540 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Nov. 



quite freely; but owing to wet and cold, no honey 

 was obtained from it. July 4th and 5th were two 

 very rainy days; and as the honey had all been 

 equalized, I found, on the 6th, that starvation of the 

 whole apiary would be staring us in the face unless 

 I fed my bees. Accordingly I purchased a barrel of 

 sugar; but at 10 A. M., the Tth, I found that they 

 were getting honey from some source, so 1 have 

 the most of the sugar on hand yet. The cool weath- 

 er had started a new source of honey, which proved 

 to be the wild mustard, which makes the faces of 

 our farmers look black hereabouts, as they see their 

 fields of grain a sea of yellow about this time of the 

 year. From the 13th to the 20th, a gain of from M to 

 1 pound a day was made from this source. On the 

 26th, basswood opened, being 10 days later than I ev- 

 er knew it before, and 18 days later than the avei- 

 age time of blossoming. At this time the weather 

 was favorable for the secretion of honey, the mer- 

 cury standing about 70° in the morning, and 90' in 

 the middle of the day, so that the yield was immense 

 for 5 days. Then came two days of gradually draw- 

 ing to a close, and our honey harvest was over for 

 1883. Although there was a large acreage of buck- 

 wheat, no honey was obtained from that source, and 

 for the fifth year I chronicle no honey from buck- 

 wheat, and class it as a plant of fickle honey-produc- 

 ing cualities, in this locality. All through the time 

 of b "om, the bees made a merry hum over the sea 

 of w ite blossoms, and brought some huge loads of 

 pollen; but there was not a cell of colored honey in 

 the sections to cheer my sight. As a result of the 7 

 days' yield of basswood, I took from the 30 colonies 

 set apart for honey, 1089 lbs. in sections, and 441 lbs. 

 of extracted, making 1530 lbs. in all, or an average 

 of 51 lbs. to the colony. My section honey was sold 

 at 17c per lb., and extracted at 10c. Besides this I 

 took about 500 lbs. of sealed honey in frames, to win- 

 ter my unite nuclei upon; but this will not enter 

 the report, as I report only that actually sold. In 

 1876 my aver ge yield was 50 lbs., which proves that 

 I have had one poorer year within the last decade of 

 years than the present. 



From the 15 colonies set apart for queen-rearing I 

 have sent out 197 queens. After uniting my bees to 

 where I consider them good for winter, I have 80 to 

 begin the winter with; teing the same number I 

 had a year ago. Upon footing up the total net cash 

 proceeds from my bees during the past year, I find 

 I have $833 as a year's income from 80 stocks of bees 

 for this, about the poorest year ever known here in 

 York State, as is reported by nearly all. 



Perhaps it may be interesting to your readers to 

 know how our report stands for the past 10 years, 

 for it is only by a number of years' experience in 

 any business that a true result can be obtained. 

 Our average yield for each stock In the spring of 

 1873 was 80 lbs.; in 1874, a fraction of a pound less 

 than 100 lbs. ; In 1875, a little over 106 lbs. ; in 1876, it 

 was 50 lbs.; In 1877, a little less than 167 lbs.; in 1878, 

 just 71 lbs. ; in 1879, it was 58 lbs. ; in 1880, a little less 

 than 62 lbs.; in 1881, nearly 135 lbs.; and in 1883, the 

 present year, 51 lbs. ; making an average yield for 

 the past 10 years of 88 lbs. per stock, flve-sixths of 

 which was box honey. By looking over my diary I 

 And that this honey has been sold at an average 

 price of a trifle over 30 cts. for box honey, the high- 

 est price (28>4c) being obtained in 1874, and the low- 

 est (10?ic) in 1878. Thus it will be seen, that if a man 

 keep but 50 swarms of bees they will give him 4400 

 lbs. of honey each year, on an average, accoiding to 



the above figures, which, at 30 cents per lb., would 

 give him an income of S880 yearly, which gives bee- 

 keeping as good a standing as nearly any other avo- 

 cation in life. G. M. Doolittle. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Oct., 1883. 



^h-»— »i 



RAISING PliANTS FOR HONEY ALONE. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH FIGWORT, ETC. 



JUST now I don't know of any subject ihat iuter- 

 ests me more than that of bee pasturage. I 

 am not yet certain that it will pay to raise 

 any crop for honey alone, but I am experimenting 

 in that direction. There are a good many in the 

 same position, but I don't know of a single bee- 

 keeper who has planted an acre or more solely for 

 honey, who can as yet give any definite statement 

 as to results. If there is such a person in this sec- 

 tion of country, I would give a good deal for a half- 

 hour's chat with him. Now, if each one will give 

 the results of his experiments in securing a growth 

 of honey-plants, particularly the failures, it will 

 benefit others and help them to avoid the failures 

 already made. 



So far I have experimented with figwort and meli- 

 lot mainly, and with not very flattering success. 

 Siill, I have learned something, and am not discour- 

 aged. My first trial was sowing in the open ground 

 in early summer, in good rich ground, a package of 

 figwort seed. Not a seed ever came up. Then in 

 the spring of 1881 I drilled in a larger quantity of 

 seed in the same way. Perhaps half a dozen plants 

 came up, and the ground was left undisturbed. Tbe 

 following spring (1883) hundreds of the seeds came 

 up, having lain dormant in the ground a year. I 

 hoed them out a little, but being kept very busy with 

 my bees, I left them pretty much alone, and I don't 

 think they' s'e done much. I'll go this minute and 

 see. 



Well, I've been out by the pasture, and I don't be- 

 lieve there's one plant now for every twenty that 

 were there. You see, the weeds came up thick 

 around them, and then when it became hot and dry 

 they just dried up and died. Those that are left are 

 weaklings about 6 inches high. 



Last fall I got a pound of seed, and sowed most of 

 it broadcast on a quarter of an acre of ground un* 

 plowed, which had raised a crop of corn. I have 

 looked over that ground a good deal, and don't be- 

 lieve I ever saw six plants on it. Possibly they may 

 come up uext spring, but 1 think I shall plow it up. 

 I found a few figwort plants growing wild last sum- 

 mer, and in the fall I brought home the roots and 

 set them out— about a dozen. They grew up as high 

 this summer as I could reach, producing plenty of 

 the little flower-cups, which, before the bees found 

 them, were full of nectar which could be plainly 

 seen, and easily squeezed out with the thumb and 

 finger. It was so sweet that I think it would require 

 little evaporation to make honey. Last March or 

 April I took a 3-inch pot filled with soil, sprinkled a 

 pinch of figwort seed on top of the soil, laid a piece 

 of paper on top to prevent evaporation, and set it on 

 the window-shelf near the stove among the house- 

 plants, keeping it watered. After waiting a good 

 many days, and almost despairing of ever seeing the 

 seed grow, finally two tiny specks of green showed 

 themselves, and proved to be figwort. 1 took off the 

 paper and the seeds kept slowly coming up till there 



