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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



swarming V If not, how does it pre- 

 vent it V I clip tiie wings of my 

 queens, and believe it to be an ad- 

 vantage, but do not know how it could 

 prevent the swarming fever. 



James Ileddon : Bees are jealous 

 of their queen, and do not like one 

 that has her wings mutilated. 



O. O. Poppleton : I have clipped 

 tlie wings of a part of my queens, and 

 can see no difference between them 

 and those not liaving clipped wings. 

 I shall clip one wing of tliemall, here- 

 after. The past season has been the 

 greatest swarming season I have ever 

 known. 



Dr. Stevenson : I had 56 colonies 

 in the spring, and liave had 20 natural 

 swarms. I follow the plan suggested 

 by Mr. G. M. Doolittle, to prevent 

 swiirms, and I had no swarm issue 

 until about July 10. One colony gave 

 me b50 lbs. of nice comb honey. I 

 now have 81 colonies. 



President Miller : What is best for 

 some persons, is not always the best 

 for me. If I have all the bees I need 

 I do not want increase, and am intent 

 upon knowing how to prevent swarm- 

 ing. The bees acted differently this 

 year than ever before. Swarm they 

 would, despite all my efforts to the 

 contrary — and swarmed even in the 

 fall, a thing rarely known before. 



James Ileddon : Bees do not swarm 

 when honey is coming in with a rush ; 

 let basswood yield honey profusely, 

 and tlie bees find something else to do 

 than to swarm. 



Mrs. Harrison : Wlien you can pre- 

 vent bees from swarming, you may, 

 perhaps, also find out how to prevent 

 the human family from increasing. It 

 is Nature's plan for perpetuating the 

 race. 



James Ileddon : Yes ; it is Nature's 

 instinct for increase, and it cannot be 

 prevented. It may be controlled 

 some, or v)artially averted, but cannot 

 be prevented. 



Rev. D. Whitmer had found it im- 

 possible to control swarming, and will 

 hereafter let them have tlieir own 

 way, and act out their natural instinct. 



Peter Dahl : I let my bees swarm 

 naturally until July 1, and then, as I 

 have all the bees 1 need, I catch the 

 queen, cage lier, cut out the queen- 

 cells, and return the swarm. 



James Heddon did not believe in 

 cutting out all the queen-cells but one 

 and then expect that to give the 

 future queen, with the best results. 

 We could not be expected to select 

 the best, when Nature had so arranged 

 it, that the bees had 1.5 or more, queen 

 cells to select from, in obtaining the 

 future queen for the colony. We can 

 control Nature in many things, and it 

 will not always do to fold our arms 

 and say, "Let Nature follow out its 

 instincts." When we can improve 

 on instinct, we should do it, as we do 

 in dogs, cattle, chickens, hogs, etc., 

 but we must also be careful not to 

 change from Nature's instinct, the 

 wrong way. 



Feeding Bees. 



QUESTIOK : " Does it pay to feed 

 bees to keep them from starving ¥" 



E. J. Oatman : Certainly ; it will 

 pay as well as to buy hay for our cat- 



tle in winter. I have tried it. Hav- 

 ing had a poor lioney yield one season 

 we fed largely to save our bees from 

 starving, and the next season we ob- 

 tained at least 19,000 lbs. of comb 

 lioney which we should not have had, 

 if we had permitted the bees to die, 

 by neglecting to feed them. It is 

 safer to feed sugar syrup than honey. 

 The best way to prepare the sugar 

 syrup is to procure extra confectioners' 

 d sugar (it is just as good as A sugar 

 for feeding bees) and make a syrnp by 

 mixing 5 quarts of water to 20 lbs. of 

 sugar. We feed about the middle of 

 September. If for later feeding, the 

 syrup should bealittle thicker— using 

 more sugar. 



James Heddon : As glucose is now 

 being crystalized, we must look out 

 for adulteration in granulated sugar, 

 like all other brands. 



L. H. Scudder : What temperature 

 is required when making the feed 'f 



E. J. Oatman : We simply stir the 

 sugar well, to mix it with "the cold 

 water. We do not heat it at all. 



James Heddon had excellent results 

 from feeding for winter stores. 



J. M. Valentine : As the honey 

 crop, two years ago, was a total fail- 

 ure, I made sugar syrup, two meas- 

 ures of sugar to one of water, and 

 gave 20 lbs. of this to each of my colo- 

 nies of bees, and I lost only 1 colony 

 out of 65. All of the hives contained 

 more or less honey besides the feed I 

 gave them. 



James Marvin prefers honey to 

 sugar for feeding bees, even at the 

 same cost. He knew of instances 

 where colonies had been fed 25 lbs. of 

 sugar syrup and then had starved. If 

 they had that much of good capped 

 honey they would not have starved. 



Adjourned to 8 a. m. 



MORNING SESSION. 



The Convention met at 8 a. m. ac- 

 cording to adjournment. President 

 Miller in the chair, who announced 

 that the first question to be discussed 

 was : " How to prevent the queens 

 from going up into the surplus de- 

 partment and depositing eggs there ?" 



J. E. Hunter said that he had ex- 

 perienced difficulty in trying to pre- 

 vent the queens from occupying the 

 upper story of the hive with eggs. 



O. O. Poppleton had no trouble in 

 tliat line. He used the long-idea hive, 

 containg 25 frames and no upper story. 

 He had only one " double-decker '' in 

 his apiarv of 150 colonies. 



James Heddon did not like the long- 

 idea hive. It was natural for the bees 

 to store honey above the brood-cham- 

 ber. That hive should be called, 

 the " wrong-idea " hive. 



L. C. Wemple brought a large sprig 

 of tigwort, which he had plucked on 

 his way to the Convention, and placed 

 it on the table for inspection. It had 

 a host of bulbs with seeds, ready for 

 harvesting. 



J. E. Hunter: I extract only ripe 

 capped honey, in order to get the very 

 best article for placing on the market. 



O. O. Poppleton : Deep frames are 

 the best for the long-idea hives. 



James Heddon : I often extract 

 from combs having brood in them but 

 prefer those without it. If the brood 



is uncapped the extractor gearing- 

 should be turned slower ; there is no 

 excuse for throwing out any larvise, if 

 care is taken in running the extractor. 

 When the lioney season is long drawn 

 out, swarming is very much increased. 



Comb vs. Extracted Honey. 



Pres. Miller : One objection to the- 

 business of producing comb honey is 

 the fact that, at the close of the sea- 

 son, there are so many sections only 

 partly tilled, and unmarketable. These 

 must be extracted or the bees must 

 take it out and deposit it below. I 

 think it may be advisable to work for 

 comb honey until clover bloom, and 

 then for extracted, until the close of 

 the season. 



J. E. Hunter: As I keep all my 

 honey separate, I extract the honey 

 from" the partly-filled sections at the 

 close of clover bloom, and let the bee& 

 fill them with heartsease honey— my 

 next crop. 



O. O. Poppleton : I produce a little 

 comb honey, as a fancy article, for my 

 use, but I would only"liave it gathered 

 before close of clover bloom. 



V. M. Keenev : Will evaporating 

 the honey in the sun, take away its 

 flavor 'i* 



Geo. Thompson thought not. The 

 flavor is all given to it before it is. 

 sealed over. 



J. Heddon : It is almost impossible 

 to retain the flavor of extracted 

 honey after it leaves the comb— and 

 that IS the reason why nearly all pre- 

 fer the comb to the extracted honey. 

 They may say what they like; judge 

 them by their acts, and, you will see 

 that while they like extracted honey 

 just as well as they do that in the 

 comb— If you place both kinds before- 

 them, they take the comb, 9 times out 

 of 10. It will candy quickerafter it is. 

 taken out of the comb. 



O. O. Poppleton : We can ripen the 

 honey after extracting it, by placing 

 it in open vessels and let the evapora- 

 tion take place. Much of the honey 

 that is marketed is not properly 

 ripened, and if bottled up at once will 

 often break the jars. 



Thomas G. Newman said he once 

 had a barrel of honey from Wiscon- 

 sin that fermented and blew out the- 

 bung and wasted more than one-half 

 of it. We could not be too careful in 

 ripening honey, either by letting the 

 bees do it before capping it, or let it. 

 ripen by beingexposed to the air after- 

 wards, before barreling. 



M. M. Baldridge : I want the honey 

 all sealed over before it is extracted. 

 Then it will be safe to market it. 



J. E. Hunter : I have kept honey in 

 pails, bad it candy, and warmed it to- 

 liquefy it, and find that the flavor was 

 often improved by the warming. Care 

 must be taken not to have it too warm, 

 or the flavor might be gone. There is. 

 no tear of ever overstocking the mar- 

 ket with a good ripe article of ex- 

 tracted lioney. 



Ho-w to get the Bees off the Sections. 



Pres. Miller had been troubled very 

 much to do it, and if any one had a. 

 better plan than he had, he would be 

 glad to learn how to do it. 



