1878 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CTLTURE. 



215 



CANDY FOR QUEEiV CAGES &C. 



f|IIE queens sent us by friend Ilayhurst 

 seemed so much healthier and more 

 — ■ lively than some others which we have 

 received, that we sent to him for his formu- 

 la for makim? the candy. Some of them 

 were kept caged as much as 10 days after 

 their journey, and not one queen, and scarce- 

 ly a bee, has died. He answers as follows : 



I use granulated sugar for candy, and prepare It 

 as follows. Wet it with a very little hot water, just 

 sufficient to dissolve it, boil it until it will grain 

 when stirred in a cold dish (it requires but very lit- 

 tle boiling), then take it from the Are and stir it un- 

 til it becomes slightly cloudy, and pour it into 

 cages as fast as possible. If it gets cold before it is 

 all poured out, I have to heat it up again with a lit- 

 tle more water. 



What seems to be necessary, is to dissolve the 

 sugar in as little water as possible, and then stir it 

 enough so that when cold a slight crust will cover 

 the surface, while the interior will be soft and 

 creamy; in this condition the water evaporates 

 very slowly. It is probable that the loss of so many 

 queeps this season is more due to the character of 

 the candy, than the size of the cage. 



E. M. Hayhurst. 



Kansas City, Mo. 



This plan seemed to answer excellently 

 last fall, but after the ca.ges were wintered 

 over, the candy seemed to have become too 

 hard, and many of the queens were lost. I 

 presume friend H. used his cages as soon as 

 they were made ; but we cannot always be 

 sure that our cages will be used while the 

 candy is fresh, and so, in our last lot, we 

 moistened the sugar with honey instead of 

 water. It is well known that honey holds 

 moisture for a long time, and our experi- 

 ments, so far, seem to indicate that it will 

 preserve the candy in just about the state we 

 wish it. To get it ''cooked" just right, 

 seems to be one of the fine arts ; for, after 

 we had filled over a thousand cages, and had 

 got it so that, after being stirred, it could be 

 easily cut with a knife, but was not soft 

 enough to get displaced in sliipping, we 

 thought we had it all right ; but, on filling 

 some odd sized cages for a customer, imag- 

 ine our chagrin at getting the following. 



Smokers and queen cages received, with which I 

 am hiqlilu pleased, except with the candy in the ca- 

 ges. I presume the candy was prepared by one of 

 your assistants, and you were not aware that such 

 was shipped. The only candy from you that I ever 

 saw, was in the cage with my" imported queen; I ex- 

 pected to receive the same quality of candy. I do 

 not wish anil remuneration for my disappointment, 

 but as you invite all who purchase from you to re- 

 port, I feel that I must inform you of the "stuff" 

 now received, instead of candy. Every cage was 

 daubed, and it was running out of the cracks of the 

 shipping bo.x. 



I am making "queen rearing" a specialty, and 

 ha^e now 100 queens, reared from my imported 

 mother, for sale. I sent for cages with candy, to 

 send the queens to you, according to terms stated 

 in Gleanings. I send by to-day's mail a sample of 

 the "candy" received. If you say this soft "candy" 

 is all riijht to ship my queens safely, I will send 

 them to you without delay, or as soon as I hear 

 from you; otherwise, I will try to make candy from 

 white sugar, and send queens by the middle of this 

 month. An early annwer is desired. M. T. Rowe. 



Mock's Store, Jackson Co., Mo., June 4th, '78. 



Oh dear, oh dear ! what a world of trouble 

 I do have. I told the clerks to write to our 

 friend, that it' the candy was really so soft, 

 the cages would not answer, we would send 

 him a lot of new ones, at our expense ; and 



then I made up my mind to look doleful, for 

 the rest the day ; but when I picked up the 

 following, almost the next thing, I con- 

 cluded I would do the best I could to have 

 the candy just right, and not look doleful 

 after all. 



Goods received, and all right. They suit me to a 

 "dot". You can safely anticipate the favorable 

 opinion of your customers, and sav "thank you" in 

 advance. John W. Jones. 



Coral Hill, Ky., June 4th, 1878. 



TOWTV£.EY'S SITIOKER. 



LL bellows smokers that I have used are ob- 

 y« j V Jectionable in this respect, that, when hand- 

 ^=^ ling cross swarms of hybrid bees, they re- 

 quire an e.xtra hand, or else the operator must use 

 the bellows with one hand while he works with the 

 other. For several years past, I have used an ash 

 pail, setting it on a stand just high enough so that 

 the wind would blow the smoke over the top of the 

 hive; but as the hives were not all the same height, 

 it was necessary to have several stands to corre- 

 spond with the height of the hives. I now use a 

 pail made expressly for the purpose, which will be 

 readily understood by the following cut 



townley's smoker. 



Eight inches in diameter, by ten inches high is 

 large enough. It is made of sheet iron, with the 

 handle riveted on. The hook at the top is two inches 

 long, so that, when hooked onto a hive, there will be 

 the space of an inch between the smoker and hive, 

 while the curved piece of sheet iron, the centre of 

 which is riveted to the side of the smoker, near the 

 bottom, will keep that part also away from the hive. 

 Enough dry peat, or "marsh muck", or coarse, 

 damp saw dust, or flue, damp chips, can be put into 

 it, with some Are, to keep it smoking half a day at a 

 time, and it is always ready for use. All that is 

 necessary is to hang it on the windward side of the 

 hive, stand on the opposite side, and go right to work. 



Tompkins, Jackson Co., Mich. J. H. Townley. 



I have many times noticed the same ob- 

 jection to the bellows smokers that you men- 

 tion, friend Townley, and this is one reason 

 Avhy I have made the fire pot of ours large, 

 so that it might be placed on one corner of 

 the hive, and keep a small cloud of smoke 

 in the air, over the hive. One great objec- 

 tion to an open fire pot is that bees often fall 

 into the fire; and to obviate this, I have ta- 

 ken the liberty to add a wire cloth cover to 

 the Townley smoker, as seen in the cut. To 

 make the implement lighter, I would have 

 it made of tin, instead of sheet iron, and if 

 it is kept somewhere out of th3 rain^as, of 

 course, it always should be in any case, it 

 will keep nice, and last a long while. The 

 greatest objection to these smokers is, as 

 mentioned in the A IJ i\ tliat ones eyes are 

 always liable to be smoked in a way that is, 

 to me, more annoying than an occasional 

 sting; for the wind is rarely so accommoda- 

 ting as to blow the smoke just where want- 

 ed, and no where else. For all this, 1 pre- 

 sume there are many of you. who will prefer 

 sucli a smoker to any other kind. 



