1895. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



569 



Cai;)adiar) Beedon;^ 



Clippings Queens' Wings. 



Dr. Miller, on page 519, does not take the point made as 

 to lessening the wing-power of queens. There is a law in 

 Nature that ability is lost by disuse. It has an extreme illus- 

 tration in the eyeless fishes found in the Kentucky Mammoth 

 Cave. They once had eyes, but having no longer any use of 

 or for them, have lost the organs themselves. The point made 

 is that clipping deprives queens of the power of flight, and 

 that organs not used are likely to deteriorate. As to cutting 

 hair compelling the Doctor's posterity to wear wigs, there Is 

 no analogy between the two cases, because cutting hair has 

 the effect of making it grow faster and thicker, whereas clip- 

 ping a queen's wing stops all growth and use of the organs of 



flight. 



< > » 



" Ripeness and Over-Ripeness of Honey." 



An article with the above title appeared in the Rural 

 Canadian for August. The " ripeness" part of it is good, but 

 the " over-ripeness " is open to question. The writer, S. W. 

 Sears, tells us honey may get too ripe, and that it " should not 

 be allowed to remain one day after maturity is reached." 

 "Remain " presumably has reference to the hive. He says, 

 "the honey is ripe and it does not improve by standing." 

 There is no doubt a stage In its history when honey gets ripe, 

 but it is a mistake to suppose that after the point of ripeness 

 is reached honey suffers deterioration by remaining in the 

 hive. It will keep there all right for years and years. Old 

 bee-hunters, who have taken trees with large quantities of 

 honey in them, know very well that none of it is any too ripe. 

 0, what thick, luscious, delicious honey was taken from bee- 

 trees in old times ! How long it had been stored, who can 

 tell? I believe that honey, like wine, improves with age. If' 

 as this writer alleges, " it does not improve by standing," 

 most assuredly it does not deteriorate. 



It is too much to expect, as this article teaches, that a 

 bee-keeper should have such nicety of judgment, as to be able 

 to tell the exact day when honey ought to be removed from 

 the hive. We are told he is to do this by " intuition." " He 

 may not be able to tell why he gathers the honey to-day or to- 

 morrow, but he knows it is ready." There is no intuition 

 needed. When the honey is ripe, the bees seal it over. That 

 is their finishing touch which proclaims that it is ready for 

 market, or for use. While there is an excess of water in the 

 honey, the bees will not seal it over. They will leave it to 

 evaporate. This process of evaporation is the ripening proc- 

 ess. As it goes on, the honey gets thicker and heavier, until 

 it has reached the proper density. Then, as already remarked, 

 the bees certify to its ripeness by sealing it over. 



Some bee-keepers think they can ripen honey as well as 

 the bees, if not better. So they provide tanks where they 

 leave the honey to undergo the evaporating process. The 

 hive is the best place for this process. It is very doubtful if a 

 large body of honey in a tank will evaporate as perfectly as it 

 does by the cell-full. Neither is the changeable temperature 

 of the outside air as favorable for the ripening process as the 

 steady, warm temperature of the interior of the hive. 



There is a large proportion of unripe honey put on the 

 market, to the great injury of the business of bee-keeping. 

 This unripe honey is thin, watery, and liable to go sour. 

 It is supposed by a certain class of bee-keepers that they are 

 doing a cute thing to get the honey extracted before the bees 

 go to the trouble of sealing it over. This is the poorest policy 

 imaginable. It is an attempt to gain profit at the sacrifice of 



quality, whereas it should be the constant aim to get the high- 

 est quality, because that invariably commands the best price, 

 and gives the most satisfaction to customers. 



Figiiting Hybrids— Late Sivarming. 



I read some time ago of a^ bee-keeper who thought it a 

 disgrace to wear a veil while handling bees. Well, I think if 

 he had been in my place the other day, he would have been 

 very glad to have one. I have a colony of hybrids that have 

 always wanted to run things to suit themselves. They did not 

 swarm this summer, and there are bees enough in the hive to 

 make two or three average colonies. However, they had too 

 much drone-comb, so one morning I walked out, pants in 

 socks, smoker in hands, veil on face, and purpose in head. 



I puffed some smoke in at the entrance, and waited for 

 them to fill themselves with honey. It is generally believed 

 that bees are then much easier handled ; not so in this case, 

 however. I was surrounded by a swarm of the angriest bees 

 that ever took wing. I could smell formic acid in the air. I 

 placed a new hive, containing fi:ll sheets of worker-founda- 

 tion, on the stand, and proceeded to remove the frames from 

 the old hive, and shake the bees off in front of the new one. 

 Before they were down they were up and at me like a nest of 

 yellow-jackets, sticking to my veil, arms and legs like grim 

 death, some getting under my socks and stinging through my 

 pants ; others up under my coat, and two or three succeeded 

 in getting their business end against my face. This caused 

 me to beat a hasty retreat, leaving them in possession of the 

 field till I got the bees out of my bonnet. 



Returning to the combat, I managed to get the bees all 

 off the combs, and placing the old brood-chamber on top with 

 a queen-excluder between, I made for the bath, where I gave 

 myself a good washing with salt water. I can recommend 

 this to anyone who has been badly stung about the body and 

 limbs, as I felt none the worse for it, and must have been 

 stung more than twenty times. 



A SWARM THAT ISSUBD AUG. ] 8. 



I had a swarm issue to-day — Aug. 18. They came out 

 about noon and clustered on a tree, so I hived them on drawn 

 combs in a new hive. The hive they came from was an 8- 

 frame one with two supers on it. The supers were full of 

 buckwheat honey, not much of it sealed. The bees were Ital- 

 ians, and a very strong colony. Can anyone tell what caused 

 them to swarm so late in the season ? The same colony cast 

 a fine swarm June 1. Geo. McCulloch. 



Harwood, Ont. 



Quc$tiot;)S ^ /V^swer5^ 



CONDUCTED BY 



T>Tt. O. O. aOltER, ALAILBISIGO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.] 



Starters in Wired. Frames. 



When only starters are used, will the bees build over them 

 straight combs ? Subscriber. 



Answer. — You can't depend on good work with wires and 

 no foundation except a starter. 



Transferring — Ants and Bees —Dividing Colonies, Etc. 



1. I have 13 colonies in box-hives, which I wish to trans- 

 fer into new hives. When is the proper time to transfer 

 them ? and what is the best method ? 



2. Do hives need ventilation ? If so, how should it be 

 done? 



3. What is the best method of rendering wax ? 



