372 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



AMERIC AN BEE JOURNAL 



D Established by Samuel Wagner In 186 1 C= 



The oldest Bee Journal in the English language. Consolidated with The 

 National Bee Journal in 1874. 



Published monthly at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Hamilton. Illin 



Subscription Rates — In the United States and THE STAFF 



Mexico, $1 per year; three years, $2.50; five r p n 



years, $4. Canadian postage 15 cents, and dadant _ Editor 



other foreign countries 25 cents extra, per Frank C. Pellett Associate Editor 



.,,,'.■ . . ... „ . C. C. Miller Questions Department 



All subscriptions are stopped at expiration. Date . 



of expiration is printed on wrapper label. Maurice G Dadant Business Manager 



(Copyright 1919, by C. P. Dadant.) 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



Granulated Honey 



We call the attention of our read- 

 ers to the contribution, in this num- 

 ber, of our esteemed friend, I. Hop- 

 kins, of New Zealand, with the ex- 

 port regulations of the New Zealand 

 Government, accompanying the let- 

 ter. It will be noticed that "no 

 honey will be graded or allowed to 

 be exported" out of New Zealand, 

 "unless it is granulated." 



The authors of this ruling evident- 

 ly recognize the fact that good honey 

 usually granulates unless it has been 

 doctored or heated. The New Zet- 

 land authorities are not the only 

 ones who appreciate this fact. 



A few weeks ago, among our co> 

 respondence with foreign dealers in 

 extracted honey, we received a letter 

 from an experienced purchaser con- 

 taining the following: 



"Please note that I want exclusive- 

 ly candied honey, as it would be ve\"y 

 difficult for me to sell melted honey." 



The granulation of honey has been 

 a stumbling block in the way of the 

 sales, in this country, because the 

 public has been accustomed to liquii 

 honey. The beekeepers are at fault 

 in not trying to convince the con- 

 sumers of the quality of granulated 

 or candied honey. Sooner or late-, 

 the consumer of America must learn, 

 as he has learned in Europe, th.it 

 granulated honey is pure and often 

 of better quality than liquid honey, 

 which may have been heated to pre- 

 vent granulation or to melt it. 



There are, indeed, cases when 

 pure honey of good quality remains 

 liquid, but these are the exception, 

 not the rule, in our changeable cli- 

 mate. 



Granulated honey is much safer to 

 ship, with less danger of leakage and 



loss than liquid honey. A great deal 

 of worry and annoyance would be 

 avoided if granulated honey was ac- 

 cepted at its par value, on the Ameri- 

 can market (as it will sooner or later 

 be), instead of being rejected as im- 

 pure by the uninformed consumers. 



Dummies vs. Division Boards 



The Bee World establishes a differ- 

 ence between a dummy and a divis- 

 ion board, as follows : 



"Correctly speaking, a dummy is 

 more or less a replica in wood of m 

 even frame with comb. It is exactly 

 of the same outside dimensions and 

 thickness, and is meant to replace the 

 latter. A true dummy, to be strictly 

 correct, should be double-walled, but 

 this form of accessory hive furniture 

 does not exist in numbers on the mar- 

 ket, except in the developed form of 

 the Doolittle feeder, being usually re- 

 placed by a board of equal external 

 linear measurements. 



"A division board, on the other 

 hand, should be of such shape and di- 

 mensions as to be capable of inser- 

 tion between and parallel to the 

 combs in the same way as a dummy, 

 at the same time being capable of 

 complete division of the hive chamber 

 in which it is inserted. 



"It will be seen, therefore, that a 

 dummy permits of the creation of a 

 bee space in the same manner as a 

 frame comb does; whereas a division 

 board entirely obliterates such a space 

 by being made to touch the internal 

 surfaces of the front and back walls 

 of the hive, in addition to the floor 

 board, when employed for the brood 

 chamber, as is usually the case." 



This is a clear and rational classifi- 

 cation and description of the two im- 

 plements. We might add that the av- 



erage dummy sold by dealers is a 

 very thin board, the use of which ap- 

 pears to be confined to giving oppor- 

 tunity for the handling of the frames, 

 after its removal from the hive. It is 

 of no use to concentrate the heat, in 

 reducing the number of frames for a 

 small swarm, since a dry comb is 

 about as efficient as a non-conductor. 

 But the division board, which fits it 

 both ends, against the walls of the 

 hive, prevents the circulation of air 

 and effectually confines the heat pro- 

 duced by the bees, even if it does not 

 fit down against the bottom board. 



Those who have tried division 

 boards are not usually in favor of a 

 full depth board, but prefer a bee pas- 

 sage at the lower end, to avoid crush- 

 ing bees in manipulations and also r o 

 permit bees which may accidentally 

 find themselves behind it to return to 

 the cluster. Warm and dry material, 

 such as forest leaves, or possibly 

 chaff packed in a light sack, may be 

 used behind the division board, in 

 winter, when bees are confined on a 

 less number of combs than the usual 

 quota. 



We make the ends of a division 

 board to fit snugly, while it may be 

 easily loosened from the ordinary 

 amount of propolis used by the bees, 

 in the following manner: 



Cut the division board a full half 

 inch shorter than the inside length of 

 the hive. Then nail upon each end 

 of it a round cushion made of painted 

 cloth with some soft material beneath 

 it, which may be easily loosened, by a 

 slight jar, from the walls of the hive. 

 Such division boards prove very effi- 

 cient in keeping up the warmth of a 

 small cluster, in wide and spacious 

 brood chambers. 



The Netherlands Bee 



Having read, at different times, in 

 the British Bee Journal and in other 

 places, the praise of the Netherlands 

 bee, the editor concludes that it i3 

 well to place before our readers, in 

 this number, the statement of a 

 Netherlands beekeeper, in praise 

 of this bee. 



Looking upon it in an impartial 

 manner, we readily detect that the 

 bees of Netherlands differ little if 

 any from the common black bee of 

 the continent; that their prolificness 

 cannot be very great, since the skeps 

 in which they are kept are so very 

 exiguous that their swarms do not 

 average more than two pounds. A 

 study of the map also shows us that 

 there are no mountains between Hol- 

 land and Germany; therefore, noth- 



