November 8, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
the bees can be extracted and that a portion of it is 
desiiable, this system gives him an opportunity of working 
for sections and extracted honey from the same hive at 
the same time. It can also be done with less cost and 
trouble than by any other system. 
HONEY STRAINER. 
After a good extractor or presser nothing is more 
essential than a good honey drainer, which also serves as 
a jelly strainer, and to be convertible into other useful 
household utensils. We have one composed of boxes with 
their sieves which serve many useful purposes, and the 
boxes hold jars, while they can be used as seats. One 
serves as a small press, while another is convertible into 
a capital meat safe. * Its panels of perforated zinc are 
portable, and moveable shelves hold honey or other pre- 
serves. It stands about 41 inches high by 20 inches 
square; uppermost is a common sieve 18 inches in 
diameter, the honey is first poured into that and then 
passes into a milk pan 2 inches larger than the sieve and 
on which the latter rests. The bottom of this shallow 
milk pan has a hole about an inch in diameter, which is 
opened or closed by a sluice at will. The honey passes 
* 11S P an another sieve of a finer work and 
wholly of wire cloth, standing also inside a smaller milk 
pan, which has also a hole and sluice. A third may be 
used if necessary. A muslin tapered bag suspended by 
hooks right beneath the lowest pan completes the arrange¬ 
ment, and nothing is more cleanly nor gives more satis¬ 
faction than this kind of drainer, as any portion can be 
examined without disarranging or interfering with another, 
and the whole thing is inexpensive. 
THE WEATHER. 
The weather, after fully two weeks of a night tem¬ 
perature ranging between 20 & and 25° Fahrenheit, sud- 
changed to a mildness of 63° in the shade on the 
27th October. The pleasant change was welcomed alike 
ly bees and bee-master , enabling the young unflown of 
the former to take a cleansing flight, and return 
to their hives in safety The mildness did not come a 
day too soon, and the colonies will be all the better, 
it enabling them to withstand subsequent severe weather 
and come out more healthy at the close of winter than 
they would had the favourable opportunity not occurred. 
As the mildness had an enlivening effect upon the 
bees, so did it act upon myself, and for the first time 
for some weeks did I attempt to have my bees well 
secured for the winter. It was late enough, seeing they 
had stood nearly bare but dry during the whole time of 
the cold an unavoidable mistake, but rectified bv prompt 
action the first mild day. Single-cased hives are either 
well packed between the hive and outer case, as well as 
on the top, or are wrapped on the sides with sacking 
covered by an apron of felt, and a good layer of soft 
material on the top, fully protected by a curved sheet 
of galvanised iron. The double-cased ones have it only 
on the top, and every colony occupies a full sized hive 
failed with combs. The custom of confining bees to as 
little space as they can be crammed into during winter 
1 cannot commend, and those who advocate the system 
have much to learn. 
SYRIAN BEES. 
Syrian bees still give me much cause for reflection, and 
those people who have had an opportunity of studying 
these insects, but neglected it, have lost much that is 
interesting. At the end of July I divided an old stock of 
Syrians after it had swarmed into four nuclei. The fully 
filled honeycombs were removed, leaving ten large sized 
393 
frames to be divided amongst the four. One had one comb, 
a second had two, a third three, and the fourth four. The 
last mentioned two I manipulated on the 27th, transferring 
he frames and bees from single to double-cased hives, and 
to my astonishment I did not observe a single empty cell. 
.Notwithstanding the lateness of the season, no less than 
six frames were tolerably well filled with brood in all 
stages. Five others were sealed to the floor with honey, 
and both lnves are much alike in all respects. I added a 
twelfth frame, and made all snug for the winter. One of 
the four missed fertilisation, and the other has been 
strengthened with bees from a Carniolian—it being pure 
will be kept for breeding purposes for another season, 
lliese cases give a fair idea what the Syrian bee can 
do. Taking everything, and the state of these nuclei 
into consideration when sent to the Heather, they have 
fai outstripped every other hive both in honey gather¬ 
ing and breeding. Whether so much late breeding will 
tell against the colony should a severe winter occur 
remains to be seen, but in their present state nothing 
could be more promising. 
THE DISTANCE BEES FLY. 
I have been much interested with the articles by 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper,” particularly that part 
speaking of the distance bees fly for honey. I quite 
agree with him in opposing the idea or assertion that 
bees do not fly more than two miles. I have written 
much upon the distance bees fly, and the absurd views 
of those who say bees do not fly more than two miles, 
ine present year my bees stood amongst fine Heather, 
yet at times they flew over it, and were seen gathering 
honey at a higher altitude by a thousand feet than 
where they, stood, and at a distance of nearly three 
miles bee flight. Between the shores of Arran and the 
“Holy Isle is a distance of three miles, yet the bees 
cross legularly, and when situated a long distance, 
too, from the shore. Lately, in the house of a clergyman 
I saw and tasted sealed Heather honey, gathered by 
bees nearly four miles from the nearest point on which 
Heather grew, and I have witnessed my bees often at a 
distance of nearly four miles working upon the Heather. 
When the Ligurian bee was first introduced here I saw 
numbers of them lying in a grocer’s window, three 
miles fully from where the hives stood. I have never 
searched for bees further fiom their hives than the 
distances stated, but I have known a few bees and many 
drones return from a distance of nine miles. We have 
it on record where black bees were standing seven miles 
fiom Ligurian stocks that the queen of one was crossed 
by an Italian drone. I could cite many cases of bees 
being seen five and six miles from where they stood. 
Doubtless bees fly longer distances than two or three 
miles either, but the question that affects us bee-keepers 
most is, not how far far bees can fly, but how far from 
their stands will they gather honey abundantly, or rather 
how far can bees be stood from their field of labour 
before they show signs of a diminution of honey. At 
a distance of between one and two miles from the Heather 
I have witnessed hives gather as much as those amongst 
it, but while this happened at one end of the moor, at 
the opposite one bees similarly situated were a lon^ way 
behind. ° 
When bees are a little distance as a mile or so from 
the Heather during fine weather I have noticed no 
appreciable difference in the quantity gathered from 
tiiose nearer it, but during showery and squally weather 
those situated nearest it had the advantage. A mile 
or two for a bee with an empty bag is no great task for 
