1874 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
115 
this section don’t like extracted honey, and my bees 
don’t like syrup too well; so I guess i will leave the 
honey where it is until spring. I will then extract 
enough to keep it from interfering with breeding. 
James Bolin, West Lodi, O. 
L— wrote Grimm and has just rec’d a letter from 
that gentleman stating that he has 1*2000 lbs. ext'd and 
8000 lbs. comb. M. II. Tweed, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Have taken lbs. of honev. 
.1. F. Montgomery, Lincoln, 'Tenn. Aug. 26th, 1874. 
Short and sweet friend M. but you don’t tell 
how many bees produced it. 
^ [For Gleanings.] 
ABOUT HONEY. 
-jjmlUKXD NOVICE ; -Wc have heard many com- 
5 N J plaints made about extracted honey put up in 
— v common glass jars, with corks or metal tops. 
Even “Novice’’ says in the last Gleanings, that 
honey which he put up last year, oozed out of the 
tops of the jars or candied during the winter. We 
once experienced the same difficulty but have since 
learned how to take care of honey better and now 
have no such trouble. The plan of extracting honev 
as soon as gathered, straining it from the machine 
into the barrel, and drawing it off at once into jars, 
lias caused much of this trouble. 
Before commencing to extract, a portion of the 
honey in each frame should he sealed. This may be 
taken as an indication that the whole of that yield 
is evaporated and ripened sufficiently to he taken 
from tnc hive. After extracting, strain it or not as 
you like; it makes no difference in the end. Just 
draw it off into buckets holding from three to live 
gallons each, and allow it to stand about two weeks, 
skimming it every day or two. Unless there is old 
honey candied in the combs, and thus mixed with 
the new in extracting, there will be no sediment. 
The skimmings will remove everything else, inclu- 
ding what it is important to have removed, namely 
t he little frothy substance which rises on the honey 
and which seems to be the cause of the fermenting 
and oozing out at the top of the jar. 
Evaporation takes place while the honev remains 
in the buckets which leaves it still thicker to bottle. 
Honey treated in this way will be of good consistency, 
clear, of better flavor than if put up without being 
allowed to stand and have the scum removed, and it 
will he wholly free from the tendency to ferment and 
ooze out, while it remains liquid much longer than if 
put up in the ordinary manner. 
A visit to the Apiary of a friend in Nashville, Tenn., 
reveals the result of the same plan, only carried a 
little farther. This progressive amateur bee culturist 
has some very line samples of honey which lie put up 
over three years ago, and which is now liquid and as 
clear as when put up. As he is too modest to state 
his method through tlie Bee Journals we think of 
making it known in some future article. 
Frank Benton, Edgefield Junction, Tenn. 
FLYING BEES UNDER GLASS DURING 
THE WINTER. 
d®)Y reference to Problem No. 8, (April 1878) 
ffnil No. 19, (Jan. ’74) it will be seen we 
have been much interested in the feasibility of 
taking advantage of the natural heat of the 
8u n, by cutting off the cold winds with glass 
sashes, as gardeners do in caring for choice 
plants and early vegetables. The only doubt 
that beset us was that it seemed somewhat 
improbable, from what we knew of the habits 
of bees, that they would go back safely to 
their hives instead of flying against the glass 
as they do in our dwellings. Our experiment 
mentioned on page 22 Jan. No., rather discour- 
aged us, but we have no south windows, 
therefore could not give the bees the full rays 
o( the sun. Friend Palmer, of Hart, Mich., 
succeeded better, and he sent us in May, a pos- 
tal card that we really believe has been more 
valued than all other documents rec’d on win- 
tering troubles. It would have appeared at 
the proper time but P. G. urged us to “go slow” 
this time, and if possible test the* matter our- 
selves before going into print with it. As 
natural pollen has been coining in ever since 
its reception no such experiment has been 
made. This is the precious document : 
I have had a swarm in a cold frame. Size of sash 
2 >4x4 feet, frame 3 feet high in front and 4 feet high 
at back or north end. Placed the hive close to the 
hack end, facing south, with a dish of rye flour on top. 
They worked on the flour and went back in the hive 
all right. Henry Balmicr, Hart, Mich., May, 5th, 1874. 
In the reports given of Mich. Bee-keeper’s 
Convention, May 6th, ’74, brief allusion was 
made to a paper from H. E. Bidwcll detailing 
something new in regard to wintering, but 
either the matter was regarded as unimportant, 
or for some other reason, nothing intelligible 
was made public in regard to it until the Bee- 
Keeper's Magazine gave the whole paper in their 
Sept. No. While thanking them for bringing 
forward a paper of such apparently great val- 
ue, we cannot sec why it was so delayed. If 
it is perfectly authentic, all of the various pa- 
pers on ventilation, diet, bcehouses etc., have 
been misdirected zeal. Again, in all that is 
to be seen on the subject, Mr. Bid well’s post 
office address is carefully suppressed. Is this 
characteristic of we Americans and our insti- 
tutions? If Mr. B. will himself state to the 
public that he prefers to answer no questions 
in regard to the matter, ’tis our impression that 
none of the readers of any of our Bee Journals 
would be so impolite as to intrude on him. 
We extract from the B. K. J/., the most impor- 
tant part of the paper as follows : 
“Having bought some bees last winter, which we 
were anxious to fly before putting them in the cellar, 
and having near at hand some empty hot-beds— which 
had been dug out in the fall for the purpose of filling 
early in the spring— we thought perhaps a swarm 
might fly in one ; something risked, something gain- 
ed ; so we put one in. The beds were roomy, 6x12 feet, 
so that four sash 3x6 feet would cover them. The 
depth was about three feet, with a slope to the glass 
of one foot. In about twenty minutes alter putting on 
the sash— it being mid-day, with a clear sky— the tem- 
perature arose within to 70°, and the bees commenced 
flying briskly and voiding freely. At night we found 
every bee had returned to the hive. ■ 
The next day being clear, we put in two more; the 
next four; and the next eight. These all returned so 
well to their respective hives, that we next put in 
eight, more, two deep. Being so well satisfied with 
the result, and having six of these large hot-beds dug 
out. we flew 111 stocks, as occasion required until 
spring. 
Tlie only caution I would suggest would be not to 
fly them too often, which can.be readily prevented by 
covering the sash with boards. 
Occasionally the bees will alight on the hives or 
collect on the glass, if tlie atmosphere gets hot and 
close within ; they can easily be dispersed by sprink- 
ling straw on the glass to shade the bees and cool oil’ 
the bed. A similar occurrence frequently happens 
out of doors, on a warm, close day, after the bees have 
been confined some time in their hives; they alight 
on everything, and remain until cold or hunger re- 
minds them of their home. 
The advantages accruing to this method of winter- 
ing bees are you can safely fly them at your pleas- 
ure; none are lost in the chilly winds or snow, or on 
the cold ground, which increases their value in our 
estimation two-fold.” 
From this brief paper we found it impossible 
to gather : First, whether the sun was the sole 
source of heat and these were only “cold pits” 
or “cold frames” as they are variously termed, 
or whether it was a veritable “hot bed.” Sec- 
ondly, did tlie bees remain in the pits or were 
they only lugged in occasionally from some 
where else? 
