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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The Honey Yield, and Taxing Bees 

 in California.— The Semi-Tropic Uali- 

 fornid for August contains the follow- 

 ing items : 



The honey yield this season through- 

 out California will be tar from en- 

 couraging to our bee-men. These oil 

 years that are so frequent might be 

 largely averted by turning more at- 

 tention to growing certain trees and 

 plants for bee forage. 



The Supervisors sitting as a Board 

 of Equalization for the County of 

 Los Angeles, refused to lower the 

 valuation as made by the County As- 

 sessor on tlie bees of the county, 

 though some of the owners of bees in 

 the county offer to sell all the bees 

 they have at one-half the assessed 

 value for this year. They are assessed 

 at $3 per hive. 



Adulteration. — The Bee-Keepers' Ex- 

 change^ for August, has a very strong 

 article on the above subject, from the 

 pen of J. K. Douglass, Neosho, Wis. 

 It is certainly worthy of note that bee* 

 keepers, especially, are unanimous in 

 their condemnation of the frauds 

 which prevail to so great an extent in 

 adulterating honey, as well as other 

 articles of food. We give the last 

 paragraph of the article alluded to, 

 which is as follows : 



On page 308 of Gleanings for 1SS2, 

 the editor expresses a hope that the 

 price of honey will be so low tliis sea- 

 son that more than usual will be con- 

 sumed, and on page 296 he tells of one 

 way to cheapen its production. I will 

 quote the suggestion for the benefit of 

 those who may not have seen it : 

 •'Pretty soon, and the wax of the 

 world will be gone. What shall we doV 

 I will tell vou if you won't be scared. 

 Por brood' combs use wires and go 

 back to our old paraffine experiments 

 of years ago. Had we only put wires 

 into the frames as we do now, we should 

 liiive succeeded without trouble. 

 Por comb honey we can use a mixture 

 of w:ix and p:\raffine lliatthebees will 

 work out much faster than pure wax ; 

 and for our small 4i sections, I think 

 we can manage so tliat sagging will do 

 no harm." So it seems that the hon- 

 est producer of comb honey may have 

 to compete with adulteration and 

 fra'ud ; for, of course, no honest man 

 would think of selling comb honey 

 built on adulterated foundation, for 

 pure goods and any attempt to sell it 

 for anything else would only result in 

 failure. When I read the above ex- 

 tract I never thought of being scared, 

 but I made up my mind that consider- 

 ing the frequent exhortations to hon- 

 esty indulged in by it, that consistency 



is not one of the jewels that adorns 

 that much mentioned type writer. 

 Any one who will adulterate food is 

 both to be feared and despised — feared 

 for the consequence of his nefarious 

 practices and despised for harboring 

 the motives that prompt their com- 

 mission. It is possible that my views 

 on the subject of adulteration are too 

 radical for this progressive age, but I 

 think one who adulterates food pro- 

 ducts, merits a much greater punish- 

 ment than does the uttererof counter- 

 feit money, as the value of health is 

 greater than riches. 



Syrian Bees. — Mr. E. R. Root, in 

 the Cnnadian Farmer, sums up the 

 character of the Syrian or Holy Land 

 bees as follows : 



In summing up a few of the good 

 features of the Holy Lands, we liiid, 

 from the above facts, tirst, they raise 

 a great abundance of cells at one rear- 

 ing; secondly, the cells are started so 

 that they hatch at or nearly the one 

 time ; lastly, if the cells are not too 

 much disturbed, the queen will hatch 

 out strong and healthy. 



Now, a word in regard to the Holy- 

 Lands as honey gatherers : My ex- 

 perience has led me to think they are 

 equally as good as the Italians, and 

 some say a little superior. Being orig- 

 inally reared in a hot, dry country, 

 they have necessarily been obliged to 

 gather honey at every opportunity 

 available, or the race could never have 

 existed. In this country, they of 

 course manifest the same energetic 

 disposition ; and hence, as far as my 

 observation goes, gather some honey 

 after the basswood flows, even when 

 the other bees are apparently inactive. 



After what has been said I would 

 not have it understood that I have any 

 the less regard for the Italians than 

 before ; but. on the contrary , all things 

 considered, I think they possess many 

 qualities far superior to other races of 

 iiees, and will probably always retain 

 the front rank. 



My object in writing this is not to 

 give the Holy Lands undue praise, to 

 the exclusion of the Italians, but to 

 bring forth a few of the good qualities 

 whicii are justly their due. I do not 

 deny that the Holy Lands have a few 

 bad features ; but these, I think, have 

 been fully discussed before. 



Handling Bees.— The Indiana Far- 

 mer gives the following on handling 

 bees : 



Many people are deterred from the 

 keeping of bees by the dread of being 

 stung, and many who have bees run 

 them on the let-alone plan, simply be- 

 cause they do not understand the tirst 

 principles by which they are governed. 

 Only a few days since, a gentleman 

 visited our yard, who owns a good 

 many colonies, looking for, as he ex- 

 pressed it, some plan for their man- 

 agement with the least possible chance 

 of coming in contact with their "busi- 

 ness end." His dread of being stung 

 was so great that we could hardly in- 

 duce him to come within ten feet of a 

 colony. After we had removed the 



cloth, lifted out and replaced the 

 frames in several without any signs of 

 being stung, he began to think it was 

 not such a terrible feat after all. 

 Gentleness is the lirst and most im- 

 portant feature, as regards handling 

 them. Quick, active motions and 

 sudden jars will anger tlieiu very much 

 at aluiost any time. We many times 

 work in the yard all day long without 

 having to resort to smoke to quiet 

 them, still we would not recommend 

 this plan to amateurs, as it requires 

 considerable familiarity with their 

 "business end" to be able to stand 

 without flinching, when by accident of 

 some kind, some half dozen resent 

 your interference. It is not much 

 trouble to start the smoker so as to 

 have it handy in emergencies of this 

 kind. In opening hives, avoid all sud- 

 den jars, remove the cloth by turning 

 it back, commencing at one corner or 

 end. If the bees show anger, blow a 

 little smoke on them to drive them 

 down out of the way, and you will soon 

 become so familiar with their tem- 

 perament as to know just how much 

 they will need of this kind of treat- 

 ment. 



The Length of Life of Worker Bees.— 



A correspondent in an exchange gives 

 the following on this subject : 



I thought I would satisfy myself in 

 regard to the life of the bee in the 

 height of the working season. I had 

 a. colony of the little black bees, and 

 on the morning of May :!d I killed the 

 queen, and by carefully looking 

 through their hive I found one black 

 drone and destroyed that in the even- 

 ing of the same day. I put in a cell 

 for a yellow queen on the 2d of June. 

 She was hatched out and there were a 

 few yellow bees in the hive on the 

 30th, just 21 days from the time the 

 eggs were deposited. On the 7th of 

 July a few yellow bees were to be 

 seen playing around the hive, and on 

 the 18th of July, just 14 days from the 

 time the yellow bees were hatched 

 out, a few were seen at work with 

 the black bees. Now any one can see 

 that if the yellow bees hatched in 21 

 days the last black bees, were all 

 out by the 30th of June, and if the 

 yellow bees went to work on the 12th 

 of July, the last of the black bees 

 must have gone to work on the 4th of 

 July, making 14 days from the time 

 they were hatched, unless one will go 

 to work sooner than the other. This 

 colony contained nothing but black 

 bees, when the black queen was des- 

 troyed ; on the 18th of July just 49 

 days from the time the black queen 

 wa"s destroyed, there was not a black 

 bee to be seen about the hive. I 

 opened it, and not one was to be seen 

 inside. I know that the bees will live 

 longer at other seasons of the year, 

 and I thought this would be a good 

 chance to test in the height of the 

 working season. The hive was ex- 

 amined every day during the whole 

 time, so that no mistake might be 

 made. From the above it will be seen 

 that the lifetime of a honey bee, in 

 the busiest working season, is but 

 four weeks or 28 days. 



