The American Apiculturist, Vol. 5

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Excerpt from The American Apiculturist, Vol. 5: A Journal Devoted to Practical Beekeeping And, again, in making this exchange, no handling of the bees or brood-combs is required. The labor of preparing and distributing the food is short, easy and not unpleasant. On the contrary, if the exchange of the sugar stores is to be made for extracted honey, the disagreeable and, without care, the somewhat dangerous work of extracting from the brood-combs, must be performed at a time when the bees have nothing to do but to watch for opportunities to make trouble, the marketing of the honey is apt to be disappointing, and at best there is no hope of profit unless it be found in what 1 would believe are exceptional cases, where the exchange so much improves the the qualities of the stores for wintering purposes as to give a probable success in wintering for almost certain failure. This brings me to what is perhaps the most important point in the whole matter, and that is whether stores of pure granulated sugar syrup are better for wintering purposes than is honey. I have experimented more or less for the last seven or eight years with sugar for winter stores, with the result that 1 find within me an abiding faith in the value and the necessity of sugar stores if we are to allow every phase of the subject except successful wintering to drop out of sight. In the fall of '84, I supplied 200 colonies exclusively with such stores, and notwithstanding the ensuing disastrous winter, when fully ninety percent of the bees in this part of the state perished, there was not a single normal colony out of the two hundred, that, so far as I could judge, did not winter perfectly. I expect sometime to be able to winter my bees perfectly and with certainty on honey, though I have not learned to do it as yet, but with sugar stores alone, I think I am warranted in saying that 1 can do it now with practical certainty. If 1 am correct in this assertion, it follows that there is a difference in favor of sugar between that and at least some kinds of honey for the purposes of wintering. What is the solution of this? I believe there are several reasons for it. First, stores gathered late in the season on account of the undesirable sources from which some of them are taken, and on account of the want of thorough evaporation are much more liable to fermentation than are properly prepared sugar stores. Secondly, many affirm, and I believe they are correct, that the pollen often found floating in honey, particularly in that gathered late in the season and but partially ripened, is a cause of discomfort to the bees and so a cause of much of the imperfect wintering. And then, thirdly, sugar syrup is in its nature much less exciting to the bees than an honey. Every apiarist who has fed sugar syrup to bees cannot have failed to notice that it is a much pleasanter labor than would be the feeding of honey. He soon learns that it is very much less likely to incite robbing than is honey. Bees will become blind with excitement over exposed honey, while they will work lazily and without emotion on syrup. When spring opens, you will seldom see robber-bees prying into the hives of colonies whose stores are purely sugar. Why should not these characteristics of honey and sugar have a corresponding effect upon the bees during the winter? I can conceive of no reason why they should not, and from my experience in wintering bees on both kinds of stores, am satisfied that they do. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com