GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



much good weather for apple-bloom, sumac, 

 locust, etc. I have come to the conclusion 

 that soil has much to do with it, and venture 

 to guess that Mr. Latham lives in a section 

 where the soil is light, or, at least, with but 

 little clay. In such sections, as far as my 

 observation goes, clover yields honey very 

 grudgingly. Exactly the reverse seems to be 

 true with buckwheat. It yields freely on 

 light soils, while on clay it is, as a rule, al- 

 most worthless for honey, The honey busi- 

 ness here in Vermont is mostly located in 

 the Champiain Valley, within ten to fifteen 

 miles of the lake, where the soil is largely 

 clay. As soon as you leave this section the 

 soil is lighter, and very few bee-keepers seem 

 to prosper unless in sections where raspber- 

 ries abound. 







IllllillsSStt*! 



jectionable taste of honey. In these cases, 

 however, milder honeys than buckwheat 

 honey were used in the making. 

 .^ 



ARTIFICIAL RIPENING (?) OF HONEY. 



Don't do the work the bees can better do 

 for you. One of these is that of ripening 

 honey. Very little, if any thing, is gained 

 by ripening it artificially. It requires an ex- 

 tra outlay for suitable equipment, as a first 

 reason, and the product does not compare 

 with the delicious, well-flavored product 

 ripened on the hive by the agency of the bees 

 themselves, and savox'ing of a fragrant ai'oma 

 that is entii'ely lost in the ai'tificially ripened 

 stuff Besides, the well-ripened honey from 

 the hives is the best advertisement for the 

 producer, and brings fi'om one to two cents 

 a pound more than the regular market price. 

 A much wiser plan is to put the extra outlay 

 in more comb-supers, enough to hold the en- 

 tire crop on the hives long enough to become 

 well ripened. Pity the bee-keeper who has 

 only one or two supers to a colony, necessi- 

 tating extracting the honey from them every 

 few weeks during the honey season to make 

 room, and then "ripening" the honey in 

 tanks. 



A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS YEAR. 



1907. What will you do to improve bee- 

 keeping during this, another year? 

 <^ 



No, Dr. Miller, there was no " queen of the 

 convention " at San Antonio, perhaps because 

 it could not be agreed upon as to the meth- 

 od to employ for testing the sweetness of all 

 the 16"s and 20's. Both "the saccharometer 

 or the natural labial process ' ' had their ob- 

 jections. 



j& 



No use sealing bodies of empty combs with- 

 out treating them frequently by fumigation 

 to destroy the young larva? hatching from 

 the eggs of the wax-moth already laid on the 

 combs before they have been put away. This 

 accounts for combs being destroyed, many 

 times, by the wax-moth larva), even when 

 they were securely sealed away. 



^^ 



Moth-balls to protect combs against the 

 ravages of wax-worms were recommended 

 at the San Antonio meeting. Enough of these 

 for one hundred bodies of combs can be ob- 

 tained from any druggist for 15 cents. Sim- 

 ply stack the bodies with the combs up, 

 putting some of the moth-balls into the bod- 

 ies as they are stacked, and closing each 

 stack with a lid on top. 



Perhaps the honey vinegar with the un- 

 pleasant odor and taste to which Mr. Alex- 

 ander objects was made from buckwheat 

 honey. It is rather dark, and strong in fla- 

 vor and odor, hence this may have something 

 to do with it. All the honey vinegar I have 

 tasted, of my own as well as others, was 

 good, clear, and sharp, and without any ob- 



CAKES OF CANDY FOR WINTER. 



For winter feeding, nothing is better than 

 cakes of candy made of pure granulated su- 

 gar, and laid over two small sticks on top of 

 the frames directly over and in reach of the 

 cluster, and covering the whole with some 

 kind of mat for warmth. So, make the cakes 

 4 pounds of sugar to a gallon of water. This 

 should be boiled carefully until the syrup 

 solidifies quickly, when a little of it is drop- 

 ped into cold water. The syrup is then pour- 

 ed into shallow greased pans and molded 

 into cakes about 2^ inches thick. If these 

 pans are large, the cakes can be broken into 

 pieces of about 150 cubic inches; or cakes 2^ 

 inches thick and 6 inches wide by 10 inch- 

 es long, will weigh about 6 pounds — just 

 right for the purpose. I have used common 

 pasteboard boxes of these dimensions, which 

 can usually be obtained f ree of chai'ge at dry- 

 goods stores; lined them with a sheet of par- 

 affine or butter paper, and poured the syrup 

 into them. After hardening, the paper is 

 easily peeled off the cakes. The boxes can 

 be used several times, simply laying over 

 each a new sheet of paper and roughly press- 

 ing it down with the fingers. 



TO ALLEVIATE THE PAIN OF STINGS. 



All kinds of questions are sometimes asked 

 me about what to do in case of stings from 

 bees and other insects. The first thing / do 

 is to suck the wound well to remove as much 

 of the poison as possible. This, with me, is 

 generally all that is necessai'y. To keep the 

 place well covered with saliva for some time 

 seems to give relief. This has a soothing ef- 

 fect. Honey spread over the sore place has 

 a similar effect, and is one of the most ready 

 applications, as it can generally always be 

 easily gotten, especially when working with 



