1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



CONVERSATIONS WITH 

 DOOLITTLE 



AT Borodino, New York. 



THE VARIATION IN THE BLOSSOMING OF THE 

 BASSWOOnS. 



It was with more than usual interest that 

 I read what Messrs. W. J. Green and A. I. 

 Root had to say about the bass^voods on page 

 442 of the July 15th number of Gleamngs, as 

 I have been brought up with the basswoods 

 during the whole of the 63 years of my life. 

 Among the first recollections of the old child- 

 hood home is one of my father showing 

 mother a bunch of basswood blossoms and 

 describing their beauty and sweetness to 

 her, while the next spring a tree of this va- 

 riety was set out near the corner of the house 

 in which I was born. This tree is now some 

 forty feet tall, and nearlv or quite three feet 

 in diameter. Later on, rather built for him- 

 self another home, and in the spring of 1869 

 set out two basswood-trees about twenty 

 feet from the house, while in the spnng of 

 1874 another tree was set about 100 feet 

 away, at the roadside, as an ornament and 

 for shade to "any weary traveler" who 

 might pass along the public highway, as my 

 father always considered the basswood as 

 the prettiest and nicest of all trees for shade. 

 The two trees nearest the house are now 

 nearly six feet in circumference; but the one 

 by the roadside has not attained so large a 

 growth, being only about 4>^ feet around the 

 trunk. I have thus described these trees so 

 that the reader can the better understand 

 what I am about to say further. 



The tree first planted at my childhood 

 home is a mid-s "ason bloomer, and so gives 

 me a certain understanding that the season 

 for basswood nectar is hair gone; and during 

 all of my bee-keeping life of forty years it 

 has guided me in not expanding my opera- 

 tions for section honey, but, after this bloom, 

 to begin to contract the surplus apartment to 

 the hives so that the season would not close 

 by having a whole lot of unfinished sections 

 on my hands with only a few salable ones. 



One of the pecuUar things about the two 

 trees planteci in 1869 is that one of them 

 never blossoms at all while the other blos- 

 soms every year, and generally in the great- 

 est profusion, with bees at work on it at all 

 times when it is in bloom, while many times 

 the tree at the old homestead will not have 

 a bee on it, and that with the old homestead 

 not 400 feet away. But the part which will 

 interest Messrs. Green and Root is this: That 

 profuse-blooming and always nectar-secret- 

 mgtree is the earliest bloomer of all the bass- 

 woods about here, so all I have to do is to 

 step out 20 feet from the door of the house 

 to know when the earliest nectar from bass- 

 wood can come in the hive. I notice that 

 Mr. Green »ays that the European linden 

 was in full bloom at Wooster, Onio, on July 



5, while Mr. Root says that the common bass- 

 wood was in bloom at Medina, Ohio, on July 



6. Well, this very earliest-blooming tree 



opened its very first buds on July 12, and 

 was not in full bloum until July 16, 17. 



By looking at my atlas I f nd that Wooster, 

 Ohio, is about 15 miles south of latitude 41, 

 and that Medina is about 10 milf^s; north of 

 the same parallel, while I am ahout 10 miles 

 south of parallf 1 43: hence Mr. Green is about 

 125 miles further south than Borodino, and 

 Mr. Root only about 100 miles. It would 

 hardly seem that a uistance no greater than 

 that would allow of so great a variation in 

 the time of basswood bloom, and especially 

 as Mr. Gref n says that the European variety 

 io ten days later than our American. 



I wish to tell the reader of something a lit- 

 tle strange: That tree' set by the highway in 

 1874 proved to be the latest bloomer of any 

 of the basswoods hereabout; and now this 

 day as I write, July 24, it is bursting its first 

 buds just twelve days later than the very 

 earliest, so that I have right uniler my obser- 

 vation not only the first bloom but the last, 

 and thus during the most of my bee-kef ping 

 life I could tell at a glance about the probable 

 flow of nectar from me basswood, and govern 

 all operations with the bees in accord there- 

 with. Here I have a difference of 12 days 

 in the time of the blooming of our basswoods, 

 all, so far as I know, of the same variety, 

 while Mr. Green gives only ten days as the 

 difference between the American and Euro- 

 pean; and this difference is not on ace lunt 

 of the later-blooming tree gr jwing "in dense 

 shaded pieces of woodland," as Mr. Root 

 suggests, for all of the four trees spoken of 

 grow right out in "the open," separated 

 from all other trees of any kind or nature. I 

 have just come from the north side of a 12- 

 acre woodlot in which some 300 basswoods 

 grow, where I went before writing this, to 

 see if I could find any thing later there; but 

 there I found only two trees as late as the 

 one by the roadiide ; and as the earliest bloom 

 is gone and the latest just opening, with the 

 others varying all the way between, bass- 

 wood can be said to be " in full bloom " at 

 Borodino, N. Y., on this the 24th day of July, 

 while the ten day later European variety was 

 in full bloom at Wooster, Ohio, on July 5. 

 Surely this is a great and varied country, and 

 I realize more and more, as the time passes, 

 that locality does play a very important part 

 with those whose occupation consists mainly 

 of apiculture. 



ANIMATED EGGS, ETC. 



In adding a little further to the animated-egg ques- 

 tion, let me state that I have for years tested my eggs 

 in warm water, as H. F. Hart mentions on page 417, 

 July 1. All eggs that sink after a fortnight's incuba- 

 tion are of no value; but those which flott and are in- 

 dividually seen to wobble (not with any movement of 

 the water) are, of course, alive. A minute or two 

 should be ample time for the chicks to wake up, but 

 they generally begin to bob almost directly, and I have 

 thought the wetting good for them, so long as they 

 were not chilled. But by your instructions I have 

 made a "Root egg-tester," with which I have watched 

 a batch of eggs daily, right through the hatch, and it 

 is simply splendid, so I'll have no further use for warm 

 water in that direction. Thanks for that good article, 

 which is but one among many equally valuable. 



Auckland, N. Z., Aug. 16. S. C. RHODES. 



