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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



A NEW THING under the sun is reported in 

 the French Revue. M. Gubler found wax 

 stored in cells; and samples submitted to the 

 learned Dr. de Pianta were pronounped by 

 him, upon careful analysis, to be genuinfe bees- 

 wax, bearing clear evidence of having been 

 stored in the cells by the bees. An unusually 

 abundant harvest is supposed to have some- 

 thing to do with the case. 



The smoker question doesn't greatly inter- 

 est me. For years I've been insisting that what 

 we wanted was something like the Clark, that 

 would let the whole force of the bellows go 

 without loss through the nozzle, but have a 

 valve to keep smoke out of the bellows. Theo- 

 retically, the Crane smoker fills the bill, and 

 in actual practice it is all my ''fancy painted 

 it." If it works as well a year from now, we 

 don't need a better smoker than the Crane. 



"I FULLY BELIEVE that the brightest jour- 

 nal, the one filled with the freshest and most 

 practical ideas, the one with a 'touch of na- 

 ture' upon its pages, can be made amid the 

 hum of bees and buzz-saws." Those are the 

 closing words of an editorial in Revieiv. As the 

 Review is one of the journals that might plume 

 itself on its freedom from the supply-trade, the 

 words quoted show that Hutchinson is either a 

 fool or the essence of fairness. I take the latter 

 view. 



HONEY FROM BASSWOOD. 



doolittle tells when it will and will 

 not pay to move bees to basswood 

 fields; how we may know in ad- 

 vance WHETHER BASSWOODS 

 WILL YIELD HONEY. 



A correspondent wishes me to answer the fol- 

 lowing questions through Gleanings: 



1. I am thinking of moving my bees this 

 summer a few miles to where there is an abun- 

 dance of basswood, hoping to secure a gi-eater 

 yield of honey than I at present receive, as I 

 have no basswood near me. What do you think 

 of the idea? 2. Are not the blossom - buds 

 formed on basswood -trees a few weeks previous 

 to the time of tiieir opening, so that I can 

 know by this whether there is a prospect for 

 honey from that source in time to make prep 

 aralibns for moving? 3. Are there any seasons 

 when basswood blooms in profusion, when 

 then; is no yield from it? 



In answering the first question I would say 

 that the plan is a good one, ana I can see noth- 

 ing against it, except the expense. I believe 

 basswood to be the greatest honey-producer in 

 the world, as reports of 10, 15, 30, and even a 

 higher number of pounds have been reported 

 from this source during a series of days, while, 

 if I mistake not, no such yields have been 

 leported for any length of time from any other 

 honey-producing plant or tree, although there 

 may have been reports of 20 lbs. from other 

 sources for a single day. If the questioner can 

 move his bees to the basswood' and return them 

 at an expense of *1.(X) per colony, it will be 

 seen that 10 lbs. of honey from each colony will 

 pay the cost, counting honey at a reasonable 

 ligure. if they should get that surplus. By 

 going back over my account with the bees for 

 nearly twenty years, I find that my yield from 

 this source has been 'not far from 50 lbs. per 

 •colony on an average. Now, if we call .50 lbs. 

 what we can expect one year with another 

 fro'ii basswood, and if it costs 10 lbs. of that for 

 moving the bees to the basswood, we shall have 

 40 lbs. left for profit; or. calling the honey at 

 10 cents per pound, as above, it would give us 



$4 per colony as clear money on each colony, 

 over what we should have had if we had not 

 moved them. So if 100 colonies are moved, we 

 have -MOO free of all expense for our undertak- 

 ing. 



In answering the second (question, I will say 

 that the fruit-buds and leaflets of all trees with 

 which I am familiar are formed in June and 

 July of the preceding y.ear; so the result of the 

 next season's honey-yield, so far as buds and 

 flowers are concerned, is assured nearly or quite 

 a year previous to their expanding. After 

 being formed they remain dormant till the 

 warmth of the next spring brings this dormant 

 life into growth. As soon as the buds unfold, 

 the latter part of May, then we can see and 

 know whether to make preparations for mov- 

 ing the bees or not. By examining closely, as 

 soon as the buds unfold so that we can see the 

 miniature leaves, we can find the bunch of 

 basswood buds at the base of each tiny leaf, 

 curled up and looking very much like a very 

 small fuzzy caterpillar. With each week this 

 bunch of buds grows, till at the end of about 

 seven weeks from the time the trees put on 

 their green In the spring, they open their flow- 

 ers, filled with nectar to invite the bees to a 

 sumptuous feast. Of course, a cool season will 

 retard the time of their blossoming a little, and 

 a hot season advance it; but the above is the 

 rule. Thus the practiced eye can tell nearly 

 two months in advance, as to the promise of 

 the yield of basswood honey. Providence giving 

 favorable weather while it is in bloom. 



In replying to the third question, I will say 

 that I never knew a season when the basswood 

 did not furnish some honey. The shortest 

 yield that I ever knew gave a three-days' yield, 

 in which honey was so plentiful that the bees 

 could not prepare room fast enough to store it, 

 with a gra'lual tapering off of two days more, 

 making live days in all. The longest gave a 

 yield of 3.5 days, with 3 of them so cold that the 

 bees could work only a little in the middle of 

 the day. The state of the atmosphere has 

 much to do with the secretion of honey in 

 the basswood flowers. The most unfavorable 

 weather is a cold, rainy, cloudy spell, with the 

 wind in the northwest. If basswood came at a 

 time of year when we were liable to have much 

 such weather, there might be such a thing as 

 an entire failure of honey from it. But as a 

 rule we have very little such weather at this 

 time of the year. The condition most favora- 

 ble to a large yield is when the weather is very 

 warm and the hir filled with electricity. At 

 times when showers pass all around, with sharp 

 lightning and heavy thunder, the honey will 

 almost drop from the blossoms; and even 

 when showers are present nearly every day, I 

 have known bees to do well. At these times of 

 greatest yield I have seen honey in the blossoms 

 after they had fallen off on the ground, so that 

 it sparkled in the morning sunshine. Then 

 this nectar is nearly the consistency of honey, 

 and not sweetened water, as in clover, teasel, 

 etc., which makes basswood doubly valuable 

 over most other honey-secreting plants and 

 trees. One bee-load of nectar from the bass- 

 wood, in a dry warm time, is equal to three 

 from white clover, or five from the teasel and 

 some of the other honey-producing flowers, I 

 have taken two or three stems of blossoms, 

 when the yield was great, and jarred them 

 over the palm of the hand when I could turn 

 two or three drops of nice honey out of my 

 hand. All of these facts point toward a suc- 

 cess in moving to a basswood forest, above 

 what it would be to try to do the same where 

 other blossoms were to be the source of honey- 

 yield. G. M. DOOLITTLE. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



