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AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 6, 1901. 



\ Convention Proceedings. 



Report of the Minnesota Bee-Keepers' Convention. 



BY DR. L. D. LEONARD. 



The Minnesota State Bee Keepers' Association held a con- 

 vention Dec. 5, ] 9U0, at Minneapolis. The meeting was 

 called to order by H. G. Acklin, the chairman of the execu- 

 tive committee, the president, J. P. West, being ill,- and, there- 

 fore, unable tobe present. 



After preliminary exercises, Vice-President G. H. Pond 

 took the chair. The first business of importance was the 

 report from a special committee consisting of Wm. Russell, 

 H. G. Acklin and J. P. West, on the adulteration of honey. 

 This committee had collected samples of honey from different 

 parts of the State, and took them to the Dairy and Food Com- 

 missioner for analysis. It is due to this society, through the 

 efforts of this committee, that the Dairy and Food Commis- 

 sion have taken a more active interest in the suppression of 

 the adulteration of honey during the last year, than they ever 

 did before. 



QuES. — Is it well to extract all the honey from the brood- 

 frames at the end of the white honey season ? 



Mr. Turnbull would not extract from brood-frames at all ; 

 Mr. Shepherd said the same ; Mr. Perry would take part of 

 the honey out; Mr. Russell thought that in small hives one 

 should not extract from the brood-frames ; and Mr. Acklin 

 believes in extracting from the brood-frames, and that sugar 

 syrup is better for the bees to winter on than honey. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



This session was held jointly with the Horticultural Soci- 

 ety which was holding a convention in Minneapolis at the 

 same time. Dr. L. D. Leonard reviewed the literature relat- 

 ing to the mutual relations of bees and horticulture, and the 

 following paper written by Pres. West, on the same subject, 

 was read by Mrs. .\cklin : 



BEE'KEEPINQ AND HORTICULTURE. 



There are a great many things which are of interest to 

 the bee-keeper and horticulturist, and if I were present I 

 think I could say some things which would interest you, all 

 applicable to both occupations ; but to write them is another 

 thing. 



1 take for granted that every up-to-date horticulturist 

 believes that bees are great agents in fertilizing flowers that 

 are not capable of self-pollenization, and that they are a 

 great benefit where cross-fertilization is a benefit and is 

 desired. 



Honey, as a general thing, is secreted only in such flowers 

 as are incapable of self-fertilization ; while those capable of 

 being fertilized through the agency of the wind secrete no 

 nectar to entice the bees. As examples, we see wheat, oats, 

 barley and herds-grass, all capable of being fertilized by the 

 rustle of their stalks by the wind. All the clovers and buck- 

 wheat must be fertilized by insects. The poet puts it thus: 



" Bees kissing- the flowers ; they sip its sweet. 

 But make the buds more fruitful and better to eat." 



Prof. Bailey, of Cornell University, a very eminent horti- 

 culturist, says bees are much more efficient agents in polleni- 

 zation than wind, in our fruits, and their absence is always 

 deleterious. 



Mr. Morton B. Waite, of the Division of Vegetable Path- 

 ology of the Department of .\griculture, says many varieties 

 of apples require cross-poUenization, and the pollen must be 

 from different varieties ; and further he says (and from deci- 

 sive experiments), plant mixed orchards, or at least avoid plant- 

 ing solid blocks of one variety, and be sure there are sufficient 

 bees in the neighborhood to visit the blossoms properly. 



Mr. A. C. Berry, horticulturist commissioner of Tulare 

 County, Calif., has had great experience in this matter and 

 has an orchard of several hundred acres. He says that bees 

 and fruit go together ; that he can not raise fruit without 

 bees; and that he has them all about his orchard. 



A Mr. Mclntyre, in a horticultural meeting in California, 

 relates his experience in starting an orchard, which was very 

 large. It was started 35 miles from any bees, so far as he 

 knew ; when his trees were old enough, they blossomed but he 

 did not receive any fruit. As the trees did not bear fruit he 



was advised by other fruit-men and horticulturists to get bees, 

 which he did. and his orchard bore profusely, and he said he 

 had bees all around his orchard. Where there is a large area 

 of orchard, clover, or blossom^ of any kind, which require 

 insects to fertilize them. Nature has not supplied a sufficient 

 number of insects to perform the work, hence the necessity 

 of keeping bees. I have about four acres of strawberries. 

 In the season of 1899 and 1900 when they were in bloom 

 they were very fragrant, and as the weather was very favor- 

 able for visits from bees and insects, they were literally cov- 

 ered with bees, and my berries were never so perfectly ferti- 

 lized. Generally there are not many bees to be seen on the 

 vines. 



My market and money-making berries are the Warfield 

 fertilized with the Bederwood. I have the plants in rows 

 four feet apart and about two feet in the rows. I mow the 

 vines after the season is over, stir up the mulch and burn 

 when there is a good, brisk wind. Last fall, one year ago, I 

 put 48 big loads of rye-straw on my beds; the straw made 

 me S300. That is, I cleaned up that after paying for picking 

 at one and one-half cents. The crop was about one quarter 

 of a crop, and without a heavy mulch I would not have had 

 anything. It was so dry. We had no spring rain, and none 

 whatever until I was about through picking. I never saw 

 such a sight of blossoms, and never saw so much fruit set on 

 vines as there was on this bed. If the good Lord had given 

 me the usual rain in the spring I would have had an imtnense 

 crop. 



My land is a black, sandy loam, with clay subsoil, and 

 with 20od rains in April I can raise a fine crop of berries. 

 The Warfield set so many berries that but few matured, not 

 more than one quarter as many as the Bederwood. I have 

 tried, on a small scale, a great many kinds of berries, but 

 never any that will make me the money as the two-named. 

 My customers, as well as myself, prefer the Warfield, and it is 

 a wonderfully profitable berry on my land ; but the Beder- 

 wood, in such a season as this, is more so. It produced ber- 

 ries every day, week after week, when everything else was 

 drying up, and it looked for awhile as if the Millerites were 

 going to have things their way, sure. 



There has always been a great mystery in almost every 

 apiary, why one colony of bees should gather so much honey 

 in a season, when one right by its side, in apparently as good 

 condition, and having the same management, will produce 

 only about one-half as much honey. The learned editor of 

 the Gleanings in Bee-Culture, Mr. Ernest Root, thinks he has 

 discovered the reason, and I am inclined to think that he is on 

 the right track. Time will tell. To-wit, the difference in the 

 length of bees' tongues. In measuring many tongues he 

 finds there is a great difference in the length. In measuring 

 the tongues from Dr. Miller's two best queens — those that 

 produced the largest quantity of honey per colony— one meas- 

 ured 18-100 and the other 19-100; this is much better than 

 the average. A Kentucky man sent; some bees, and their 

 tongues measured 2U-1<jO and 21-1 00, and one measured 

 23-100. It takes long tongues to reach honey in red clover 

 blossoms, and in many other flowers. If it should prove that 

 Mr. Root is right, the man who has a queen that will produce 

 bees with tongues 23-100 long, or longer, uniformly, has a 

 Klondike right at home. 



Perhaps Prof. Lugger, of the State experiment farm, 

 would help the bee-keepers of Minnesota by measuring the 

 tongues of bees sent him for that purpose. This matter will 

 be thoroughly tested next season, and probably decided, and 

 if there is anything in it I would like to see some Minnesota 

 bee-keeper win the prize. 



I am often asked, Does bee-keeping pay? Mr. N. C. 

 Alford, of Colorado, says it paid him. He kept bees for eight 

 years and cleared S6,o00, after paying for all the bees and 

 supplies and for labor hired. He generally had 250 colonies. 

 He also owned 1000 acres of land and 500 head of cattle. 

 The alfalfa fields of Colorado furnish an immense amount of 

 bee-pasture, and Mr. Alford is not the only enterprising man 

 who has made big money in keeping bees in Colorado. 

 Twenty-four maiden ladies arrived at Denver on one train 

 recently to engage in apiculture in that State. 



In some localities in other States, during the past season, 

 bee-keepers met with great loss by having their bees poisoned 

 by those who sprayed the blossoms on apple and plum trees 

 when in bloom. This matter was thoroughly discussed, and it 

 seems from letters received from the experiment stations in 

 Missouri, Indiana, New York and Ohio, that such trees should 

 not be sprayed when in bloom. Laws have been passed in 

 some States to prevent the spraying of trees when in bloom, 

 and bees are visiting them. Spraying just before and just 

 after bloom seems to be sufficient. This is a matter that 

 should be understood by the horticulturist, and apiarist, par 



