232 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 15 



honey is put up, is in favor of a bottom 

 starter. The expert bee-keeper can doubt- 

 less get along without them; but we are of 

 the opinion that the majority of them will 

 find it an advantage, nevertheless, to use 

 them. — Ed.] 



Why is it that it's so much easier to unite 

 bees in spring than in fall ? Hundreds of 

 times in spring I have put a frame of brood 

 with adhering bees in a strange colony, and 

 I remember no case of fighting. But 1 have 

 seen more than one case of fighting when 

 uniting in fall. May it not be that the ex- 

 planation lies in the fact that the quantity of 

 bees given was small in proportion to the 

 size of the colony helped ? Possibly if two 

 colonies of equal size were united in the 

 spring there would be fighting; and possibly 

 if a combful or two of bees were added at a 

 time at intervals of a day or two thei'e would 

 be no fighting in the fall. [What you say is 

 probably true. May it not also be true that 

 bees in the spring, just out of their winter 

 quarters, are more ready to adapt themselves 

 to unusual conditions because of the fact 

 that they are I'eady to start anew, and the 

 watchword is any thing and every thing to 

 get ready for the harvest ? Bees just remov- 

 ed from the cellar can be united and placed 

 almost anywhere; but after they have been 

 out for a time, and have marked their lo- 

 cations, the individuality of the colony be- 

 comes manifest, and then it is that the collec- 

 tive mass of the bees will refuse to accept 

 new conditions. — Ed.] 



Excluders are counted by some a neces- 

 sity in keeping the queen out of section-su- 

 pers, while perhaps the majority find them 

 unnecessary. The secret of success in the 

 case is to have the sections entirely filled 

 with worker foundation. When only par- 

 tially filled, the bees are sure to build no lit- 

 tle drone comb, and the queen is just about- 

 as sure to go up and lay in it if she can, es- 

 pecially if drone comb is scarce in the brood- 

 chamber. I wonder if there may not be 

 some secret that may do away with the 

 necessity for excluders in working for ex- 

 tracted honey. 



Only lately it has come out that the Da- 

 dan ts never use excluders under extracting- 

 supers, and now comes E. D. Townsend as 

 an anti-excluder extractor. He adds upper 

 stories on to2), uses no excluders, and does 

 not extract until the close of the harvest. 

 In his San Antonio paper he says, "By plac- 

 ing the upper stories always on top, without 

 extracting, we have been able to keep down 

 swarming, and have an extracting apart- 

 ment practically free from brood at extract- 

 ing time. We have used queen-excluders 

 extensively for several years, and find that 

 about every third year we have excessive 

 swarming when excluders are used; and as 

 we get practically the same results without 

 them, with the above management we are 

 discontinuing their use." 



It is well known that the Dadants are re- 

 markably free from swarming. Aside from 

 their big hives, may not one secret of it be 



the absence of excluders? [This is an inter- 

 esting question, and we should be glad to 

 hear from our readers. — Ed.] 



CALIFORNIA. HONEY PROSPECTS FOR NEXT 

 SEASON. 



We have received advice from California 

 that 20 inches of rain has fallen in the south- 

 ern part of the State. It is reported that the 

 ground is thoroughly soaked, and that there 

 is prospect for more rain. Unless our bee- 

 keepers in Southern California have another 

 cold season this summer this large amount of 

 rain means a honey crop. There were heavy 

 rains a year ago, but they were followed by 

 a cold backward-producing season, and the 

 crop fell far short of the expected amount. 



THE NAME ' HONEY" CAN BE USED ONLY ON 

 PACKAGES OF HONEY. 



The United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture has recently handed down a decision 

 that any substance, alleged to be coffee, ac- 

 cording to the Amercan Orocer, , even if such 

 only in name, must be real coffee and noth- 

 ing else. This decision is eminently proper 

 and correct from any standpoint. The same 

 principle precisely applies in the case of hon- 

 ey. There should not be allowed any more 

 on the labels the words "honey-drip syrup " 

 for a glucose mixture. In fact, the word hon- 

 ey should not be hitched on to any concoc- 

 tion unless it be honey alid nothing else. 



It is said the authorities of the national 

 pure-food law have put a ban on gelatin as 

 now manufactured, and therefore the manu- 

 facturers of candies, etc., will have to resort 

 to something else. Paraffine has been per- 

 emptorily barred already as inimical to health. 

 Beeswax is probably the best subtance which 

 can be used in this connection; and as the 

 candies frequently bring 50 cents to a dollar 

 a pound, there does not seem to be any rea- 

 son why it should not be used for candy-mak- 

 ing to a great extent. 



It gives us very great pleasure to acknowl- 

 edge the receipt of the first number of The 

 Danish Bee-keepers' Tidings, published and 

 edited by N. S. Kristensen, of Aldershville, 

 Roskilde, Denmark. The first page has an 

 excellent cut of A. I. Root, our senior editor; 

 on second page a Dovetailed hive is shown, 

 and on page 12 a cut of the A. I. Root Co.'s 



