744 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



are 100 hives, granting tiie weather to be eqnal- 

 ly bad, the produce must be at least 100 pints. 

 Estimating the number of parishes in Scotland, 

 capable of raising bees, to be only 800, the fol- 

 lowing calculation will give a view of the im- 

 mense quantity of honey that might be pro- 

 duced in ordinary years: Suppose J hive to pro- 

 duce 4 pints of honey, 1 hive in a pai'ish, 800, 

 produces 3200 pints : suppose the number in 

 each parish is increased to 30, the 34,000 will 

 produce 96,000 pints: but suppose (which is still 

 moderate) the number in each parish is further 

 increased to 100, the 80,000 will produce 330.000 

 pints: and 400 in each parish would produce 

 1,380,000 pints of honey: and 1 lb. of wax to each 

 colony would be 80.000 lbs." 



Mr. Bonner says that his own parish, in 17U4, 

 would have supported 1.500 colonies abundant- 

 ly. He claims that all of Scotland could pro- 

 duce two million pints of honey, a pint being 

 about a pound, besides 80,00O lbs. of wax. lam 

 confident that Scotland can do better than that 

 to-day. Can we have any statistics from there? 

 Some counties in California, if I mistake not, do 

 more than that. 



While Mr. Bonner does not seem to think it 

 would pay to plant or sow for honey alone, he 

 shows the advantage of raising some things for 

 the honey they produce besides food of other 

 kinds; and his views are sound, and as applica- 

 ble to this country as to Scotland. He says: 

 "Should we plant some trees, with a view to 

 assist bees, we have their wood: if we rear tur- 

 nips, we have their feed; if we sow white clo- 

 ver, we have the best of pasture; and if we al- 

 low furze or broom to overspread waste ground, 

 we can be at little loss, as even these have also 

 their uses by supplying us with hedging, fuel, 

 shelter for sheep, etc. I wish not to be here un- 

 derstood as if I meant to recommend the sow- 

 ing of large fields purposely with food for bees, 

 excepting white clover, which provides food for 

 larger animals." 



One of the advantages of cheap honey. Mr. B. 

 assumes, would be the manufacture of mead, to 

 take the place of ale and porter. Further. " A 

 weaker kind of mead, called bragwort. could 

 also be made of it. This is an agreeable whole- 

 some liquor, much esteemed by manv who use 

 it as a substitute for small beer. When proper- 

 ly made it will keep long; and when of a proper 

 degree of strength it is so highly exhilarating 

 that many persons have been sent home half 

 intoxicated with it." 



The latter part of that quotation. " sent home 

 half intoxicated." is a good reply to those who 

 would substitute the light wines of California 

 for some of the hi^avier drinks. The Spanish 

 have a proverb which says. " As well eat the 

 Devil as the broth h<vs boiled in : " that is, the 

 essential spirit of all sins is the same. Wheth- 

 er the persons who were only " half intoxicated 

 with it" were "sent home" on foot or on a 

 shutter carried by friends, I can not learn. 



Mr. Bonner is confident that 33,000 colonies 

 could be doubled for six years in the United 

 Kingdom, making 3.048.000 in all ; but as the 

 United States probably has not as many colo- 

 nies as that. Mr. B.'s estimate seems too large. 

 Nature has a delightful way of keeping things 

 to an ordinary level. Mr. B. was so desirous of 

 increasing the bees in Scotland that he regrets 

 he has not .f.'iOOO in cash to get a shipload of 

 them from Dantzic, in Germany. He says he 

 would rather take tliem 4000 miles by ship than 

 100 by land; but that was liefore railroads were 

 built. 



In speaking of the process by which bees rear 

 a queen from a worker egg by floating it in roy- 

 al jelly, Mr. Bonner treats the matter in such a 

 way as to make it intensely interesting; but he 

 seems to conclude from this, following vSchirach, 



that bees are quite independent of drones so far 

 as brood is concerned. All through the ages 

 there has been a disposition to throw a club at 

 the drone simply because it does not and can 

 not gather honey — as if life consists entirely of 

 something to eat. Where nature always pro- 

 vides something, we may conclude that its ab- 

 sence would render the chain useless. 



In the matter of candying. Mr. Bonner says 

 that honey in even the same hive varies great- 

 ly, some candying immediately and others re- 

 maining liquid till December. The latter kinds 

 have a slightly greenish tinge. 



No reference lo Huber is made in this book. 

 This seems a little strange when we consider 

 the fact that the fame of the blind Genevan had 

 already gone around the world. 



One of the most delightful things about these 

 old books is the froquent glimpse one gets of 

 life among what Aliraham Lincoln called "the 

 plain people." Now we find ourselves in the 

 quaint kitchen beside tne blazing hearth, melt- 

 ing wax; anon we are in the garden or flowery 

 meadows, or on the rugged crag. With such 

 books th(- past is still present, and old Father 

 Time stops by tln^ roadside while wp read. 



Medina, Sept. 33. W. P. Root. 



E. FRANCE'S REPORT. 



INDIFFERENT AVINTERING, BUT NEARLY TWEN- 

 TY TONS OF EXTRACTED HONEY. 



Such is the subject of an article \\hich may 

 be found in Gleanings for May 1,5, 1S93, pages 

 388 and 389. At the close of that article, April 

 30, we were in the midst of a snowstorm. Now, 

 I propose to give a report from that time on 

 until the present. At that time I was in hopes 

 of saving 400 colonies; but we dwindled down 

 to 333 with queens, and about 30 queenless. 

 Most of the queenless ones we built up into good 

 colonies; but we had to draw so heavily from 

 those having queens that it would have been 

 better if we had thrown the queenless ones 

 away. 



We moved all the bees from the Whig yard, 

 to fill up vacancies in the Adkinson and Gun- 

 lauch yards, so now we have yards instead of 

 7. Now, why did we have so much loss in the 

 spring? You will see by my spring report, 

 that, on April 30, we had snow and cold weath- 

 er. At that time the queens all stopped laying; 

 and, do all we could, we could not get those 

 queens to laying again for three weeks; and 

 the consequence was, when the clover com- 

 menced to bloom, all the bees were weak — few 

 bees in a hive, and many of the hives with no 

 live bees in them at all. We had a hard fight 

 with fate to save as many as we did. We fed 

 sugar syrup freely. If the syrup was put into 

 feeders right over the bees, they would take it 

 down; but there was no vim nor ambition 

 about them. We tried to get the bees to work 

 on the combs of the dead ones. No, they 

 would not do it; open up the hives, set the 

 combs out, there they would stand, with very 

 few bees about them. When the dandelions 

 opened out, then the bees woke up, and the 

 queens went to laying rapidly. The bees spread 

 out to cover the brood; and as the weather was 

 warm they increased fast. Dandelion blossoms 

 were very plentiful — the most I ever saw. We 

 took brood from the strong to give the weak, so 

 as to save as many queens as possible. 



White clover commenced to bloom about the 

 first of June; but the bees did not work on it 

 until about the 18th of June. We commenced 

 to extract June 19th. At that time the bees 

 had picked up considerable dandelion honey; 

 and as for losses of colonies, we were out on 



