1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



515 



and chestnut bloom at the same time, the more 

 showy flowers of the latter get the credit, 

 while, in truth, the honey really comes from 

 the basswood, and only a scantily furnished 

 supply of pollen is the sum total derived by the 

 bees from the long bloom, or "tails," of the 

 chestnut. He asks Mr. Benton, who referi-ed 

 to " chestnut honey " on page 254, to tell us of 

 the variety of chestnut, other than the horse- 

 chestnut, which yields honey. 



Perhaps, owing to the peculiar conditions of 

 last year's (1893) honey season I can throw a 

 little light on this question. By way of pref- 

 ace, I will say that the common chestnut is one 

 of our most common trees in this section, where 

 it attains a size and height equaling almost any 

 'of our forest-trees, the timber being used for 

 many purposes, and considered particularly 

 valuable for fence-posts and like uses where 

 lasting properties are a desideratum. Through- 

 out the range of pasturage within reach of my 

 apiary, and all through this part of the State, 

 are vast numbers of chestnut-trees which bloom 

 here early in June; and as I write, the whiten- 

 ing top of a magnificent specimen of this tree 

 is in view, though the bloom will not be fully 

 open for some days yet. 



Now, as between basswood and chestnut, the 

 trouble will not arise here in deciding to which 

 belongs the credit of a honey-flow, for I have 

 never seen a basswood in this section. We 

 hear of linn, or linden, in parts of the South, 

 but not here. When chestnut is in bloom, most 

 of our early sources of honey have gone out of 

 bloom, and later ones have not come in. Just 

 before chestnut there is, unless honey-dew pre- 

 vails, a loafing-time among the bees. One of 

 those times, bee-keepers know and dread, if 

 they have put off taking the honey already 

 stored until then, for it is a fight to the finish — 

 tent or no tent — getting that honey. 



Now, here comes a puzzle, if chestnut does 

 not yield honey. Just as soon as the trees are 

 white with blossoms the bees begin to hum, and 

 pretty soon they have assumed that frenzied 

 hurry and " get up and go " in leaving the hive, 

 and that peculiar " plumping down " on enter- 

 ing, that tells the tale of " honey coming in." so 

 plainly that " hefting " the hive is an unneces- 

 sary task in proving its increasing weight. 

 Meanwhile the apiary and surroundings are red- 

 olent of the pungentodor characteristic of chest- 

 nut-blossoms — an aroma unmistakable that 

 pervades the atmosphere far and near during 

 their bloom. Not only is this odor particularly 

 strong among the hives, in the air about them, 

 but it is more pronounced on opening them and 

 in the extracting-room, to which the flying bees 

 are attracted so as to be as troublesome as in a 

 dearth of honey. 



The conditions of the honey season mentioned 

 were owing, in part, to the succession of freezes 

 in spring which killed or injured the buds and 

 blossoms of trees and plants that furnish our 

 principal honey-flow of April and May. There 

 was no spring crop, the bees barely eking out a 

 living till chestnut-bloom in June, when the 

 only yield of the year was obtained in the shape 

 of surplus, and even that was lighter than 

 usual — winter stores coming later from bitter- 

 weed and fall flowers. This surplus was 

 unmistakably from one source. The only blos- 

 soms bees were seen on were chestnut. Hives, 

 extractor, and honey had theodor of that bloom: 

 the honey tasted, when new. of the same flavor 

 so strongly as to be unpalatable; and. even 

 when thick and ripe, and after candying, its 

 characteristic flavor was noticeable. My honey- 

 book of last year's date has this note: "June 

 l.> — Honey-flow began June 10th, from chest- 

 nut unmistakably, as odor indicates source. 

 Began extracting 17th; crop 4*)8 lbs." 



In average years, honey stored just before — 

 possibly a certain amount with — and after 

 chestnut, from other sources, and taken off all 

 at the same time, has not the distinctive flavor 

 so noticeable as that of last year; but I do not 

 remember a year when chestnut was in bloom 

 that the hives did not have the same odor as 

 the chestnut-blossom, and the honey the cor- 

 responding flavor if extracted at the time. 



Mr. Benton mentions this honey as light in 

 color in Carniola. It is rather darker than our 

 average fall honey here. In the fall it grows 

 thick, and is called "rich," and is much liked 

 by many, and candies with cold weather. 



In these particulars it seems to me we ought 

 not to be too certain we are right and somebody 

 else wrong. A plant or tree may be fruitful, 

 and yield honey in one locality, and refuse to 

 do so in another. Grapes vary in different lo- 

 calities in flavor, though of the same variety; 

 sometimes, even when within a stone's throw 

 of each other, owing to difference in soil. Cli- 

 mate affects color as well as flavor. In Doo- 

 little's notes in the]A B C book, he says buck- 

 wheat has yielded honey in his locality only 

 five times in 12 years; hence he gave it up as a 

 honey-source. 



So it would seem, in summing up, that, while 

 chestnut, perhaps, may yield no honey in 

 Woodchopper's section, it may do so in Carnio- 

 la; while as to its yield in Mississippi, so sure 

 has it seemed to me as a prolific and unfailing 

 source, that, if I had been asked to name one or 

 more sources of wide extent from which bees, 

 during such bloom, gather honey of distinctive 

 flavor as unmistakable as basswood and white 

 clover north, I should, without hesitation, have 

 named "chestnut" (June) and " bitterweed " 

 (Aug., Sept.), the flavor of both being alone 

 sufficient proofs — the last named disclosing 

 itself in the milk of cows early in spring, when 

 the plant is tender, and eaten by them, as well 

 as in honey from its blossoms later in the year. 



Pontotoc, Miss., June 3. C. P. Coffin. 



P. S.— A south breeze bringing the well- 

 known odor. I have just walked over to the 

 trees, and find the blossoms opening rapidly, 

 and the bees already thick upon them, and the 

 lethargic appearance in the apiary changed to 

 one of activity. Inclosed is a sprig. C. 



CAN THE BEES CHANGE THE SEX OF AN 

 EGGT 



AN INCIDENT THAT SEEMS TO SHOW THAT 

 THEY CAN. 



On page 385, near the bottom of the first col- 

 umn. Dr. C. C. Miller says: "Get clearly, then, 

 the idea that an egg that is fertilized as it passes 

 the outlet from the spermatheca will produce 

 a worker or a queen, and one not thus fertilized 

 will produce a drone. No after-treatment can 

 change its sex." 



I will not repeat more of said article. I be- 

 lieve Dr. M. to be correct should ive move 

 worker eggs to drone-cells and vice ver.svt; also 

 that a drone egg will always produce a drone 

 under all circumstances, and nothing else. So 

 far as I have observed, and several other bee- 

 keepers with whom I conversed and correspond- 

 ed on this subject, bees can and will, under 

 certain conditions, change worker eggs to 

 drones. 



In 1884 I start(>d in the spring with 20 colonies, 

 mostly poor hybrids and blacks. As the pros- 

 pects for a good honey crop were favorable and 

 the spring fine, I increased my bees to 80 colo- 

 nies, nearly all by artificial increase, raising all 

 my queens' from two tested queens. The latter 



