1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



305 



the queen. I have tried this plan with six colo- 

 nies. In 18Sii I got both supers filled with hon- 

 ey — 48 sections. 



Another plan. As I am working for extracted 

 honey mostly, with three sets of combs, I made 

 the extracted bees feed the comb-honey bees. 

 In this case I don't wait for the section bees to 

 fill the combs to winter on, but put the sections 

 on earlier, and not have the combs above them 

 — just sections with the honey-board on top of 

 the sections, queen below the zinc in the lower 

 story. Give them all the sections they can fill, 

 to the very last of the honey season; then take 

 off all the sections and zinc queen-excluder; 

 put on a second story, and fill it with full combs 

 of honey from the third stories of the extracted 

 bees. This plan gave the most section honey; 

 but they are more liable to swarm. 



Bees could be worked on this last plan, and 

 then give them a set of empty combs, and feed 

 sugar syrup for winter feed. But for me I 

 like the honey best. I was forced to feed 

 my bees 14 barrels of sugar in the fall of 1892, 

 and that winter I lost lOO colonies of bees— a 

 greater mortality than any year before or since. 



Now, I don't know but the comb-honey men 

 will laugh at me, or at my way to get comb 

 honey; but I don't know any better. Remem- 

 ber that location makes all the difference you 

 can imagine. What is best in one place would 

 be folly in another. 



Platteville, Feb. 27. 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE TROPICS. 



SOME INTERESTING ITEMS KELATIVE TO BEES 

 IN GUIANA, ETC. 



By TJiomag B. Blow. 



Denr Friend Root: — I wrote you some months 

 ago that I was going to take a complete change 

 tnis winter, ill health having been troubling 

 me much for the past year; and I said that, if 

 I saw any thing of interest in the West Indies 

 or elsewhere, I would write you. You very 

 kindly sent me letters of introduction to all the 

 people you knew in that part of the world. I 

 received these at Trinidad, and you have my 

 heartfelt thanks. I was, however, prevented 

 from going to the larger islands, where those 

 bee-keepers lived. My route was to British 

 Guiana via Madeira from London, and I found 

 that very little bee-keeping was carried on 

 there — none commercially. There are two or 

 three bee- keepers in Georgetown, with small 

 apiaries, and their bees are kept in rough boxes 

 or rough hives, with American frames. There 

 appears to be a moderate yield of honey; but 

 owing to the great equality of the climate the 

 year round (the variation not amounting to 

 more than 10 degrees of temperature) there is 

 nothing in the shape of a harvest as we under- 

 stand it. The bees I saw were all descendants 

 of imported bees, and greatly resembled Carnio- 



lans. There is a wild bee here of the genus 

 Apis (about half the size of Apis melliflca), 

 stray swarms of which often take possession of 

 an empty box in an apiary. They, however, 

 yield but little honey, and are few in numbers 

 compared with a colony of common bees. After 

 seeing some of the sugar-factories here (for su- 

 gar is the greatest industry here, though at 

 present in a very bad way owing to the great 

 competition with German beet sugar, Aanyof 

 the estates being abandoned; for, though they 

 are in a high state of cultivation, and some 

 have upwards of $500,000 worth of machinery 

 in the factories, yet they are quite unvaluable), 

 I proceeded to see the gold-mines, which are 

 becoming quite a great industry. They are, 

 however, rather remote from civilization, the 

 nearest being between 200 and 300 miles up the 

 Essequibo River and its tributaries, most of the 

 ground they occupy being part of the territory 

 so long in dispute between Great Britain and 

 Venezuela. The only way to reach them is by 

 open boat rowed by (or, rather, paddled by) 

 about twenty colored men ; and as a great many 

 rapids and falls are encountered, it takes about 

 seven days to accomplish the journey. Each 

 day, when we halted the boat for the midday 

 rest, I went into the bush as far as possible, to 

 see what bees I could find. There were great 

 numbers of the small stingless bees (M. trkjona) 

 that store their honey in little bladder-like re- 

 ceptacles; and at one place I noticed quite a 

 number of bees, pollen-laden, at a creek, taking 

 water. They much resembled Carniolans, but 

 were fully a third larger, and much more hairy. 

 I was sorry that time did not allow me to trace 

 them to their nest. This journey, botanically, 

 was most interesting; for at the rapids, which 

 are the only parts of the river that support any 

 vegetation at all, I was able, during the time 

 the boat was being drawn up, or portages made, 

 to study the habits of about three species of 

 Podostomacea:, of which very little is known. 



Altogether this journey was a great treat. 

 The camping at night, our hammocks swung 

 between the trees, and the numerous campfires, 

 with the men cooking their evening meal, was 

 something quite new to me. 



Leaving the South- American mainland. Trin- 

 idad was the next point of call; and, though so 

 beautifully written about by Charles Kingsley, 

 in " At Last," yet I somehow failed to appreci- 

 ate it, and I was rather glad, at the end of 12 

 days, to make ready to depart. There are a 

 few bees kept near the town, and quite a lot in 

 Maraval, on the Mocha estate there. Their 

 owner is Mr. Watkins, who hails from near 

 Hereford, England, and I had a real good time 

 with him. Mr. Hart, the government botanist, 

 keeps a colony of the stingless bees (trigona) 

 near the door of his laboratory; and he told me 

 that at dusk each evening the entrance of the 

 hive was sealed up by the bees to prevent in- 

 truders entering during the night. Granada, 



