GS 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 



HOIVEY THAT \VOJ«'T CANBY. 



ALSO, THICK AND "XHIN" COMB. 



f' AM going to "tussle" with yoii for the head iniirk on 

 "Honey that won't candy," '(page 11 January No.). 

 While at the river, after we had finished for friend 

 BIcQaw, I extracted some for friend .Tarvis and hroutrht 

 some of it home. The combs were capjjed over solid, 

 clear to t lie bottom, very heavy and awful thick. Had 

 to wami it before the iire place for a half day before I 

 dared extract it ('twas the same with McGaw's). Wo 

 keep it in a large stone jar in an out-door cupboard, 

 where it has been below zero several times, once down to 

 "iO°below, and it is as clear to-day as the day we e.Uracttd 

 it, and so hard you could scarce dent it with a hatchet 

 (fact). And I will back the river honey as second to 

 none in color, quality and flavor. It is simply delicious. 

 This jar is kept from the light and air, while on the other 

 hand, some that friend Cramer brought home from the 

 same place, and has put up in 2 lb. bottles, which stands 

 in the light and gets the warmth trcm a stove in a gro- 

 cery, candied hard and white. So that it is not cold 

 alone that causes it to candy. I also brought some comb 

 honey from the river, which the Express Co. saw lit to 

 break loose from the frames. The other day I got out a 

 large piece of it to take to a purchaser, and laid it on a 

 platter. When I went for it, I saw a curious kind of 

 <;omb honey. It looked as though it had been set out in 

 the sun at 90° for it was just as completely melted down 

 :is though by heat, and that too where it was below zero. 

 It looked like nothing but extracted honey with a few 

 scraps of cappings in it. I never saw such thick honey 

 in such very thin comb. Guess the bees must have got 

 out of wax about that time and had to spread it out thin. 

 Will M. Kellogg, Oneida, 111., Jan. 15th, 1877. 



There is certainly something very curious 

 indeed about the candying of honey, and we 

 confess to being quite in the dark, on many 

 points in regard to it. At one time, it seems 

 that light aflects it, and again that it does not; 

 at another, that it is certainly from intense 

 cold, and yet we find it now standing zero 

 weather, without a sign of candying. There 

 is one point tliat seems well established, and 

 that IS that sealing it up as bees do, is nearly 

 always a preventive, and we do not know that 

 we ever saw any lioney candy, that was sealed 

 up while liot like fruit ; the ol)jeclion, how- 

 ever, to this plan, is that it is very apt to give 

 the honey a darker shade. We think the best 

 and cheapest way, to let it get fully ripened 

 and capped over in the hive, as mentioned 

 above by friend Kellogg. 



It seems we are just beginning to leai'ii akso 

 that bees vary tlie thickne.'^s of their combs 

 very much. After friend Dooiittle's experi- 

 ment of striking a knife down to the base of 

 the cells of a piece of comb honey, we one day 

 Iricd it on some honey that was on the table, 

 1 hat had been cut out of the centre of a frame 

 from the body of tlie hive ; this was new hon- 

 ey, that had been built where a piece of brood 

 had been cut out, yet the base of the cflls was 

 even thicker and harder than that of the 

 vvhite fdn. Sonu' of the thinesc comb we have 

 ever found, vvi^s from (Jaliforuia, and it was so 

 very thin and frail, we can readily imagine a 

 piece masirmir down by its own weiglit, as 

 friend K. mentions. Doolittle remarked that 

 bees made thitnier comb when the honey ciime 

 very r,<\pidly, and that they al^o at such a 

 time built it c'car up against the wood com- 



posing the sections. During the past season, 

 it came so slowly, that they left a row of un- 

 filled cells clear around, next to the wood. 



■^VINTEIEIWG, A iraoroEI, CE1LL,AR FOR. 



^iirp AST season I increased from one to 3 colonies and 

 j\lJ{ \ one neudcus. As one artificial swarm failed to 

 ~ raise a queen the first time, I made a nucleus to 

 have a queen to give them if they failed again, but as they 

 did not, 1 had an extra queen, and what to do with her 

 was a ])iiz7.1ing question. My stocks were not strong 

 enough to divide, and make the fourth colony. I went 

 and opened the box two or tlnee times to kill the queen 

 and return the bees to the old stock, but by the time I 

 found the queen my heart would fail and I would say 

 '•she is to nice to kill, let her live a little longer," and b.y 

 fall I found she had quite a little family, say a quart or 

 more. Well, I began to. think if I could only keep hoi" 

 alive until spring how nice it would be to have an extra 

 queen should one of the other stocks become queenles, or 

 to start an tarly new stock with in the spring; I then 

 began to think how to winter my bees. Well, I got an 

 old box R ady to set one hive in and pack round and cov- 

 er over on their summer stand, and was going to set one 

 hive in my coal house as I did last winter and one in my 

 barn, and then the nucleus. Well I was going to take 

 that with me "to bed," or as near it as it would be well 

 to do, or in other words take it right into the house 

 where I could always keep it from getting frosted and 

 still not too warm, and close the entrance with wire cloth. 



Just about I his time I discovered that I already had a 

 place under my house on the ground large enough to 

 keep 50 hives, as nico as a pin ; not too ccld nor too warm, 

 nor too damp nor too dry ; and where I could look to 

 them day or evening. I go from my kitchen into my 

 cellar, which latter is very small, and I had always 

 thought rather too damp, to put bees in with safety. 

 From the cellar I punched a hole through under th« 

 main house, where 1 have a space of from 2>i to 3 feet be- 

 tween ground and floor, and by digging a trench a few 

 feet long and 3 feet wide and deei>, I have a nice shelf to 

 set my bees on. The ground there is gravelly and so dry 

 that it is quite dusty and the temperature to-day is at 113° 

 while it is at 10 outside ; I have them all in there as nice 

 and cozy as can "bee," nucleus and all. I have an out- 

 side window opening so that I can ventilate if I wish, and 

 have also the tops of hives packed with hay to absorb the 

 moisture. They have been there now about one month 

 and soein to be doing as well as one could wish. Hardly 

 a dead bee to be seen.— i>ec. \^th, 1876. 



Jan. lath. 1877.— On ex.aminhig m.y bees about the 8th, 

 I was not a little surprised to find a nice quantity of 

 brood in all stages from the eggs to capped colls in 3 out 

 of 1 of my hives including my nucleus which iiad as m.uch 

 brood as any of the others. To-day I tipped back ohfe 

 hive and swept all the dead bees off, there were not more 

 than 20 and they have been in their winter quartei's 

 about (! weeks. How is that for high ? Neither do I find 

 that many have crawled out of the hives to die. 



A. A. FiiADENBURG, Cleveland, Ohio. 



The plan given amounts to almost the same 

 as that given for wintering nuclei, by friend 

 Corbin,^)n page l'^). Of course it will answer, 

 for when W"e can get a place so dry tliat the 

 ground is dusty, and so impervious to the 

 frost that the walls and ceiling never get wet, 

 we have almost the coutlitions of summer. It 

 is quite an easy matter to secure such cellars 

 in sandy or gravelly soils, but we tind it quite 

 difficult in the damp clay of Medina Co. Hav- 

 ing the cellar built directly under the kitchen 



