to another tree they go and alight 

 upon the first defect they find. Early 

 York comes in, fruit sound, no bees 

 about ; we pick for distant market ; in 

 two or three days some are quite ripe ; 

 the bees are feasting upon them ; we 

 take off all unsound ones as before, 

 and the bees hunt frantically, never 

 stopping to gnaw or make an en- 

 trance, but ofi: to another tree they 

 go. Several years ago, when the new 

 very early varieties of peaches first 

 ripened on my grounds, I had a very 

 decided test with the bees on two early 

 Alexander trees. I took off all ap- 

 parently defective fruit. The bees 

 had no other resort; they carefully 

 examined every peach left, never 

 stopping excejit where the skin was 

 broken. Altliough I had some trouble 

 in saving the fruit of this variety, I 

 failed to detect a bee tear a solid skin. 

 Tlie tenderness of the rind and slight 

 disposition to rot, coupled with the 



depredations of other insects, were 

 the first causes that gave me trouble 

 with this variety. 



Bees have eaten my grapes, but not 

 in every season. Tliose seasons were 

 not confined to scarcity of bee pas- 

 turage, nor the kind of bee, Italian, 

 hybrid, black or German. I observed 

 the same manner of seeking broken 

 places in the skin of the grape as in 

 the peach. I have never yet seen a 

 bee sit sparrow-like upon any kind of 

 fruit and tear a solid rind. I am con- 

 vinced that ripe fruit, that the bees 

 are so fond of, should have been dis- 

 posed of in some manner before the 

 rising of that day's sun. Grape skins 

 that bees have emptied of the pulp 

 are nearly all slit from end to end. 

 If the bees slit the grape skins, why 

 do they make a circular entrance into 

 the peach V If they tear the grape, 

 why do they not go at it at once, in- 

 stead of running frantically over it? 

 I have found when the bees were busy 

 at the grades that most bunches had 

 fermented berries distributed through 

 them, which indicates unsoundness 

 from some cause in the skin of the 

 fruit. 



The Uses of Honey.— Mr. C. F. Muth 

 writes as followft4,o the Patron^s Guide 

 of Boyd's Station, Ky. 



To show to what extent honey is 

 used for manufacturing purposes, my 

 sales during 2 weeks in October, 1881, 

 amounted to 22,000 lbs. Twenty- 

 eight (or 29) barrels (520 lbs. in a bbl.) 

 of it were used for manufacturing 

 purposes, principally by bakers and 

 tobacconists. These latter find quite 

 a profitable sweetening in honey and 

 promise to be great customers for 

 our produce in the very near future. 



Our retail trade for table honey was 

 rather slow for the last two months ; 

 but our sales by the barrel, to manu- 

 facturers, has kept one of our wagons 

 busy most of the time. 



Trade changes in all branches of 

 business. And it is interesting to 

 every bee-keeper to notice the change 

 which has taken place in the honey 

 trade. It is not long since when we 

 could hardly convince our customers 

 that the extracted article was pure 

 honey. The next obstacle was its 

 granulation. The granulated honey 

 would besuspicioned and sold for less 

 than honey in its liquid state. This 

 was made use of by eastern and west- 

 ern adulterators; as, viz., the country 

 was overrun with beautiful glass jars 

 filled with glucose (which would not 

 granulate) in the middle of which was 

 a piece of comb honey. These adulter- 

 ators did and do now a flurishing bus- 

 iness, but this branch of their busi- 

 ness is entirely used up. Consumers, 

 now, prefer the granulated honey and 

 I saw an article not long since, that 

 glucose manufactureis have almost 

 accomplished making glucose which 

 will granulate. So you see that these 

 infernal adulterators try their best to 

 keep up with honest men. 



^" Articles for publication must be 

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 from items of business. 



