384 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



colony in the spring is easily accomplished 

 by adding- a second brood-body, supplied 

 with worker brood-combs, as an upper story 

 to the body in which the colony has winter- 

 ed, as soon in the spring- as it is found to be 

 full of bees, and when the weather condi- 

 tions are favorable and settled. If the 

 brood-combs in the added body contain some 

 honey it will speedily disappear as food for 

 the rearing of bees ; but if the colony is other- 

 wise well provided with honey, no stimula- 

 tive feeding is necessary. A colony that 

 has wintered well, if treated in this manner, 

 will attain to sufficient strength, and con- 

 tain an abundance of bees of the right age 

 for the white-clover harvest when it is ready, 

 without feeding, except to provide the nec- 

 essary food to keep brood-rearing in prog- 

 ress without interruption. No queen-ex- 

 cluder being used, the bees will readily go 

 up and occupy this added section of the 

 brood-chamber, and in a comparatively 

 short time the double hive will be literally 

 full of bees and brood from top to bottom, 

 except the CDmb-space occupied by the re- 

 serve supply of honey for food, of which 

 there should be at least a few pounds, even 

 at the time for commencement of the honej'- 

 flow, to provide against periods of unfavor- 

 able weather or a failure of the flowers to 

 secrete nectar. This reserve supply of food 

 is very important, and it should never be 

 allowed to become exhausted. On rare oc- 

 casions, when there is an entire failure of 

 the flowers, from which a crop of honey is 

 expected, to secrete nectar, the life of the 

 colony depends on it. Happily, seasons of 

 entire failure from all sources are rare. 



If the bees have wintered satisfactorily, 

 and have met with no unusual setback dur- 

 ing the spring, they will have multiplied, 

 prior to the commencement of the white-clo- 

 ver honej'-flow, far beyond that which 

 would have been possible in the ordinary 

 hive with single-story brood-chamber. We 

 now have a hive of bees bred up to great 

 strength. "The laborers are many; and if 

 the harvest truly is plenteous," with the 

 proper management of the colony, in its 

 preparation and maintenance for comb-hon- 

 ey production, if the season is at all favor- 

 able, we shall reap an abundance. If, on 

 the other hand, the season is unfavorable, 

 we are in position to obtain all that it is 

 possible for a colony, in the best possible 

 condition, to glean. 



Continued. 



AIKIN'S CANDIED HONEY. 



The Name Bologna Sausage Objected to; Can" 

 died Honey well Received at Roseville; Gran- 

 ulated Alfalfa well Liked. 



BY MRS. L. C. AXTELL. 



I have just finished reading Mr. Aikin's 

 article on candied honey, and your and Dr. 

 Miller's reply, and I must say I am great- 

 ly pleased. I was pleased that you could 

 indorse what Mr. Aiken has said, for we 



must have a convenient style to sell our can- 

 died honey in or we can not sell it at all ex- 

 cept in a small way. But let us start it out 

 with a better name than ' ' bologna sausage ' ' 

 honey. That name will imply to many 

 minds something made up — a manufactured 

 honey, just as if we would call oleomarga- 

 rine " oleo butter;" and our greatest draw- 

 back in selling honey is the prejudice 

 against manufactured honey — that is, hon- 

 ey out of the comb. 



Even in this neighborhood, where we have 

 been dealing in honey for nearly a genera- 

 tion, they don't learn to look upon honey 

 that is out of the comb without some suspi- 

 cions that it is manufactured. If we call 

 it extracted, they or some people want to 

 know what extract is used. Only a few 

 days ago an old grocer, and a good man 

 too, who has handled comb honey for us for 

 15 years or more, remarked he liked bees' 

 honey better than that stuft", when we were 

 showing him some beautiful white candied 

 alfalfa honej' from Utah. 



I find that, by simplj' calling it, when 

 describing it, "honey out of the comb," 

 they understand it better than extracted. 

 They even understand better when we call 

 it " strained honey " than extracted. I am 

 pleased that some one has marked out a 

 plan that is more satisfactory for handling 

 honey than by putting it in glass jars. 

 Last winter we bought some paper oyster- 

 boxes, and put some of the honey we had 

 for sale into them; but they were not label- 

 ed on the outside; and they being bought at 

 a market here cost much more than paper 

 bags would, and late in spring ihey got so 

 sticky that in emptying them they had to 

 be scraped out as if lard had been in thrm. 

 I think our eastern honey would melt so 

 that it could not be peeled ofi" when warm 

 weather approaches. 



We bought several cans of alfalfa honey 

 from Utah, shipped in by Editor York, all 

 of which was granulated; but some cans 

 were harder than others. One can especial- 

 ly was exceedingly hard. None of it gets 

 hard like cr3'stallized sugar, but more like 

 frozen butter. 



We like to have it warmed a little, and 

 stirred up just enough so we can spread it 

 upon bread. Some of our neighbors said 

 they liked it candied because it was so nice 

 to spread upon the children's bread to car- 

 ry to school. 



Our own honey crop of 1902 was only 

 about 10 lbs. of comb honey and about 10 of 

 extracted, from about 48 colonies. The ex- 

 tracted did not candy — the first we ever took 

 that remained liquid that I remember. I 

 guess the reason was, most of it was not 

 sealed over, and if it had been left a short 

 time longer on the hives it would have been 

 carried down into the brood-nest. 



Some did not like the alfalfa honey, and 

 wanted something stronger; so by melting 

 some of the alfalfa, and mixing with ours 

 about one-third alfalfa it granulated soon 

 and gave better satisfaction than if it had 

 been all of our own. 



