562 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 15 



stincts of the bees. All valuable improve- 

 ments that have ever been made in bee cul- 

 ture have been founded upon the discovery 

 of some law of action in the nature of the 

 bee and the adaptation of man's plan of ac- 

 tion to conform to that law, and to encourage 

 the bees to increase their activity in accord- 

 ance with the law. Any method of manage- 

 ment in any department of bee culture which 

 goes contrary to the nature and instincts of 

 the bees is, in theory, therefore, doomed to 

 failure. 



In this baby-nucleus plan of queen fertili- 

 zation, the bees are very reluctant— in fact, 

 must be forced — to fill the little frames either 

 with brood or honey preparatory to fitting 

 out the boxes for the reception of virgins. 

 They are induced with great difficulty to re- 

 main in the boxes even after they have been 

 established in them by long confinement; and 

 when they have been induced to take up an 

 abode there, they find themselves too few in 

 numbers to maintain "body heat" sufficient 

 for healthy brood-rearing, and too weak to 

 gather food. Moreover, they are an easy 

 prey to robbers. When the bee-keeper has 

 established his baby mating- boxes he has de- 

 stroyed almost the last semblance of colony 

 life among those bees. He has made a hand- 

 ful of bees homeless and heartless. They 

 have become discouraged and demoralized so 

 that the actions both of queens and bees are 

 distinctly different from those of a normal 

 colony. They must be fed to keep them from 

 starving. They are on the down grade of 

 existence from the very beginning, and have 

 to be reinforced with young bees continually. 

 It is not common for these nuclei to increase 

 in strength, even though they are fed. 



BETTER TO HAVE THE NATURAL CONDITIONS 

 OF LARGER AND STRONGER NUCLEI. 



It is not sufficient to say that queens can 

 be fertilized from these boxes. It is true 

 that any one who will exercise ordinary care 

 in manipulating them will get fair results. 

 But that is not a sufficient guarantee of the 

 value of the system. Emphasis should be 

 laid with increasing force upon the necessity 

 of having strong colonies for best results in 

 all departments of bee culture. It is mani- 

 festly unnecessary to employ strong colonies 

 to mate the queens if it can be done equally 

 well with a smaller number of bees. This is 

 the theory on which the advocates of baby 

 nuclei have proceeded. But, in my opinion, 

 they have made the fatal mistake of carrying 

 the theory to an extreme. 



Every practical bee-keeper knows that he 

 can divide his colonies down to pretty small 

 fractions of their original strength, in favor- 

 able seasons, without destroying colony life; 

 but in the practice of the baby-nucleus system 

 the limit is passed. Colony life is destroyed, 

 body heat is wanting, brood-rearing in pre- 

 carious and uncertain, and the constitution 

 and life of the queen, with all that that means 

 to future generations, are put in jeopardy. 



To say that good queens have been mated 

 in this way is to pass a high compliment on 

 their constitutions; but it does not furnish a 



sufficient reason to continue the system to 

 the detriment of that same constitution. 



The contrast between baby nuclei and nu- 

 clei composed of two L. frames operated 

 alongside them throughout the season was so 

 strikingly in favor of the latter that it would 

 be hard to induce the writer to try the ba- 

 bies again. In nuclei composed of one or 

 more L. frames, colony life progressed rapid- 

 ly. Instead of killing off a lot of worker 

 bees to get a few queens mated, as it was in 

 the case of the baby nuclei, housekeeping and 

 brood-rearing progressed in thriving condi- 

 tion. At the close of the season a few of 

 these nuclei were easily united into colonies 

 and prepared for winter. With this method 

 of forming nuclei, all parts of the bee-keep- 

 er's equipment are interchangeable. There 

 is less fuss, and less expenditure of the en- 

 ergy of the bee-man, and a saving of life 

 among the bees. 



A better nucleus hive, in the opinion of the 

 writer, is one that will hold two two-frame 

 nuclei, one on either side of a thin wooden 

 partition. In hives of this description it was 

 astonishing how fast the nuclei built up. 

 Conditions were most favorable for all the 

 activities of the hive, and there were two 

 queens to lay a good portion of the time. 

 There was less swarming out, less robbing, 

 and fewer queens, lost. 



Oswego, 111. 



■ . ■ >>>»♦■»>■ « ■ ■ 



THE MARKETING OP HONEY. 



Are Commission Men Honest ? How to 



Produce Fancy Honey and Pack it ; the 



Importance of Uniform Grading. 



BY WM. W. CASE. 



Mr. Root:— I do not see how you can recon- 

 cile your statements on page 235 concerning 

 commission merchants. First you state that 

 the one commission man who did know the 

 consignment of honey was on the way noti- 

 fied all the rest of the commission men and 

 dealers in the city, and that they all conspired 

 as a unit, to the effect that none of them 

 would pay real value for the honey, but that, 

 on going to another city, he made one honest 

 sale, the fact of which becoming known to 

 the dealers of the first city, they immediately 

 conspii'ed together and prevented said dealer 

 from any further honest dealing. You then 

 state that you believe the majority of com- 

 mission men are honest. As you state it, I 

 do not see where you can find a quarter 

 ounce of honest man in either "gang" of 

 both cities; and as it is plain that these two 

 " gangs " worked together is it not the infer- 

 ence that they would have followed the same 

 man to every city he would have visited, 

 with like results ? 



When I am lucky enough to have it, one 

 firm buys all of my light honey, and they are 

 willing to and do pay me more for my honey 

 delivered at my depot than the shark mer- 

 chants quote as bringing on commission in 

 the same city. 



I have never shipped a case of honey on 



