AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



43 



in early wSpring when outside flowers are 

 few, tlie greenhouse pasture is the only 

 one, and hence no flower can escape ; 

 every flower is visited many times prob- 

 ably. — Geo. a. Stockwell, in the Coun- 

 try Oentleman. 



Bi-Sulphide of Carbon for Ants. 



Try the bi-sulphide of carbon as a 

 remedy for red ants, so often mentioned 

 by Prof. Cook. Directions : Pour about 

 a pint into the hole ; cover for about a 

 minute, then explode the vapor that has 

 formed, by burning a rag tied to a stick, 

 and close up the hole air-tight. They 

 call it ant-poison hero. It is excellent 

 for killing night-ants or cutting-ants. — R. 

 Westphal, in Qleanings. 



Will Freezing Injure Foundation ? 



Freezing will do no harm at all, pro- 

 viding some inconsiderate person does 

 not attempt to handle it while it is cold. 



Persons who ought to know better 

 undertake to move comb-foundation 

 when it is almost icy cold. Of course, it 

 flies to pieces like thin glass ; and then, 

 after they have done a lot of mischief, 

 they sometimes undertake to repair it, 

 and in so doing, they break a lot more 

 of it. 



Never touch foundation, nor even 

 hardly look at it when it is in a cold 

 room. Air and light have the effect of 

 bleaching and hardening thin foundation, 

 and as this makes it a little more diffi- 

 cult for the bees to work, it is generally 

 considered better to have your founda- 

 tion shut up in a box, protected from 

 air and light as much as possible during 

 the* Winter time. — Gleanings. 



Official Report. 



The 21st Annual Report of the North 

 American Bee-Keepers' Association has 

 just come to hand from the publishers, 

 Messrs. Thomas G. Newman & Son, of 

 Chicago, Ills. As usual, it is well and 

 neatly printed, and substantially bound 

 in a tinted-paper cover. One thing we 

 notice in particular in regard to this 

 report is, that it is nearly twice as large 

 as any other report of one convention. 

 The Keokuk report occupies 50 pages, 

 the size of this ; the one at Columbus, 26 

 pages ; the one at Brantford, a year ago, 

 28 pages. Every member will have a 

 copy of the last report, and a good many 

 who are not members should have it. 

 Price, 25 cents each, or to members free. 

 — Gleanings. 



No Artificial Comb-Honey. 



Many people confound comb withfoun- 

 dation. Artificial comb, like artificial 

 eggs, has never been practically made. 

 Had it been, it never could have been 

 filled with honey or any manufactured 

 substitute, and then capped over. The 

 impossibility of this is plainly apparent 

 when it is considered that it takes about 

 800 thicknesses of the wax, in the side 

 walls of the cells, to make an inch in 

 thickness, and that the cells are built 

 with an upward incline, evidence of 

 which is readily seen upon cutting a comb 

 in two. Machinery could not be made to 

 work so delicate an amount of wax, or 

 form cells of such a peculiar shape and 

 position. 



Foundation is no more a comb than it 

 is a board, until the bees have re-manip- 

 ulated it, added to it, and again made of 

 it, a comb. — H. L. Jeffrey, in Home- 

 Faimn.. 



Granulation of Honey. 



It is practically easy to understand 

 how honey from one kind of flower 

 granulates sooner than that from another 

 source ; or how it is that honey from one 

 district, or in another season, shows a 

 greater readiness to crystallize ; but 

 when one is brought face to face with 

 the problem : " How is it that one bee- 

 keeper's honey, got in the same season, in 

 the same district, candies sooner than 

 his neighbors ?" the matter cannot be 

 so readily dismissed. 



We must first think of nectar as simply 

 a solution of cane sugar in water, the 

 amount of sugar and chemical peculiari- 

 ties varying, of course, with the kind of 

 plant, with the wetness of the season, 

 and also with the humidity of the air at 

 the time of the nectar-flow (electrical 

 influence is, for the moment, out of the 

 question). 



The business of the bee is to gather 

 the nectar, remove some of the water by 

 the help of its own system, and by the 

 help of a salivary ferment, convert the 

 cane into grape sugar ; by adding formic 

 acid to the honey, regurgitated into the 

 cell, its further fermentation is arrested, 

 and its keeping-quality well assured, 

 after still more surplus water is allowed 

 to evaporate, before the bee seals it up 

 in the cell. 



The honey is still, one-fifth of it, 

 water ; two-Iifths of the rest is dextrose, 

 or crystallizable sugar, with two-fifths 

 levulose, or non-crystallizable. Extract- 

 ing honey before it is all ripe, will, we 

 know, throw out some bearing an undue 



