ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



51 



Spanish needle in probably the ladt 

 thirty years. 



Mr. Stone — May be it made a mis- 

 take. 



Mr. Coppin — I have looked several 

 times and have, also, only seen one on 

 alfalfa. 



Mr. Vaughn — I think that the differ- 

 ence of opinion is, as Mr. Dadant has 

 said, there are three or four different 

 kinds of Spanish needles. 



Mr. Seastream, of Pawnee, a man 

 very well educated in bee culture, be- 

 cause he has kept bees ever since his 

 boyhood days — I think last fall a year 

 ago harvested something over fifteen 

 hundred pounds of the Spanish needle, 

 and I saw the bees working on this 

 Spanish needle; it was a bright yellow 

 flower; when the sun was shining, it 

 almost hurt the eyes to look upon it. 

 There were floods of it there, in 

 swampy land, along in the creek 

 bottoms, and the fcees worked good 

 upon that. 



There is a good deal of Spanish 

 needle around my home that does not 

 produce yellow flowers at all. I never 

 saw any bees on that; that has the 

 needles on. I am not certain whether 

 this yellow flower has needles, but it 

 was called Spanish needle there. 



Mr. Baxter — I harvested ten thou- 

 sand pounds of Spanish needle hOney 

 and I have seen the bees working on 

 it. The Spanish needle grows two or 

 three feet high. 



Pres. Dadant — ^Have you examined 

 those that grow two or three feet high? 

 They have only two prongs on them. 



Mr. Baxter — We also have the other 

 kind at hom.e; it is a plant that hardly 

 ever grows more than eighteen inches 

 and from that on down. I would not 

 say how many prongs the needle has, 

 though. In our locality they are rare — • 

 not many of them. 



Mr. Sherrell — I believe a person 

 might be mistaken in the prongs. I 

 have noticed Spanish needles, and ther^ 

 are two prongs on one kind very close 

 together, and on the other side there 

 is one prong. A person, just to look 

 at them off that way (indicating), 

 would think there were two prongs. 

 As far as seeing bees on Spanish 

 needles — I never did. 



I was working last fall, as Mr. 

 Roberts knows, out west of town and 

 there was a field that was covered 

 with Spanish needles. I spoke to him 



at the time about bees working on 

 Spanish needles; there were plenty of 

 them there, but no bees working on 

 them. It was in a field that had been 

 worked at one time, but had grown up 

 in weeds; it was damp and on a low 

 riece of ground. 



Mr. Vaughn — Mr. Riggs, a bee- 

 keeper near me, said that there has 

 only been one year in his location in 

 twelve, that the bees have worked on 

 this Spanish needle, and that was only 

 two days, I think he said that was Sep- 

 tember 25 th and 26 th. 



Pres. Dadant — I would like to hear 

 from L. C. Dadant. 



L. C. Dadant— I can say that this 

 year they made very little if any honey 

 from Spanish needle. Our honey does 

 not have Spanish needle flavor, but 

 there is no doubt that they work on 

 Spanish needle; take it where thero 

 are only a few flowers, here and there 

 — the bees don't go there, but where 

 there is a big field of them, that is 

 where you see the bees on them. When 

 they come in the hives they are yellow 

 and if you open the supers you can tell 

 that is Spanish needle honey; you 

 can smell it in there. 



Pres. Dadant — We might as weil 

 deny that there is basswood honey. 



Mr. Baxter — Within the last five or 

 six years the Spanish needle has 

 yielded very little or nothing, and this 

 fall, only a few days; that dry, warm 

 wave we had cut it short. 



Last fall in my apiary I was sur- 

 prised in finding two or three hives 

 that had Spanish needle — everything 

 smelled of the Spanish needle; the 

 comb yellow. Only a few hives had 

 it; in others there was no trace of 

 it. 



Up to five years ago I used to con- 

 sider the Spanish needle crop the surest 

 crop we had. 



Member — I move we adjourn until 

 half past seven o'clock this evening. 



Motion seconded and carried. 



Meeting convened at seven-thirty 

 o'clock and was called to order by the 

 President. 



L. C. Dadant — ^Wby can't we take 

 up the question of the National this 

 evening? Mr. France wants to go away 

 at eleven o'clock tomorrow and I want 

 to go at five in the morning. 



Mr. Tyrrell — I have been riding all 

 Isat night and practically all today, to 

 get here; I am tired. I do not feel 

 in just the frame of mind or condition 



