Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1881 — BEES AND BEE-RAISING. [ARTICLE]

BEES AND BEE-RAISING.

The stingless bees belonging to the genus Melipona have been long known both in Europe and in this country. It is doubtful about there being any plant that will pay to cultivate for honey alone, although there are many which will pay to cultivate for fruit and honey. Which will pay best will depend upon how the owner is situated. Comb honey is capped over by the bees just as soon as it is sufficiently evaporated so that it will not sour in the cell if the temperature is kept at 100 or 102 degrees, as that is just the heat of the hive when the honey is stored. A smoker is used to tame bees, in order that they may be handled easily. It is a pair of small bellows, with firebox and funnel attached, so made that it can be worked with one hand. Smoke, properly applied, has the effect of quieting the irascible little insects. Keeping bees in the old box hive is entirely out of date, and the sooner it is abandoned the better. The difficulty with it is that you cannot regulate the internal economy of a colony, but must leave the bees to do pretty much as they please. Bees need management, the same as cattle, poultry, sheep, hogs or any other kind of farm stock. The last bees to die in a colony are generally those near the queen. Their last feeble morsel is divided with their mother, and oftentimes her position shows she had survived her children some time. Before giving your seeminglydead bees up in despair, make one earnest effort to restore them and you may be rewarded by saving a valuable queen and colony. Everybody knows that hornets, wasps, yellowjackets and ali the varieties of wild bees will be incased in frost and ice for months, and as soon as warmed and dried will be as active as ever. But the honey bee is not so constituted. Her blood is warm, and her system must be supplied with food to sustain life ; yet during winter she lies in a semi-torpid condition, and may even seem to be dead, and yet be restored.