THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



159 



ony, but you will only have to do this with 

 one or two till you get the right conception 

 of just how jnuch honey there is in each 

 frame by simply looking at it, when you 

 count oft the number of pounds almost to a 

 certainty. I can count off combs of honey 

 so as to rarely vary one pound on the whole 

 hive, and y'fet do it as rapidly as I can handle 

 the combs, and when the apairy is thus gone 

 over there is a certainty about it which gives 

 the apiarist a great advantage over any other 

 method. 



But, I hear another say, we have more 

 bees than we want, with a prospect of not 

 enough honey for them to winter upon. 

 What shall we do in such a case ? Wliy, 

 unite the colonies, of course. And right 

 here I will tell the reader of a plan of unit- 

 iiig which I think is boss, the uniting being 

 done so that they can be ready early, instead 

 of being only poorly fixed at best, when left 

 till October, as they usually are. The plan 

 is this : The latter part of August select out 

 as many colonies as you wish to winter, 

 making this selection according to thoFe 

 having best queens, best combs, hives you 

 wish them in, or from any preference what- 

 ever, when you are to go to the ones you do 

 not care to keep and take all but a very little 

 brood away from them, dividing this brood 

 among those selected for winter. In doing 

 tliis I take the bees along which adhere to 

 the combs of brood, Vjeing sure I do not 

 have the queen. If the queen is of no value 

 to me she is killed, and the bees left to store 

 fall honey if there is any. In ten days the 

 queen cells on the little brood left are de- 

 stroyed, and when the honey season is over 

 tlie few old bees remaining are killed, wlien 

 we have the combs ready to store away, after 

 the honey is fed to the bees, should they re- 

 quire it. In our hives selected for winter we 

 have plenty of bees hatching for the next 

 twenty-one days, which bees are the ones to 

 go over winter, and with me iirove of a 

 better age to stand the winter than those 

 hatched either earlier or later. After prac- 

 ticing this way of uniting for several years, 

 I must say that I like this uniting in the 

 brood form much better than in the bee 

 form. 



I think I hear a third saying, if after unit- 

 ing and economizing in every way the bees 

 still do not have stores enough, what shall I 

 do in such a case ? Well, if j^ou are to be a 

 bee keeper in the future, feed them. If not, 

 kill them, and eat the honey. I trust I am 

 writing to no one who has any idea of taking 

 the latter advice, for I believe that if you 

 feed those bees, after they are properly thin- 

 ned or pruned out as above, it would pay you 

 to feed them enough for winter if you had to 

 pay as high as fifteen cents a pound for 

 sugar to do it with. Don't get discouraged, 

 there are better times ahead ; and remember 

 the fun you have with the bees, which fun 

 gives you good health, and counts something 

 toward the sugar. The best feed I know 

 anything about is made as follows : Fifteen 

 pounds of water brought to a boil, thirty 

 pounds of granulated sugar stirred in rather 

 slowly, so it will not settle to the bottom and 

 burn, and, when dissolved, stir in five i)Ounds 

 of honey. As soon as cool enough it is ready 



for use. The honey is the only thing I know 

 of that is sure to prevent all crystalizing of 

 the feed when in the feeder and stored in the 

 combs, and it also gives a flavor to the syrup 

 which the bees seem to relish very much. 

 For a feeder, 1 prefer a division-board feeder, 

 but I will say that I have fed more stores by 

 simply placing a common milk pan in the 

 upper part of the hive, poured in the feed, 

 pulled up a handful of grass and scattered it 

 over the feed, to keep the bees from drown- 

 ing, than in any other way. 

 BoKODiNO, N. Y., Sept. 4, 18!»0. 



The Value of " Hope " — Uniting and Feeding 

 — Making Bees " Pay." 



^OPE eternal springs within the 

 human breast, 

 Man vt'i-er is, liut always to be, 

 blest."— Po^jt'. 



We find the Review, in common with 

 every bee journal in the land, holding out 

 bright promises for the future. ( )f course, 

 it would not do for a class journal to tell its 

 readers that next year would be an oft' year 

 and that bees had better be brimstoned than 

 to try to gain profit by them. Still, the latter 

 advice is just as liable to fit as the former, but 

 " hope eternal " must be sustained, and, it is 

 a very good essential for our every day lives ; 

 for, without hope for the future, we might 

 just as well step down and out of bee keep- 

 ing, and in fact all other pursuits. 



After every year of "hollow mockery" 

 the question comes to us " how far is it ad- 

 visable to feed ? " Our locality has favored 

 us to a great extent in allowing our bees to 

 get enough honey to winter them, with the 

 feeding of only late swarms. If our colonies 

 were short of stores so that every swarm 

 needed feeding, we should certainly double 

 down so that the expense would not be so 

 great and the wintering be more certain. 

 In every apiary the colonies in the fall are 

 more or less unequal, the weaker colonies 

 and those with superanuated queens are 

 usually the ones to succumb ; while the very 

 strong with young queens and plenty of 

 stores, are the ones tliat, as a rule, winter 

 well. By doubling we can make selections 

 of all three of the above essentials and be 

 sure of a great degree of success. The feed- 

 ing of such colonies should be bountiful. A 

 colony that has just enough to rub through 

 the winter, and you know it, is a cause of 

 anxiety ; while those having five or ten 

 pounds more than enough usually respond to 

 your call in the spring. 



We have often thought, if we only knew 

 when our bountiful honey year would come, 

 how we could prepare our bees for the years 

 of rest, but as things are now organized on 

 this mundane sphere, if we should put it 

 into practice we would likely find our dish 

 bottom up when the shower came ; so we 

 hope the journals will continue to agitate the 

 "eternal hope" plan, and keep us encour- 

 aged. 



Moving bees to catch the honey flow is also 

 attended with more or less uncertainty. We 

 are liable to move into a disappointment, 

 but if the latter occurs only once in tlire 



