NOVICE S GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
HEADS OF GRAIN FROM DIF- 
FERENT FIELDS. 
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 
f fllENU me all the information you can on 
SP bees, as they have been my study for 30 
years. I have fed two bids. A crushed and 
one bid. coffee sugar ; I wish to know best 
preparation, and which sugar is best, and 
the sort of bee house you recommend. I 
find that strong colonies will do well any- 
where and weak ones do best in the house. 
1 used one gill of vinegar to 25 lbs. sugar, 
and 2 h gallons water, boil and skim. Will 
that candy if not used up before spring? 
,1. Harris, Montville, W. Va. 
Answers. — We have used the recipe as 
given in our circular, for the past G years, 
more or less, with uniform success ; and a 
friend near us has this fall fed a bbl. of 
coffee sugar by simply pouring boiling 
water on it, and nothing more. The bees 
have sealed up the greater part of it, and 
all is well so far. Will report further in 
spring. We have no doubt your recipe will 
be all right, if fed early enough, but why so 
much water? Full directions will be given 
in our next, for building for winter, to be 
used as honey houses in summer. We | 
think there can be no danger of candying, ■ 
but your syrup may spur if fed too late to j 
he sealed up. (See problems. ) 
In answer to Mr. Eli Coble, Cornersville, 
Tenn., we reply that R. R. Murphey’s ex- 
tractor comes nearer to what is wanted 
than any we know of. Have them made to 
take the frames the largest way up and 
down, and have the can as small as can he 
and revolve the combs not more than It) 
inches from each other, and have him leave 
off all the wood work, so that it can he fix- 
mi over the bung of a barrel. (See pro- 
blems.) 
G. E. Corbin, St. Johns, Mich., asks : 
“Is not 9J inch frame too shallow to econo- 
mize heat to the best advantage in winter- 
ing, and for spring brood rearing?” Opr 
experience is most strongly in favor ol 
shallow frames for the very reason you 
mentioned. See American Her Journal, 
page lOd, Vol. VI, and page 271, June, 
72, and problems. 
“Do you use any honey board ?"— Never 
except the cloth quilt. “Are not frames 
18x0 inches or thereabouts, of on awkward 
shape to use in extractors?" — Quite the 
contrary, see a former question. “Do you 
place the boxes at the side or on top of 
frames?” For box honey make the dollar 
hive we have recommended in our circular, 
of double the width and put on a second 
story. Now put the bees on ten combs 
placed in the center below, and put your 
boxes on each side and above a la Quinby’s 
hive. If you can raise bees enough, all the 
boxes will be filled probably, but you would 
certainly get more honey to let the bees 
fill frames if room be given them gradually 
as they can use it, and then when you get 
nice combs in all 40 frames, it seems such 
a waste to destroy them that we should ad- 
vise taking out the honey with the extract- 
or, and returning them to be filled again ; 
which will be done in one-fourth the time it 
would take to build new ones. Such a hive 
should be made for about one-half more 
expense than $1.00 hives, and affords every 
facility for working frames spread out 
horizontally, or for getting enormous yields 
of box honey with powerful colonies, or 
those made so by taking brood from other 
stocks. 
"Will not extracted honey soon become 
unsalable, or at least at a paying price? 
It is certainly much thinner, watery, more 
liable to ferment in quantities, etc., etc., 
and I notice that while it is quoted at 13c, 
it is claimed that box honey sells as high as 
30, 40, and sometimes 50c.” 
Do not extract the honey until the bees 
begin sealing it, and it will be precisely like 
that in the comb. Whenever you can dis- 
tinguish any difference in taste, it indicates 
that the honey has not been fully ripened 
in the hive. Small quantities that have 
been extracted too soon, may be ripened 
by placing in shallow pans in an oven. No 
Apiarian should make the blunder more 
than once. Extracted honey, too, retails 
in some places for 30 or 40c. (See honey 
page). 
“Am I to understand that any swarm of 
bees will take up and deposit 25 lbs. of 
syrup in ten hours?” Many report thut 
they do not, but ours do even better when 
we have a full colony of Italians, weather 
warm, and syrup warm, and feeder on the 
frames directly over the cluster. 
“When you have a colony large enough 
to need two or three stories in the summer, 
do you force them all into one to winter?" 
Sometimes, but they have required more 
food, and were no better in spring than 
those with fewer bees, and now we take 
brood from them after the working season, 
for others that may need it, or to make new 
| colonies. 
Henry Palmer, of Hart, Michigan, writes : 
j “That swarm that had given us 400 lbs. 
when 1 wrote you, have since given us 100 
I lbs. fall honey, making a good 500 in all. 
' Our surplus will not come much, if any, 
short of 3000 from 11 swarms, no increase 
1 of swarms." As Mr. Palmer has given us 
one of the best reports ever made in bee 
| culture, will he be so kind as to describe his 
\ hive and mode of working. He adds fur- 
ther : 
“How do you keep the bees from gluing 
the upper and lower stories together, also, 
lower story and bottom so that you cannot 
move the hive forward and back to enlarge 
| and contract entrance. My bees glue them 
! so it is almost impossible to separate them, 
and how do you lift off the upper story 
without, strips and cleats around the hive ?' 
Mr. Palmer, we declare, we will put you 
in the problem department. Geo. Howe, 
M. D., away down in Louisiana, wrote 
us a pleasant letter last Mav,_ and in 
it remarked that a cloth dipped in 
