19(\- 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



385 



Mr. Axtell and I are exceedingly fond of 

 1he granulated alfalfa, and never ate so 

 much honey in our lives as since we bought 

 granulated alfalfa honey. We had one can. 

 We bought it in the winter. We had not 

 sold out, and in the fall we opened it and 

 found it still g-ranulated hard. After being 

 kept all summer in our honej'-house I could 

 not see but it was just as nice as when we 

 bought it in the fall. 



We took a can of the honey to a grocer to 

 sell; but as it comes out so hard, and after 

 standing for a time looks so daub3\ it does 

 not sell readily. I am sure it needs to be 

 weighed out in convenient packages for them 

 to handle. 



Candied honey sells with us more readily 

 ihan the liquid honey, and no one objects 

 to pa3'ing 15 cts. for it when comb honey 

 brings 20, or 12 '^ cts. when comb is 15. 



I am satisfied one could sell a great quan- 

 tity if weighed out into small and large 

 packages, and would take it regularly over 

 the country and through villages, not trj'- 

 ing to sell too much at a time, as too large 

 -in amount gets dauby before they use it up. 

 We offer it by the $1.00 worth first; and if 

 the}' hesitate to take so much, then ofl^er 

 less, but keep it at same price so that poor 

 people can have the same chance that their 

 more wealthy neighbors have of eating hon- 

 ey. 



Roseville, 111., Mar. 9. 



[The word "bologna sausage" was in- 

 troduced only as a pleasantry. It would 

 be unfortunate to have the word attached 

 to this unique package of honey, and, so 

 far as the columns of Gleanings are con- 

 cerned, we will see that the designation is 

 suppressed — not because it is vulgar or un- 

 clean, but because honej^ is supposed to be 

 a very diff"erent article from that which 

 bears the name "bologna." — Ed.] 



Our May Symposium. 



FULL SHEETS VS. STARTERS IN THE BROOD- 

 NEST. 



[!ow and Why Starters Can be Used to Advantage ; 



Conditions under which Bees will Build Drone 



and Worker Comb ; Feeding Outdoors ; 



Can it be Practiced Safely ? 



BY M. A. GILL. 



Mr. W. K. Morrison's strong stand against 

 starters in place of full sheets of foundation 

 or drawn combs for the brood-nest plainly 

 shows again that difi^erent localities need 

 different methods, as none of us would dare 

 to criticise Mr. Morrison's judgment in the 

 different fields where he has practiced. 

 But after using starters onlj' for years I 

 can not but think that their use is the prop- 

 er thing here in Colorado, when working 

 for comb honey exclusivelj'. It is a fact 

 patent to all, I think, that a colony that is 

 building a set of combs in the brood-nest. 



and that has at the same time ample stor- 

 age room in the super, has all desire to 

 swarm removed, and the necessity for rap- 

 id comb-building for storage purposes re- 

 moved, and thiit the desire for workers in 

 such a colony is paramount. Hence nearly 

 all the comb that is built by the bees, and 

 immediately occunied by the queen, is built 

 worker size, whether the queen be one month 

 old or three j'ears old. 



But to secure these conditions, everything 

 must be normal. The colon3^ must have 

 a laying queen and an ample field force at 

 the time they are hived, whether the swarm 

 is forced or natural. Again, it is necessa- 

 rj' to have a steady flow of honey; but these 

 conditions nearly always prevail at such 

 times in Colorado. 



Any condition that will retard rapid 

 comb-building like an old queen with a 

 good force of young bees and a small field 

 force, or a colony that has been given a 

 frame or two of brood to help them, and has 

 a small field force, or a colonjs let it be 

 large or small, that is compelled to raise a 

 queen, will invariably construct much drone 

 comb. 



But I think it is still safe and advisable, 

 here in Colorado, where our swarming sea- 

 son does not stammer along through the 

 year as in oriental countries, but is nearly 

 all done in twent3' daj's after the honey- flow 

 begins, to continue the use of starters only 

 in the brood-nest; and our reward will be 

 a good crop of the most beautiful surplus 

 honej' that can be raised, and brood-cham- 

 bers filled, with none too much drone comb, 

 as hundreds of my own and others' hives 

 will attest. 



In your April 1st issue 3'ou say to a cor- 

 respondent that it is not safe to feed good 

 heavy syrup to bees in the open air. I wish 

 to relate a little experience I had with open- 

 air feeding last fall. I had sixty forced 

 swarms that I moved to a comparatively iso- 

 lated location, and on examination, about 

 Sept. 20, I found them short of stores. As 

 \'ou know, my covers will hold liquid like a 

 tin pan. I inverted them on the hives, and 

 used them as feeders, first filling them with 

 excelsior, then pouring the syrup right into 

 the excelsior. I made the syrup by taking 

 75 lbs. of water to 100 lbs. of sugar, and 

 letting it just come to a boil. This would, 

 perhaps, leave about 165 lbs. of syrup to 

 100 lbs. of sugar used. I fed them this 

 amount at a feed by pouring, say, 8 lbs. 

 each in 20 covers scattered about the apia- 

 ry. The feeding was done from 2 p. m. to 

 3, and all entrances were left full size. 



I continued this three times each week, 

 until I had fed this apiary' about 1600 lbs. 

 of syrup, realizing that much would be 

 consumed in brood-rearing on account of 

 the continued feeding. When I quilted 

 them for winter, Nov. 1, I found them in 

 prime condition ; and on April 1, 1903, I 

 found them still in prime condition, and all 

 alive, 59 of them with queens laying. The 

 feed cost about 75 cts. per colony. I fed all 

 together to my bees over forty 100-lb. sacks 



