THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



155 



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Selected Articles. 



AND EDITORIAL COMMENTS. 



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PROGNOSTICATING THL HONLY- 

 FLOW. 



The Yield from White Clover Comes 



from Plants Started the Previous 



Year, Hence a Drouth Means no 



Honey the Next Year. 



To Virgil Weaver of Richmond, Ken- 

 tucky, belongs the honor of having ob- 

 served and reasoned until he discovered 

 that the crop of honey furnished by 

 white clover comes from plants that 

 start from seed the previous year; hence, 

 a drouth that prevents the germination 

 of the seed and the proper growth of 

 these young plants, means no honey the 

 succeeding year. For several years he 

 has been watching the weather conditions, 

 especially the amount of rainfall, in the 

 different sections of the clover belt, and 

 then prognosticating the honey flow for 

 the next year. So far, he has not failed. 

 In a recent issue of Gleanings, he gives a 

 little history of his making of this dis- 

 covery, and also tells us that we may 

 look for a bumper crop this year. Here 

 is what he says: 



I began bee keeping in 1S93. 1 had 

 read Root's ABC, Doolittle on queen- 

 rearing, the bee journals two years, and 

 had studied bees nearly all my life. I 

 ordered 25 hives from the Root Co., and 

 purchased ten colonies of black bees in 

 box hives; transferred them to eight- 

 frame hives and patiently waited for the 

 honey flow. Very little clover showed 

 up; no honey was harvested; so by study- 

 ing the bee periodicals closely 1 came to 

 the conclusion that the clover had winter- 

 killed. When 1394 came I had 17 good 

 colonies. We had a very mild winter, so 

 1 felt pretty sure that the honey flow 

 would be good. The conditions in the 

 spring being very favorable for the 

 growth of white clover, I could not see 



why the honey failed. Then l!S95 and 

 1896 gave the same results. Four 

 failures in succession reduced my bee 

 fever to the 80's, and I was just about 

 ready to give up. One thing 1 had 

 noticed was that, preceding each of the 

 years mentioned, it had run from very 

 dry to moderately dry. especially in July 

 and August. The year 1896 changed 

 the program exactly. We had a dry 

 spring; July gave a rainfall of 8 inches: 

 August more than 6, and September 

 was little better, giving about 5 in. The 

 winter following was about normal; the 

 spring of 1897 was very favorable, and 

 the honey secured from white clover 

 averaged 150 lbs. per colony. The year 

 1 898 gave 1 00 lbs. per colony, and 1 899 

 gave 300 lbs.; the winter of 1898 was 

 the coldest on record in my locality, 

 zero weather extending into March, 

 freezing and thawing continually. This 

 300 pound yield after so severe a winter 

 was a little contrary to the teaching of 

 most of the old bee keepers, and right 

 here I began watching for the combina- 

 tion that it took to make a honey flow 

 from white clover. Prior to this time I 

 shared the opinion of other bee keepers, 

 that conditions are nearly always normal 

 for a yield from white clover on Nov. 1, 

 and that the winter months virtually 

 control the honey flow. But by watch- 

 ing very closely, and also studying 

 Weather Bureau statistics, I have 

 learned that, if white clover is in a 

 normal condition Nov. 1, it is also in a 

 normal condition April 1, and that the 

 winter months have no more to do with 

 the white clover honey flow than Adam's 

 off ox. 



On May 9, 1907, 1 wrote an article 

 for this journal, telling the bee keepers of 

 the northern part of the white clover belt 

 that there would be nothing doing in the 

 white clover line that year, but that in 

 my locality, and the southern part of the 

 white clover belt, our prospects were 

 good for a flow. That year I sold 

 22,000 lbs. of honey from 180 colonies 

 of bees. To bear my former statement 

 out, N. E. France said that he could 

 count on his fingers all the parties who 

 had a honey flow that year. In the 



