Hurrah for 1870, and the Honey-slinger.
The best honey season on record, and the most useful invention! Long live our German friend, who gave it to us without a patent!
The battle is past, and we can look back and see if the generalship has been, like that of the Prussians, well managed—or, like that of the French, left to manage itself.
I had two stocks last spring, and the empty combs from two hives that died about the first of March. The first swarm was hived on the 18th of June, and the honey-gathering on bass-wood closed July 26th—so that none of the young bees in new hives were then old enough to gather honey.
I have taken one hundred and eighty-seven (187) pounds with the machine, and on the 26th of July had from five hives, 228 lbs., or forty-five pounds each. They had gained forty pounds each, in thirteen days, on bass-wood blossoms. The best stock gained, 52 lbs. 8 oz. A queenless stock gained 33 lbs. 10 oz. The best day’s work, 7 lbs., Aug. 16. The best day’s work in June was Saturday and Sunday, the 25th and 26th—a gain of 21 lbs. 6 oz. on red raspberry blossoms, or 10 lbs. 11 oz. per day. I see that Novice reports 43 lbs. in three days, 25th, 26th, and 27th of June. As he reports bass-wood at its best July 6th, the flowers must be ten or twelve days earlier than at this place. So his best yield of honey, on the same days as mine, at 600 miles distance, was perhaps on account of the weather, or some electrical state of the atmosphere.
In June I took from my stocks what honey they had above twenty pounds each. While bass-wood was in blossom, I tried to take what they had above forty pounds each. The honey-emptier appeared to take away all disposition to raise a lot of drones in July. When I depended on box honey, the hive was crowded with honey before the bees would work in boxes.
As it took two pounds per month in winter to support a colony of bees, at this rate the twelve ounces of honey required to rear a thousand drones would keep a thousand workers four and a half months. I believe drones usually live about two months. So when Novice shaves off the heads of drone brood sealed over, he has already lost two-thirds of what it would cost to let them live; and the presence of drones might perhaps prevent the raising of more drone brood.
I would like to have Novice answer one question through the Bee Journal, and that is—Do light queens make better honey-gathering stocks than dark queens from the same parents?
Henry D. Miner.
Washington Harbor, Wis.
A charlatan is an impostor who lives by the folly of those who are imposed upon.
[For the American Bee Journal.]