Honey flow

“ At the beginning of a good honey flow the maximum of new work consistent with well-filled sections is desirable, while toward the close of the flow the beekeeper desires the minimum of new work consistent with sufficient room. ”

“ It is necessary that the beekeeper know what plants are likely to furnish the surplus honey and their approximate period of bloom so that he can determine the limits of the heavy brood-rearing period in order to secure the largest possible working force for the honey flow. ”

“ The new hives had recovered from their confusion and were settling down to work, making the best of what must have seemed to them a terrible catastrophe. The honey flow was so good, in fact, that the bees refused to touch the exposed pile of combs. When honey is to be had in the flowers, bees will refuse to take it in any other way ”

“ Whenever the combs of a top story are nearly filled, and before they are completely sealed, it may be lifted up and another story, filled with empty combs, placed between it and the brood apartment, and this may be continued until the end of the honey flow, and all may be left on the hive during the warm weather. ”

“ As was stated earlier in this bulletin, a colony of bees from one season to the next needs three things in abundance—room for the development of the brood, stores of good quality, and protection from wind and cold. In cellar wintering the protection is given by putting the bees in the cellar; the room and stores must be supplied later or the population of the colony will be reduced at the critical time of the honey-flow. If the early sources of honey are abundant, the amount of honey advised will not be consumed. ”

“ When one thinks of honey one instinctively closes the eyes and a mental picture of fruit trees laden with snowy bloom, of beautiful clover fields, of green forests in a setting quiet and peaceful, comes before the mind so realistic that the delicate perfume of the fragrant blossoms is almost perceptible and the memory of the musical hum of the little honeybee as she industriously flits from blossom to blossom, or wings her homeward way heavily laden with the delicious nectar, rests one’s jaded nerves. ”

“ We may well conclude that it is owing to the keenness of this sense that they perceive the presence of flowers containing nectar; and, guided by it, they wing their flight to distant fields where the white clover attracts them, or to more barren districts where the heath promises them abundant pasturage. It is very certain that the fragrant aroma of honey is at once perceived by them at many feet from their dwellings ”

“ This little flower closes, no doubt, to prevent its pollen-dust being washed away, for it has no honey; while other flowers do it to protect the drop of honey at the bottom of their corolla. Look at the daisies for example when a storm is coming on; as the sky grows dark and heavy, you will see them shrink up and close till the sun shines again. They do this because in each of the little yellow florets in the centre of the flower there is a drop of honey which would be quite spoiled if it were washed by the rain. ”

“ They stare amazedly round them, convinced that they must be victims of some mistake; and the mother-idea of their life being first to assert itself in their dull brain, they take a step towards the vats of honey to seek comfort there. But ended for them are the days of May honey, the wine-flower of lime trees and fragrant ambrosia of thyme and sage, of marjoram and white clover. Where the path once lay open to the kindly, abundant reservoirs, that so invitingly offered their waxen and sugary mouths, there stands now a burning-bush all alive with poisonous, bristling stings. ”

“ Who, in passing an apple or peach orchard in full bloom, has not noticed the delicious fragrance, which is undoubtedly honey, which has evaporated from the myriads of blossoms. It is very plain to the close observer that nature has placed in the cups of flowers this honey, expressly as food for the honey bee, and that it is in harmony with all her great and wonderful works. ”

“ The fir hastily replied: "There is no honey in my boughs, no virgin honey beneath my bark. Thrice in summer, during this wretched summer season a raven croaked upon my crown, a snake lay at my root, winds blew past me, the sun shone through me."
He goes his way, keeps stepping forwards, finds an oak on a trampled plain, makes inquiry of his oak: "Is there any honey in thy boughs, any virgin honey beneath thy bark to serve as salve for hurts, as embrocation for sores:" The oak made answer intelligently: "There is honey in my boughs, virgin honey beneath my bark. ”

“ These little lovers of sunshine contrive, through a constant and simultaneous beating of their wings, to maintain in their hive a degree of warmth that shall equal that of a day in spring. And they owe this to the honey, which is itself no more than a ray of heat which has passed through their bodies, and now gives its generous blood to the hive. ”

“ On the twentieth day it begins to thicken, and soon after becomes covered with a thin membrane, which gradually increases through the scum which is thrown up by the heat. The honey of the very finest flavour, and the least tainted by the leaves of trees, is that gathered from the foliage of the oak and the linden, and from reeds. ”

“ The workers fly off to the fields to gather honey from the flowers, and they also gather something else.”
“I know!” cried Russ. “Our teacher in school told us! They gather yellow stuff. It is called——”
“Pollen!” exclaimed Rose. “I know that.”
“Yes,” her father answered, “the bees gather pollen, or the yellow dust from the flowers, and by mixing this yellow dust with some juices from their bodies they make beeswax, from which the cells are built to hold the sweet honey juice.”
“But I thought you said only one queen bee could live in a swarm,” said Violet. ”

“ That goes forth through the summer day and sings.
And gathers honey from all growing things
In garden plot or on the clover lea.
When the long afternoon grows late, and she
Would seek her hive, she cannot lift her wings. ”

“ They expose the honey to frost for three weeks, in some place where neither sun nor snow can reach it, and in a vessel which is a bad conductor of caloric, by which process the honey, without being congealed, becomes clear and hard like sugar. ”

“ We know that honey is really “juices of the flowers,” which have undergone a wonderful change in the bees’ stomachs; and that, although it is very pleasant to the taste, it is not able to restore the dead to life, or to work any other miracles of a like nature!
There are many different qualities of honey, each depending on the flowers from which the nectar is gathered. There is, for instance, the beautiful almond-flavoured honey from the apple blossom or the dark and strong [94] heather honey. But the honey which is perhaps the most common and beautiful is that from clover. ”

“ For their pleasant slumbers they select the snuggest corners of the hive; then, rising carelessly, they flock to the open cells where the honey smells sweetest, and soil with their excrements the combs they frequent. The patient workers, their eyes steadily fixed on the future, will silently set things right. ”

“ Flitting about from tree to tree with great rapidity, they thrust their long extensible tongues, pencilled with honey-gathering hairs, into the tubes of many big tropical blossoms. The lories, indeed, live entirely on nectar, and they are so common in the region they have made their own that all the larger flowers there have been developed with a special view to their tastes and habits, as well as to the structure of their peculiar brush-like honey-collector. ”

“ In the meantime they carry on their works of nature and of art—they construct « 139 » new combs and store some of the cells with honey, and the Queen lays her eggs in others, just as in the other boxes. The fact is—the three boxes soon become as one: they soon become and continue to be of one temperature,—the same compound of the old hive,—the brood-cells are intermixed with those containing honey,—wreaths of pollen are: in every pile,—and animated nature is everywhere peeping from the waxen cells, in which nothing but pure honey should have been deposited. ”

“ The grass grew greener daily; tulips were budding; and the bees were gathering honey profusely from the pussy-willows. Alice and Carl went through the hives, cleared out the winter’s dirt from the bottom-boards, spaced the combs properly, scraped away excrescences of wax and propolis. ”

“ All through the seasons certain blossoms shall be brought by the different winds, but the east wind shall bring them in abundance to the trees and shrubs. Among the grasses, on plains and hillsides, flowers shall bloom as thick as hairs on an opossom's skin. When the sweet-breathed wind does not blow,—first to bring the showers and then the flowers,—the bees can make only enough honey for themselves. During this time manna shall again drop from the trees, and it shall take the place of honey until the east wind once more blows 13the rain down the mountains and opens the blossoms for the bees. ”

“ Leaving the filled top stories on the hives for some time permits the more complete evaporation of the moisture contained in the newly gathered honey, and by marking the stories the honey from a certain source, when the yield has been sufficient to get the combs filled and sealed, can be extracted by itself. ”

“ Man has already taken his share of the harvest. Every good hive has presented him with eighty or a hundred pounds of honey; the most remarkable will sometimes even give two hundred, which represent an enormous expanse of liquefied light, immense fields of flowers that have been visited daily one or two thousand times. ”

“ Alice also recognized it. Willow-herb—also known as “fireweed,” because it always springs up in the track of forest fires—is one of the best honey-yielding plants in America. It flowers in late summer, and lasts until frost kills it, secreting nectar heavily whenever the weather is at all favorable. A single colony of bees has been known to gather the almost incredible amount of four hundred pounds of honey from this plant alone. ”

“ They are then quickly in the fields again in quest of a fresh supply. Thus, throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, whenever the weather is favourable, and even in unfavourable weather, if they are much in want of food or other materials, to use the language of the poet, the bees are to be seen,
"Gathering honey from every opening flower." ”

“ The honey-guide is an extraordinary bird; how is it that every member of its family has learned that all men, white or black, are fond of honey? The instant the little fellow gets a glimpse of a man, he hastens to greet him with the hearty invitation to come, as Mbia translated it, to a bees' hive, and take some honey. ”

“ The honey-bag is as transparent as crystal, containing the honey that the bee has brushed from the flowers; of which the greater part is carried to the hive, and poured into the cells of the honey-comb, while the remainder serves for the bee’s own nourishment; for, during the summer, it never touches what has been laid up for winter. ”

“ The crop of honey is most abundant if gathered at full moon, and it is richest when the weather is fine. In all honey, that which flows of itself, like must or oil, has received from us the name of acetum.39 The summer honey is the most esteemed of all, from the fact of its being made when the weather is driest: it is looked upon as the most serviceable when made from thyme;40 it is then of a golden colour, and of a most delicious flavour. The honey that we see formed in the calix of flowers is of a rich and unctuous nature ”

“ Some have contended that bees cause an injury to all kinds of fruit, such as apples, peaches, plums, etc., by taking away the substance and sweetness, in the form of honey, which otherwise would be absorbed, and eaten with the fruit. This is a great mistake. The provisions of nature are wise in this respect as in all others. There is the strongest evidence to prove that honey, once secreted in the cups of the tiny blossoms, never returns to the flower or fruit, but evaporates and passes into the air. ”

“ THE sources from which bees collect honey are various and almost innumerable. Almost every flower, tree, plant, shrub and vine, in field, forest, pasture and garden yield honey to some extent. White clover is, perhaps, the greatest source of honey in the New England and Middle States, it being found in a greater or less extent in almost every field and pasture. South and West there is, in many localities, a profusion of wild flowers, producing considerable quantities of honey. ”

“ Such flowers are, also, for the most part, inconspicuous; while those which need the agency of insects to aid in their reproduction are bright in colour, sweet in perfume, and more or less prolific in honey. ”

“ Nothing has yet been brought forward to refute the theory that the ripening of honey, as previously stated, is simply a mechanical process—evaporating the surplus moisture by means of heat, whether inside or outside the hive. ”

“ There is little doubt that the colours of honey from different localities vary according to the prevalence of flowers most frequently visited by the bees. Its aroma and taste are influenced, as we might suppose, by the same circumstances. As a natural result, we find also that the excellence of the liquid depends much on the season at which it is collected. The primest is the produce of the early summer. That which is stored in spring excels what is gleaned in autumn. ”

“ It being, consequently, unnecessary for them to lay up a store of provision in a climate where there are flowers all the year round, their honey is small in quantity; while, from the quality of the vegetation, it is naturally of much inferior flavor to that of higher latitudes. ”

“ Then as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to the lower flowers on another plant, and fertilize them; and thus, as she goes her rounds and adds to her store of honey, she continually fertilizes fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of autumnal spiranthes, which will yield honey to future generations of bees. ”