650 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



this sentence : " Many of us older 

 heads have supposed that we had 

 found the royal road to success, and 

 would reach it, too, for a series of 

 years, when some climatic or food 

 changes would occur, and the goal 

 would be still ahead." I wish to call 

 attention to the part I have italicized. 

 The two " ifs " in my quotations from 

 Prof. Cook are surmountable. We 

 can have the cellar right ; ditto the 

 food ; but in out-door wintering those 

 climatic changes are an element of 

 uncertainty, tlie damages from which 

 can be only partly averted by chaff 

 hives or protection of some kind. In 

 the cellar we can have the conditions 

 the same every winter. 



I have yet to lose a colony having 

 cane-sugar for stores, and wintered 

 in a warm cellar, and by the methods 

 that I now employ I can have the 

 winter stores consist of so large a per 

 cent, of sugar, and that, too, in such 

 a position that it will almost surely be 

 used during the winter, and all with 

 so little labor, that the damage of loss 

 from unsuitable food practically 

 amounts to but little. It is so slight 

 that I prefer to take the risk rather 

 than to perform more labor and take 

 no risk. I will admit, that some 

 honey is equal to sugar for wintering 

 purposes ; and I sincerely wish that 

 Mr. P. could give us an articje upon 

 the subject of getting good honey for 

 wintering our bees, and also tell us 

 why he thinks that colonies worked 

 upon the top-story plan do not winter 

 so well ; yes, and point out " the very 

 obvious reasons " why neighbor 

 Doane's bees did not winter so well 

 as mine. 



Yes, Mr. P., it is an experienced 

 apiarist who can make it pay to spread 

 the brood, if any one can. It is also 

 true, that the time for doing this 

 work comes before the rush of the 

 honey harvest ; and I do not doubt 

 that,combined with spring protection, 

 many apiarists might find it profit- 

 able ; but I feel satisfied that the 

 same results, or nearly as good re- 

 sults, may be secured with no labor ; 

 and certainly no bee-keeper need 

 spread the brood in the spring, simply 

 for lack of something to do. What I 

 mean by accomplishing the same re- 

 sults with no labor is, using hives 

 having a brood-nest of such capacity 

 that a queen of ordinary proliflcness 

 can and will keep the combs filled 

 with brood without "horse-whipping" 

 her by spreading the brood. We can 

 often increase our profits by increas- 

 ing the number of our colonies, rather 

 than by increasing the average pro- 

 ducts of those colonies we already 

 possess. In other words, "securing 

 the greatest amount of honey with 

 the least expenditure of capital and 

 labor " does not necessarily mean 

 securing large yields per colony. 



I will explain why I consider it 

 more profitable to winter bees upon 

 sugar when producing comb honey : 

 The prices of extracted honey, and 

 sugar, are very nearly the same ; or, 

 at least, they have been, hence the 

 profit could not be very great, while 

 the price of comb honey is twice as 

 great. I am aware that many believe 

 that twice as much extracted as comb 



honey can be produced, and perhaps 

 this is true in a majority of cases ; 

 but those who are well up in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey, and employ 

 the best methods, know that they can 

 secure at least three-fourths as much 

 comb as extracted honey. 

 Rogersville,^ Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bepning in Bee-KeepiD£ etc. 



ED S. EDEN. 



The motto, " What is worth doing, 

 is worth doing well," is applicable to 

 bee-keepers in general. It should be 

 the " guiding-star " of every apiarist, 

 especially with the beginner, as it 

 would save him a great deal of time, 

 trouble and expense. 1 also find that 

 exactness is everything. 



Two years ago I attended an auction 

 sale, and among other things to be 

 sold were 75 or 80 colonies of bees. I 

 thought it would be a good chance to 

 get a few colonies, so I secured 8 in 

 what was called Quinby hives ; but if 

 they were Quinby hives, there must 

 be many different sizes, as no two of 

 them were alike. The frames were 

 simply ridiculous, for some were ^i of 

 an inch wide, some 1% inches, and 

 others 2 inches wide. Some frames 

 would come within ] inch of tlie bot- 

 tom-board, and others would touch it ; 

 some hives had 8 frames, some 7, and 

 others 6. The majority of the frames 

 were made out of lath, and not trim- 

 med down, at that. One grand (?) 

 feature about these hives was, where 

 they lacked in bees they made up in 

 moths, as they were present by the 

 hundred. 



I soon discovered that I had to get 

 the bees out of those hives, or the 

 moths would do it for me. I made up 

 10 new hives with frames, and then I 

 transferred all of the best combs into 

 new frames, shook the bees into the 

 new hives, and then broke up the old 

 frames and burned them. I rendered 

 all the odd bits of comb into wax, and 

 made over the old hives into the 

 Langstroth size. 



Others who got bees at that sale, 

 fared just as badly as I did. The ma- 

 jority have given up bee-keeping, but 

 a few still hang on, hoping that some 

 great boom will lift them "high and 

 dry." But the only effective one will 

 be to " boom " the bees out of those 

 old hives. I would advise those who 

 intend to begin bee-keeping, to visit 

 the nearest good apiarist, and get 1 or 

 2 colonies, for starting right is the 

 main point. Avoid old-fogy bee-men ! 



Five years ago I visited an old-fogy 

 bee-keeper that had 2 colonies. He 

 kept them in the house-garret, and in 

 winter the bees went out through a 

 knot-hole in the gable. He observed 

 that more went out than came in, so 

 he put them in the kitchen. Then 

 with fanning-mill screens he made a 

 cage to capture stragglers. When any 

 person called on him, he would show 

 the bees. If they were not out in the 

 cage he would give the hive a few 

 knocks with a hammer, and then 



laugh at the infuriated bees. All of 

 them died, as might be expected. 



Last spring I had 1.5 colonies to take 

 out of winter quarters, which I have 

 increased to 42, and obtained 250 lbs. 

 of honey, it being too dry for any- 

 thing to prosper. I have been feed- 

 ing my bees for the last two weeks. 



Eastwood, Ont., Oct. 1, 1887. 



London Journal of Horticulture. 



TliG Variations in Honey. 



LANARKSHIRE BEE-KEEPEK. 



I have been endeavoring to discover 

 the cause of the variations of honey 

 gathered from flowers of the same 

 nature, but I am puzzled. Bees ap- 

 pear particular in keeping separate 

 the different kinds of honey they 

 gather and store in their hive. When 

 taking the honey from my hives last 

 autumn, 1 observed not less than six 

 distinct kinds in one hive— viz., a 

 little from the sycamore, charlock, 

 lime, clover, bean, thy me,and heather, 

 with patches of other kinds. 



Prom this hive I selected combs 

 containing the four last-named, re- 

 taining the thyme as excellent in the 

 comb ; the other three I dripped, the 

 heather in its liquid state being of a 

 beautiful pale amber color, with a fine 

 body and aroma, with a slight bitter- 

 ish but agreeable taste. 



The clover was, as usual, of a pale 

 color, and, in consequence of the fine 

 season, of a good body with its usual 

 fine, piquant flavor, which makes it 

 the universal favorite amongst the 

 ladies as well as gentlemen with un- 

 impaired tastes. 



The bean honey either in its liquid 

 or granulated form is no favorite of 

 mine ; it is too sweet, flat, and heavy, 

 while the color is dark and uninviting. 



All these three samples are candied, 

 the clover honey having small but 

 well-defined granules. The other two 

 samples have granules so very fine 

 that to see the crystals a high mag- 

 nifying power is required. 



In samples of the same honey 

 in the comb, and also standing in 

 the same place, some of it unsealed 

 remains in its liquid state, unless on 

 the outside, where, contrary to the 

 dripped honey, the granules are large 

 and the cells showing a proportion of 

 the crystallizable and non-crystalliza- 

 ble honey, the latter being absent in 

 the dripped honey. I would have set 

 down this phenomenon with the drip- 

 ped honey being due to the agitation 

 when being dripped, and the entering 

 of air when being separated from the 

 comb. But conflicting evidence comes 

 in, showing honey gathered in the 

 same moor underwent the same 

 manipulation to be candied, but with 

 large granules,and part uncrystallized. 



How this difference arises I leave 

 others to explain. My experience is 

 that honey gathered in localities not 

 far distant from each other differs 

 greatly both in flavor and body. I 

 have taken my bees to seven different 

 moors, and every one of these moors 

 yielded different colored and flavored 

 honey, and before me at this moment 



