358 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



hering to the cell, and into the edge of 

 the comb. The bees will finish up 

 the job. The young queens will liatch 

 in two or three days, and will go out 

 to meet tlie drones in five or six more 

 days, and at about ten days old they 

 will commence to lay eggs. You now 

 have laying queens at your disposal. 

 Christiansburg, Ky. 



For the American Be© Jonraal. 



Care of Comb Honey — No. 2. 



G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



Having our honey placed in a warm 

 room, as recommended in my last, the 

 next thing which will need our atten- 

 tion will likely be the larva; of the 

 wax moth, in order to keep them from 

 damaging our honey, for I have yet to 

 see tlie pile of 1 ,000 lbs. of comb honey 

 which does not have more or less of 

 these worms or larvffi upon it, after it 

 has been stored in a warm room for :2 

 weeks. Some of our bee friends tell 

 us they are never troubled in this way, 

 but however strong my hopes may be, 

 as I place my honey in the honey- 

 room, that I shall, like them, be ex- 

 empt from that nuisance " moth 

 worms," still I have to eventually 

 conclude with such liopes never real- 

 ized, for the worms always put in an 

 appearance. After the honey has 

 been away from the bees alxiut 10 

 days, if we inspect the cappings of 

 the honey closely, we will detect little 

 places of white dust resembling Hour 

 upon the surface of tlie comb, and 

 usually most abundant near the bot- 

 tom of tlie box. Now, although this 

 place may not be larger than than the 

 eye of a fine needle, still it tells us for 

 certain that a tiny worm ot the wax 

 moth is there, and tliat unless it is de- 

 stroyed, it will destroy more or less of 

 the nice white comb which encases 

 our lioney. 



While in the city of Syracuse, N. Y., 

 a number of years ago, I saw boxes of 

 honey whicli had worms in them as 

 large as a slate pencil, and an inch or 

 more long, and althougli they had 

 nearly denuded the honey of the nice 

 white cappings to the cells, still I 

 could not make tlie groceryman be- 

 lieve the worms lived upon tlie wax. 

 Such a spectacle soon disgusts cus- 

 tomers, and injures the sale of comb 

 honey very much. 



It, after several examinations, you 

 fail to find such little white, tlour-like 

 places, you need be very thankful. If 

 you should find these, the next thing 

 is to sulphur your honey. To do this 

 I get an old kettle and put some ashes 

 in the bottom of it so there will be no 

 danger of lire resulting from the heat 

 from the coals, whicli are to be placed 

 therein. When I have the kettle thus 

 prepared, I take it to the honey room 

 and pour sulphur, which has been 

 previously weighed, on the coals to 

 the amount of '4 lb. to every 7.5 cubic 

 feet contained in the room ; when the 

 kettle is quickly pushed under the 

 pile of honey and the room closed, 

 you will have to be spry, or you will 

 get some of the fumes thereof your- 

 self, which IS not very pleasant, I as- 

 sure you. I now go and look in at the 



window, to which the few flies which 

 chance to be in the room will come, 

 lioping to escape their doom. As soon 

 as 1 see the last fiy is lifeless, I take 

 out my watch, and, after the lapse of 

 5 minutes, I open the windows so as to 

 carry out the smoke as soon as possi- 

 ble, "for if allowed to settle on the 

 combs it will turn them a greenish 

 color, which damages the sale of 

 honey very much. 



If more honey is brought into the 

 room this is aIs(S watched, and when 

 the marks of the worms are seen on 

 these the same operation is repeated 

 again, and so on till I am sure the 

 honey leaves my hands without dan- 

 ger of these pests making an appear- 

 ance after it has been placed upon the 

 market. After this is done, the next 

 tiling I do is to glass tlie sections, as 

 most of our Eastern markets still de- 

 mand their honey glassed. In order 

 to have my glass cut accurate the nar- 

 row way, t\'here it goes between the 

 projections on the sections, I buy the 

 glass cut in strips 6x30, and then 

 place these strips in a box similar to a 

 miter box, using the diamond to cut 

 the glass in a similar way to which a 

 saw is used in cutting lumber in such 

 a box. Thus I have each glass just 

 alike and exactly as I wish it. I once 

 bought a lot of glass cut 5x0, because 

 they told me at the factory that it 

 should be cut accurate the 5 way, 

 but upon getting it I found that accu- 

 rate meant all the way from AJi to 

 ■jig'. As it was getting late, I was 

 obliged to use it, but I had better have 

 thrown it entirely away, for in crowd- 

 ing the larger glass between the pro- 

 jections to the sections, the combs 

 were cracked loose from the sides of 

 the box, causing it to leak and mak- 

 ing it liable to break down in ship- 

 ping. Thus I learned a lesson, which, 

 though costly, has perhaps been a 

 benefit to me. Since tlien I have cut 

 my own glass the narrow way, and 

 have learned by experience that to be 

 just right the glass should be cut 1-32 

 of an inch narrower than the box, 

 thereby letting it go between the pro- 

 jections without crowding. After the 

 glass is cut, it is washed .so clean that 

 it fairly shines, when it is ready to be 

 placed on the honey, which is done by 

 bending up the tin points which were 

 previously driven into the end pieces 

 of the section at the time the sections 

 were made. After bending up the 

 tins, drop in the glass and bend them 

 back over the glass, when the work is 

 done. 



Now scrape every bit of propolis 

 and dirt off tlie outside of the box or 

 section, so it will be as clean and nice 

 as when first made, and it is readv to 

 be crated. This point of scraping off 

 the propolis is overlooked by some, 

 for I have seen sections sent to mar- 

 ket so daubed with propolis as to look 

 untidy and injure the sale of it. If 

 we w'ish to get a good price for our 

 product and increase the demand for 

 the same, all these little things should 

 be looked after, for they go toward 

 spoiling tlie sale of our crop, or en- 

 hancing the value thereof, as the case 

 may be. 



Either bofore the honey is glassed 

 or afterward (generally before), I 



grade it, making three grades of it. 

 In the first grade I place all which is 

 perfect or nearly so, and such as is 

 termed A No. 1. In the second grade 

 is placed all of my combs which have 

 been soiled by having a few cells of 

 brood or pollen in them, and also all 

 which are light in weight or are not 

 fully capped. In my third grade I put 

 all which is off-color, such as buck- 

 wheat, or a mixture of light and dark 

 honey together. The grading of all 

 kinds of products pays well and that 

 of honey especially. My next will be 

 crates, crating, and hauling to market 

 or the railroad. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



London Journal of Horticulture. 



CiiltiTation of Plants for Bees. 



FRANK R. CHESHIRE. 



That the place occupied in Nature 

 by bees in general, and the honey 

 bee in particular, is, as a rule, not 

 understood even by the bee-keeper 

 himself, is certain"; and he in conse- 

 quence is often led into expenditure 

 which he would not otherwise have 

 incurred, while he is not unfrequently 

 met by disappointment which a little 

 greater knovvedge would have pre- 

 vented. Let me in order to make this 

 clear explain that the business of the 

 bee as a honey and pollen gatherer, 

 although most interesting to us as 

 bee-keepers, because upon this our 

 profit rests, is after all but the least 

 part of the work which the insect ac- 

 complislies in the great and wonder- 

 ous scheme of Nature. The bloom 

 secretes honey, but not for itself ; it 

 is a gift to tlie honey gatherer — nay, 

 rather a payment, for the bee in its 

 visits to secure food for itself and 

 young unconsciously performs an act 

 which completes the object of the 

 flower's existence, and receives the 

 honey as a compensation for its 

 service. This subject is so full of 

 marvels and is so various in its de- 

 tails, that anything beyond an illus- 

 tration or two I cannot at the present 

 attempt. Speaking broadly then, 

 honey-bearing flowers liave anthers 

 which shed pollen, while at a certain 

 period a central organ or organs of 

 the bloom (stigma or stigmata) open 

 and wait for pollen being placed upon 

 their surfaces. When this occurs a 

 l)ollen tube, as it is termed, grows 

 down from the pollen granule to the 

 ovary and enters the ovule, which 

 henceforth passes into a new phase of 

 its existence as a fertilized develop- 

 ing seed. Without this placing of the 

 pollen granule upon the stigma the 

 bloom remains exiianded for an un- 

 usual time, but at length fades, leav- 

 ing no seed behind. The placing of 

 the pollen granule upon the stigma 

 can hardly be accomplished without 

 the intervention of insects, for almost 

 all blooms present some curious corre- 

 lation of parts which makes it diffi- 

 cult, or even imjiossible, for its seed 

 to be fertilized by pollen it has itself 

 produced. Cross-fertilization and not 

 in-breeding is the law for a reason 

 amazing by its beauty. This crossing 

 is secured by means which are legion, 



