1877 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



289 



combs to fix both nicely for winter. The lat- 

 ter case is, it is true,'au exception, but it indi- 

 cates it would be well to go slow, in entirely 

 discarding hybrids. 



FEEDING EXTKACTED HONEY TO GET SECTIONS 

 FINISHED OUT. 



We have just liuished demonstrating that 

 this will pay, and pay well. If you have sec- 

 tions full of empty comb, you can get as much 

 as 9 lbs of sealed comb honey, for every 10 lbs 

 of liquid honey fed, after you have fed enough 

 to get the brood combs tilled. But after you 

 have fed them about 100 lbs, they get " tired," 

 and will not notice even nice clover honey. A 

 colony of full bloods and one of hybrids was 

 used for the experiment. The Italians went 

 far ahead of the hybrids, and yet were no more 

 than half as strong. Now comes a funny fea- 

 ture; the hyb:'id stock was composed of black 

 bees, one and i banded bees, and finely marked 

 Italians, all the progeny of one mother, of 

 course. Well, the black bees first stopped 

 work in the feeder, next the one and 2 banded, 

 and to-day if I wanted to show a visitor some 

 of the finest Italians in the apiary, I should 

 uncover this hybrid stock, and let him see the 

 bees at work in this pan of honey. There they 

 are, gentle and finely marked, while their own 

 family of blacks below, are as ugly as they well 

 can be. The Italians are certainly far ahead 

 for a " big job." 



FERMENiTATION OF HOXEY. 



fTALIAN queen rec'd on the 21st as lively ab a 

 cricket, introduced the same day with success, 

 , and to-day has combs tilled witli brooil and egijs. 



I have been a constant reader of Gleanings, Irom 

 Vol. I to Vol. V, ;tnd have not in any of your teach- 

 ings louiid a word concerning lermcuting honey, tlie 

 cause, or remedy. I extract irom the Irauies of comb 

 only when thoyarc sealed, place the extracted honey 

 in open tanks io settle, theu draw off and barrel. I 

 find tlje honey more or less in a state ot lennentation. 

 But whether it is caused by the extreme heat we ex- 

 perience here down South, in the months ot July, 

 August and September 1 am unable to say. My ex- 

 tracting room is a 12 loot octagon, lacing soutli, cast, 

 west and north, with two doors and lour v>i;idows, all 

 of wire cloth ; and Irom this arrangement 1 have a 

 constant breeze circulating through daiij^, but still 

 my extracted honey lermeuts. 



1 should be pU ascd to know if there are any of your 

 thousand of readers who have ever experienced the 

 same, and if there is any remedy to prevent honey 

 Irom fermenting alter being extracted from capjjed 

 combs. 1 have, frequently, when manufacturing sug- 

 ar, after the molasses liad drained from the sugar, 

 and become fermented, prevented the same with the 

 fumes of sulphur. James A. Pkixchakd. 



Iberville, La., Aug. 29th, '77. 



If our friend means that fermentation takes 

 place to such an extent as to make the honey 

 sour, it is certainly something rather unusual, 

 with honey capped over before being extracted. 

 If he means that it froths and oozes out of the 

 cans and barrels simply, without having its 

 flavor impaired, it is quite a common occurrence 

 with some honey. The only remedy for all 

 such " antics " that we know of, is to seal it up 

 hot like fruit, in fruit jars. It has been sug- 

 gested that the minute grains of pollen con- 

 tained in the honey, act like yeast, inducing 

 fermentation ; hence, heating the honey to 

 about the boiling point, or exposing it to a 

 freezing temperature, kills these yeast germs, 

 and stops the mischief. The fumes of sulphur, 

 or sulphurous acid, are also death to this yeast 

 plant, and wc therefore prevent cider from 



" working," by simply burning sulphur in the 

 empty barrel. Honey does sometimes ferment, 

 even when sealed up in the combs ; I saw a 

 comb during the prevalence of the bee malady, 

 a few winters ago, that was so filled with fer- 

 menting honey that it had burst the caps of 

 the cells and was oozing out in the form of a 

 thin watery froth. No wonder that the bees 

 died. I then supposed it to be because they 

 had gathered late thin fall honey, but I now 

 think if the combs had been well covered with 

 bees, in a hive with warm porous walls, they 

 would have fixed it just as nicely as our moth- 

 ers do their preserves by scalding ; for I have 

 since fed bees thin sour honey, and if too much 

 is not given them at ones, they will fetch it 

 back to sweet honey. 



AN lOTPROVEOTENT IN MAKING CHAFF 

 CUSHIONS. 



f BEGAN tlie season of '76 with 5 colonies; in- 

 creased to 11, and extracted 550 lbs. white clover 

 , honey, all of which was fully ripened in the hive 



and capped over, liy the way, I thinK such honey 

 equal to any box honey, if not superioi, and it brings 

 about the same price here. My uives hold 12 frames, 

 and I use a division board of duck tacked on a frame 

 and suspended the same as a frame of comb. For 

 wintering, 1 use 8 irames, placing a chaff cushion in 

 the end of the hive and one on top of the frames. My 

 11 colonies, all scrong, thus prepared came through 

 the winier all right, and oa tUt; il.st of March were 

 mucu stronger than whcu put up in the fall. 1 pre- 

 pare my cuihions in this way : 1 take vcrv ihin mus- 

 lin, 40 inches v/ide, fold it and cut the itUgiU I want 

 it; ihis makes three seams to run up, which is very 

 quickly Uune on a macliine. l>Io<v 1 loid the corner ol" 

 the pillow, uiagonaliy to tlie scam, and stitch across 

 the corner four inches ; do the same wiih the tliree 

 remaiuiag corners, turn the slip, liil it \»ii,n chaff and 

 1 have a square pillow four inches in thickness, that 

 just Ills my hives, and saves all the trouble of sowing 

 in a strip four inches wide. Well, I have told '• What 

 I know about chaff' cushions" at some length, and 

 will stop short off to say good- by. A. C. 



Johnstown, Ohio, June 9th, 1877. 



A chaff cushion to fit snugly inside the upper 

 story, should be a square box of cloth, just the 

 size of the space it is to fill ; and we, some time 

 ago, mentioned that we made them by using a 

 band of cloth for the sides, with a square piece 

 of cloth for top and bottom. The plan furni- 

 shed by our Iriend above, avoids the use of so 

 many pieces, for the entire case is made of one 

 piece of cloth, and there is very little waste. 

 If you fail to get the idea, take a common pil- 

 low, and push in one of the corners ; close the 

 sides together, so as to make an upright seam, 

 and by doing the same with each corner, we 

 shall have a box of cloth. 



Last spring I purchased one colonj' of Italian bees, 

 in a movable frame hive— Am. frame— but not know- 

 ing anything about bees or hives, and the frames be- 

 ing 60 badly united with combs and bee glue, I used it 

 as a box hive, with box for surplus honej' on top. 

 For this colony and hive I paid SU.OO. The weight of 

 hive and bees, when purchased was 78 lbs. On the 

 17th of June llrey threw off their lu-st swarm, a very 

 large one, again, on the 2(;th of June, another good 

 sized swarm. These were all hived in common box 

 hives. From the parent swarm, I obtained 3o lbs. ol: 

 box honey, from first swarm 45 lbs., second swarm 25 

 lbs., third swarm 10 lbs. ; making in all, 115 lbs. from 

 the one swarm and their increase. Honey is wortb 

 here 20 cts. perlb. and 115x20=§23.00; 4 colonies say 

 $6.0U=S24.00 ; deduct from this, cost of bees and hived 

 =§12.(jO and we have ^5.00 profit from the one swarm. 

 Honey pasturage here is wlilte clover, buckwheat and. 

 prairie ffowers. My hives at this time are full of bees 

 and honey. Next spring, I think I will transfer to the 

 Simplicity hive. Would you advise me to do so ? 



John C. Fowleu, Ashkum, 111., Oct. 8th, '77. 



