822 



THE AMERICAIil BEE JOURNAL. 



Byrup to last until spring. By using 

 a Uige feeder, twice tilliug was suffi- 

 cient. A strong colony will empty 

 one feeder tw ice in a day. If 1 fear 

 robbing, 1 feed only at night, other- 

 wise boih morning and evening. The 

 earlier this can be done the better, as 

 after the weather is cold, bees are less 

 active, and the feed is not so readily 

 stored and capped. It should be given 

 warm, or fairly hot. 1 prefer to have 

 all feeding done if possible in Septem- 

 ber, and have no occasion to open 

 hives after Oct. 1 ; the chances for 

 Buccesstul wintering are then much 

 greater. Frames are spread 1^ 

 inches from centre to centre ; this en- 

 ables the bees to thicken the combs 

 at the top, store more at each comb, 

 and gives more room for them to 

 cluster between the combs. In the 

 woiking season, I space them 1% 

 inches trom centre to centre. Bees 

 usually place most of their stores of 

 pollen in each outside comb, or at 

 feast in the outer ones which they 

 occupy. Remember this when filling 

 hives with spare combs before feeding. 



WHAT I FEED THE BEES. 



1 doubt not that the best quality of 

 honey is the best winter food for bees, 

 butatterit has been removed from 

 the hives, the bees do not again get 

 it. The poorer qualities are led back 

 in the spring, when it is used to rear 

 brood, and does not affect tbe bees 

 unfavorably, but 1 do not feel sale to 

 use it lor winter stores, and, there- 

 fore, use the best grade of granulated 

 sugar. This is dissolved in boiling 

 water in the proportion of 5 pounds of 

 sugar to one quart of water. If not 

 used, it will soon crystallize. To 

 guard against this occurring in the 

 hive, bee-keepers use an acid which is 

 added while the syrup is boiling. 

 Some use tartaric acid, an even tea- 

 spoonful dissolved in water for every 

 20 pounds of sugar. Others use vine- 

 gar, if added when quite hot, it 

 makes a chemical change in the 

 sugar called "inversion." This pre- 

 vents granulation out of the hive, and 

 when bees are fed late, and have no 

 time to treat it with their natural 

 acid secretion, it may be a good thing; 

 but if fed early, while it is warm 

 weather, 1 do not believe their arti- 

 ficial aid will be of any benefit. 



This season I added to every 20 

 pounds of dissolved sugar, 2 ounces of 

 strong honey-vinegar, 1 ounce of salt, 

 and 2 ounces of salicylic acid solution. 

 Salicjlic acid has a close aflinity (or is 

 like in its nature) to the formic acid 

 of the bees, is an anti-fungus, and 

 much used as a pieventive and a cure 

 for that great scouige of beekeepers, 

 foul brood. It is here used as a pre- 

 ventive. The solution is made of 

 salicjlic acid 1 ounce, soda borax 1 

 ounce, water 4 pints. Granulation 

 may also be prevented by adding one 

 pint of honey to 4 quarts of sugar 

 syrup. 



STORING SYRUP IN EMPTY COMBS. 



Most colonies in my apiary were so 

 contracted that there was little room 

 for honey in brood-combs, and it was 

 not to be extracted, but as soon «s 

 the sections weie removed, a sufli- 



cient amount of sealed stores was 

 given from other hives. One colony in 

 the home apiary had been employed 

 for a month in storing syrup in empty 

 brood-combs, which, as soon as they 

 were filled and sealed, were removed 

 and replaced by empty combs. These 

 were carried to an out apiary, where I 

 make " short stops," and cannot feed 

 in the usual way. I also use them 

 late, if needed, after it is too cold to 

 feed syrup. 



I obtain bees that are condemned to 

 the fumes of brimstone, and success- 

 fully carry them through the winter 

 in this way. In most cases I cause 

 all of this feed to be used early in the 

 spring, and feed more before the time 

 for sections. Should any remain, my 

 system of management absolutely 

 prevents all possibility ot its being 

 carried into the surplus sections. 



Pawtucket,6 R.I. 



For the Amencan Bee JonRuJ. 



Separators for Old-style Heion Case. 



M. MILLER. 



I have seen communications from 

 beekeepers who use the old-style of 

 lleddon section-case, who expressed 

 a desire to use separators between the 

 rows of sections, but could not do so 

 without using a separate separator 

 with each section, which is too much 

 trouble, the trouble arising from the 

 peculiar construction of the case. I 

 will now give a description, of a de- 

 vice which can be used in connection 

 with the Heddon-case, which changes 

 it so that separators can be used, or 

 not, just as the beekeeper desires. It 

 is as follows : 



First cut some strips of wood (pine 

 is good enough) as long as the case is 

 wide ; plane these down until they are 

 about 7-16 of an inch one way, and 

 scant M of an inch the other way. 

 Then cut out some strips of heavy 

 tin 7-16 or one inch wide, and the tin 

 strips of the same length as the 

 wooden sticks ; nail the tins on the 

 sides of the sticks that measure scant 

 % inch across the base, using J^-inch 

 wire nails. Let the tins project 3-16 

 of an inch on one side of the sticks, 

 putting the nails about 1^4 inches 

 apart; then put the device in a good 

 clamp, and fold the sides ot the tins 

 which project 316 of an inch over on 

 the stick. Now turn the stick right 

 over, and fold the tins that project 3^ 

 of an inch out from the stick at right 

 angles, and that part is done. Now 

 get out some more sticks the same 

 length and size of the sticks on the 



\tins. Plane off the two corners 

 on the same side of the stlcks,and 

 the device is done. 

 Remove the three partitions from 

 the inside of the ease, and nnil some 

 small pieces of very heavy tin right 

 beneath where the partitions-were on 

 each side, letting them project inside 

 of the case about }4 of an inch, lor the 

 ends of the device to rest on. Drop 

 one of the devices in where each par- 

 tition was ; put in the sections, then 

 drop in the separators, and last put in 

 the strips with chamfered coiners 



down so as to enter easy. Make the 

 strips to fit snugly. It separators are 

 not used, tack small pieces of tin 

 across each end of each stick, to keep 

 it from falling too low down between 

 the sections. 



The advantage of this device is, 

 that the case can be emptied at one 

 move, like the T-super used by Dr. 

 C. C. Miller and others. T-lins, like 

 those made with wooden centres, are 

 a greal deal stronger, and are not so 

 liable to get bent and kinked as the 

 common style of T-tins. 



Let some of the readers try a few of 

 these devices, and see how they like 

 them. If they do not like them they 

 can put in the partition again. 



Le Claire,o« Iowa. 



Prairie Fsrmer. 



Tie Bee's Legs anfl Feet. 



MRS. L. HARRISON. 



At the late bee-convention in Chi- 

 cago, Prof. Cook, of Michigan, gave a 

 very interesting and instructive lec- 

 ture on the legs of the bee. with illus- 

 trations many thousand times magni- 

 fied. The microscopic study of the 

 bee has lately received a uew impetus 

 by the visit of Mr. Cowan, editor of 

 the British Bee Journal, who brought 

 to this country a microscope acknowl- 

 edged by experts to be one ot the 

 finest they had ever seen. 



In looking at these illustrations, it 

 is easy to see how the bees gather up 

 the pollen and store it in their bas- 

 kets. It would seem to appear by the 

 law of " the survival of the fittest,'' 

 as age upon age has rolled away, that 

 these baskets have increased in size. 

 As an illustration, take the island of 

 Cyprus, which, added to a sterile soil, 

 has dry scorching winds, parching 

 everything in the form of vegetation. 

 The inhabitants of this island never 

 feed the bees,- therefore those only 

 survive such an ordeal which possess 

 the greatest endurance and the larg- 

 est amount of stores. Where there 

 are colonies equal in numbers, and 

 some of them store surplus while 

 others are starving, it shows conclu- 

 sively that some of them possess at- 

 tributes which are lacking in others. 

 They may have stronger wings, and 

 can fly further and faster, or hav» 

 larger tongues, which enables them to 

 reach nectar which the others can- 

 not, or have larger receptacles for 

 carrying pollen, thereby enabling 

 them to rear more workers. 



This fall I was showing a visiting 

 beekeeper a feeder which was merely 

 a solid block of wood with holes cut 

 into it by a wobbling saw, into which 

 the feed could be poured. He re- 

 marked that if I put that on a hive, 

 full of syrup, in a short time it would 

 be full of drowning bees. It had been 

 given to me for trial, and I had never 

 used it. As I was then feeding a 

 colony short of winter stores, I filled 

 it and put it on a hive. When I went 

 to look after it, I found the feed all 

 gone, the feeder dry and clean, and 

 no dead bees in it. 



I then filled some wooden butter 

 dishes, and found that without any 



