Gleanings in bee culture . is quiteequal to a natural win-ter - nest, with sealedstores of honey or syrupimmediately around andbordering that nest. Es-pecially is this true forcolonies wintered out-doors. But some one, somelittle time ago, com-plained that the powder-ed-sugar candy woulddry up, and that thegranules would dropdown Isetween theframes and be wasted;that at other times thesegranules would be car-ried out of the entrance, because withoutwater the bees would be unable to convertthem into food. Last winter we went to work making vari-ous kinds of candy—some with varying per-centages
Gleanings in bee culture . is quiteequal to a natural win-ter - nest, with sealedstores of honey or syrupimmediately around andbordering that nest. Es-pecially is this true forcolonies wintered out-doors. But some one, somelittle time ago, com-plained that the powder-ed-sugar candy woulddry up, and that thegranules would dropdown Isetween theframes and be wasted;that at other times thesegranules would be car-ried out of the entrance, because withoutwater the bees would be unable to convertthem into food. Last winter we went to work making vari-ous kinds of candy—some with varying per-centages of granulated sugar and honey;another with pure sugar and water, and theGood candy, to which reference has aheadybeen made. We consulted various candy-men, who suggested that glucose would makea more suitable candy; but knowing the oft-en dangerous sulphites in that article, andnot desiring to encoi;rage the use of it byany bee-keeper for any purpose, we did notuse any of it. Our candy-men then suggest- honey melted and. jntaining honey not suitable. Bees on bot- 1907 GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. ed the use of honey, saying it would make acandy that would be moist ant) always avail-able to the bees. We made seveial lots, asexplained, with varying percentages of hon-ey, and felt sure we had struck somethinggood. In the mean time we requested to test the same proposition. We alsomade other lots of candy with dry sugar andwater. These several kinds of food we gaveto the bees in the cellar. What was the re-sult? The candy that had been subjectedto heat containing honey seemed to give anything but favorable results. For some rea-son it seemed to excite the bees. Why thisshould be so when honey was a constituentin the Good candy we could not understandunless the cooking had the effect of makingthe honey into a sort of caramel—a substancethat is always harmful to bees. As Dr. Lyonexplains, this cooked-honey candy was verysticky, and ran down among the bees—and,such a mess!
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbees, bookyear1874
