1882 



GLEA^^INGS I:N J3EE CULTURE. 



505 



you will have a great railldam, as it were, 

 that will stand any sudden torrent that may 

 come, and let it sweep over it without doing 

 any perceptible damage. What is wanted is 

 a good name back of you. 



TEXAS — HER BOUNTIFUL HARVESTS, ETC. 



Surely Providence has smiled upon our Lone Star 

 State this year. Wheat, oats, ct)rD, cotton, and all 

 kinds of fruit in abundance; sujyar cane is looking 

 finely. I have lived here twenty -five years, and 

 never saw such a bountiful crop. A fine crop of 

 honey has been jrathercd in all the upper and west- 

 ern parts of cur State. Here in the southern part, 

 spring crop was a failure; my bees gathered enough 

 to keep them breeding up well, and now they are 

 gathering from milkweed and boneset. The honey 

 is dark, but very flne-tt.ivt)red. Next month golden- 

 rod bloom, and we are looking forward for a good 

 crop of fair honey. I have had several swarms this 

 month. This may sound strange to Northern bee- 

 keepers, but one can have swarms in September, 

 and they can gather enough to winter on. I am 

 now raising queens, and requecning all old stocks, 

 and can do it all through September and October. 

 We have a good market for our honey in Houston 

 and Galveston, and I have worked up a good home 

 market. I get, for 2 lb. glass jars, $3.60 per dozen; 

 in five-gallon cans, $6.C0 per can; 6-lb. buckets, fO.OO 

 per dozen; in 1-lb. sections, $15.00 per hundred. 

 Pure extracted honey is fast taking the place of 

 the adulterated syrups. 



Now, Mr. Editor, this may look like an advertise- 

 ment for our State, but I am continually getting 

 letters from all over the Northern and Western 

 States inquiring about our State as a bee country. I 

 take great pleasure in answering them all, and will 

 give to our bee friends (or any others) all the in- 

 formation I can, In regard to the resources of our 

 great State. J. W. Eckman. 



Richmond, Fort Bend Co., Texas, Aug. 33, 1883. 



fertile worker? If it was, she laid them as well as a 

 queen could. Will A. Hammond. 



Richmond, Va., Sept. 5, 1883. 



Seventy-five acres of peas ought to give a 

 crop of honey, if sure, it would seem. — 

 Buckwheat often fails to yield honey, and 

 the bees often fail to work on it when it 

 does, if they can tind any better honey else- 

 where.— I should say the eggs mentioned 

 were laid by a fertile worker, but it is a lit- 

 tle strange they should be laid regularly. It 

 may be there was another queen in the hive 

 that laid these eggs, and that she was killed 

 by the Italian queen ; but then, why should 

 they disappear from the drone-cells ? I think 

 it must have been a fertile worker's work. 



HONEY FROM PEAS. 



On page 459 of Sept. Gleanings you ask about 

 cow peas, or whippoorwill peas, as they are called in 

 some places. Here they are sown about the first of 

 August, on wheat fields, and plowed in to make ma- 

 nure, about the first of October. It is a good honey- 

 plant around here. The bees work on the fields all 

 day. I have noticed bees on the joint of the leaf- 

 stem as well as the flowers. The honey is a golden 

 color, and very thick. I shall watch the bees when 

 it comes in bloom, as there are about 75 acres within 

 a quarter of a mile of me. It will be in bloom by 

 next week. I have some buckwheat sown and in 

 bloom, but no bees on it. 



POLLEN FHO.M RAGWEED. 



Pollen is coming in very fast now from ragweed. 

 I was sitting down on the grass, near some largo 

 plants of it, to watch the bees gather the pollen. It 

 took a black bee ^M minutes to get his load, and an 

 Italian 4 minutes, but he carried twice as much as 

 the black did. 



FERTILE WORKERS. 



Last month I looked over a black hive and killed 

 the queen, so that I could introduce an Italian queen. 

 Two days after, I looked in the hive and found one 

 drone comb full of eggs laid as well as a queen could 

 lay them. I put the Italian queen in, and she was 

 accepted. Two more days, the drone eggs were 

 gone. What laid the eggs? Could it have been a 



GRADING SECTIONS, ETC. 



Would it not be well to have two qualities and two 

 prices on sections? My bees are still swarming, and 

 I have bushels of them. Suppose I report an in- 

 crease from 23 to 8D, and 3000 lbs. comb and extract- 

 ed honey; would it be necessary to back it by other 

 evidence? F. A. Ticknor. 



Austin, Minn., Aug. 14, 1883. 



We are now taking steps to have the sec- 

 tions for next year graded, for those who 

 wish. The price will probably be about 

 $7.50 for the whitest and most perfect ; the 

 old price of $4.50 for the medium quality, 

 neither the poorest nor the best, while the 

 culls will be only about S2.25. Those who 

 want them the old way, just as they come 

 from the saw, can have them at the old 

 price. — I do not think we need any other ev- 

 idence in regard to your report, friend T. 

 We bee-keepers are not disposed to be un- 

 charitable. 



A new way to bring a SWARM DOWN. 



I had a swarm come out while I was away, so It 

 went for the woods. But a neighbor saw them after 

 they had gone about half a mile; they threw dirt 

 and sticks among them, and yelled like so many sav- 

 ages, but all to no purpose. Soon the dog was no- 

 ticed (he is a hound); they took him up by the ears 

 and just let him yell, and he did, and the bees came 

 down in a jiffy, and were hived, and are now at 

 work. How is that? H. C. Johnson. 



Reesville, Ohio, Aug. 17, 1883. 

 You tried it, and the bees came down ; 

 but, friend J., how can you be sure they 

 would not have come down any wayV That 

 is, were they not just about ready to come 

 down before the noise V If friend Peters' 

 theory is the correct one, that they depend 

 on the sound emitted by the queen or scouts, 

 it may be possible the noise drowned this 

 note, and so brought them down ; but I 

 think we need to be slow in arriving at con- 

 clusions in these matters. 



I was beginning to need the section? badly. I had 

 nearly the last one on, with several swarms idle, 

 and bees gathering honey at the rate of from five to 

 ten pounds per day. Just this morning I took 77 

 lbs. nice section honey from my imported-queen 

 colony; have had several of her daughters do better 

 than that, but the imported queen's colony has been 

 kept back considerably by taking her brood for 

 queen-rearing. She Is a "boss" queen, and I want 

 another just like her. J. W. Keeran. 



Bloomington, III., Aug. 25, 1883. 



