704 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15. 



or if the joy of feasting on so luscious and 

 abundant supply reasonably accounts for the 

 peculiarity noted. 



The suggestion seems pardonable, that, in 

 view of so effective pasturage, would not al! 

 bee-keepers do well to sow abundantly of seeds 

 productive of so beautiful flowers as the poppy ? 

 A profusion of these glorious blossoms greets 

 the industrious each morning, more attractive, 

 in their various colors, than the rose. They 

 require no spfecial cultivation; any kind of 

 ordinary soil is available, and the results In the 

 bee- hive speak volumes in praise of the poppy. 



And lest me ask " ye editor" if the special 

 flavor Mr. Root noticed in Bro. York's honey — 

 regarding which Gleanings asks— may not be 

 solved by the suggestion just made; i.e., may it 

 not be the poppy that has given the honey the 

 unaccountably delicious " bookay '"? 



[It is possiDie; but I should hardly think 

 there would be enough of such plants to make 

 any appreciable flavor in the hive. It takes 

 acres and acres of blossoms to make any sort of 

 showing in the hive. — Ed.] 



HONEY FROM RED CLOVER. 



Qitestiori.— Reading in one of my papers not 

 long ago, 1 came across the statement that red 

 clover is a honey-producer, while I have been 

 told by my neighbors that it is not. Will you 

 please tell us which is right? I am a beginner 

 in apiculture. 



^4?i.s({'e?'.— Well, perhaps both, as ihey view it 

 from different standpoints. Red clover is cer- 

 tainly a honey-producer; in fact, I believe that 

 red clover gives more nectar than any plant or 

 tree I know of, not excepting that famous hon- 

 ey-producer the bassvvood, or linden. I never 

 pulled the blossoms from a head of red clover 

 yet but there was honey or nectar in them, no 

 matter at what time of the year it was; and the 

 result is always the same, year after year ; so I 

 think that the question should be settled by 

 this time in the fact that red clover always se- 

 cretes nectar, or produces honey, if you please. 

 Now, this fact does not clash in the least with 

 the statements of your neighbors who have told 

 you that the honey-bee does not work on red 

 clover, as that is what they undoubtedly mean 

 by red clover giving no honey. A plant may 

 secrete honey profusely, and yet the blossom be 

 so shaped that the honey-bee can not reach this 

 honey without the aid of some other insect to 

 break open the corolla, as is the case with the 

 flowers of the plant known as " comfrey," and 

 with the blossoms of the common whitewood. 

 In both of these the wasps and other insects bite 

 through at the base of the flower to get at the 



sweets, after which the honey-bee swarms about 

 these bitten flowers and collects what the wasps 

 do not consume. In certain seasons, and in 

 some sections of our country, the corolla of the 

 red clover grows so short, from drouth or other- 

 wise, that the honey-bee can reach the nectar 

 secreted by tne blossoms, in which case we get 

 large yields of honey from red clover, as was the 

 case in this locality some years ago, when my 

 yield from each hive averaged 60 lbs. of very 

 nice comb honey, after the basswood and all the 

 other flowers which yield white honey were out 

 of bloom. In other seasons the secretion of nec- 

 tar is fully as good as it was then; but the cor- 

 olla is so long that it is of little use except to 

 the bumble-bees, as wasps and insects do not 

 bite the clover-tubes. Any person viewing the 

 flelds of red clover at this latter period, with a 

 view of deciding as to the value of this plant to 

 the honey-bee, would be apt to decide that 

 •'honey-bees never worK on red clover." As a 

 whole, we can hardly calculate on much honey 

 from this plant, for there are far more years in 

 which the beesget little or nothing from it than 

 there are those when the hives show a gain 

 while it is in blossom. 



HONEY CANDYING IN THE COMBS. 



Question. — A statement appeared not long ago 

 in one of our papers, to the effect that honey 

 rareiy candies in the combs, the same being 

 made without any qualiticatlons. Is such the 

 case? I am sure I have seen combs nearly solid 

 with granulated honey. 



Answer.— if the honey is left in the hive the 

 year round, then the above is very nearly cor- 

 rect; but I have never, in my recollection, had 

 sealed honey away from the bees over winter 

 without its candying, except where it was kept 

 in a room kept warm by a Are all the while. 

 Now, while this candying of honey in the combs 

 is of no great disadvantage when such honey is 

 to be used by the bees for the purpose of feed- 

 ing, yet it is a great misfortune to have much 

 of it in partly tilled sections which are to be 

 used the next season as " bait sections," as they 

 are termed, when they are used to start the 

 bees at work in the sections earlier than they 

 otherwise would. Where thus used the bees do 

 not remove this candied honey, but, instead, 

 put the new into the same section with it, which 

 gives the section of honey, when completed, an 

 uninviting appearance, thus causing the same 

 to become nearly a drug upon the market. To 

 obviate this dilKculty, all the honey remaining 

 in partly tilled sections should be removed in 

 early fall, either with the extractor or by plac- 

 ing them over colonies which need feeding, so 

 that the bees may remove the honey and carry 

 it down into the hives for winter supplies. The 

 sections can now be stored away in good shape 

 for future use. 



TAKING SECTIONS OFF THE HIVES BEFORE THE 

 CELLS ARE ALL CAPPED. 



Question.— I am told that no section should 



