1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



539 



takes pressure to get the bees once started to 

 drawing out the foundation. The brood-nest 

 must be literally crammed full of honey; and 

 even then this condition may exist for several 

 days, and the probabilities are that queen-cells 

 will be started, and that the bees will begin to 

 loaf and make ready to swarm; and by the 

 time sections are beginning to be drawn out a 

 little, these same loafing bees have got into the 

 habit of loafing, and the consequence is that 

 the colony does not begin to do what it might 

 have done had it had drawn combs. In the 

 production of comb honey under our present 

 method, it takes pressure to force the bees out 

 of the brood-nest into the sections. 



It takes a great deal of their strength and 

 honey, and the pressure must be great enough 

 to excite swarming before they will actually 

 commence. In a wild state, except in the case 

 of swarms, bees have to build comparatively 

 little new comb every year; and as soon as 

 honey comes they simply store it away in space 

 already provided. Now. is it not true that, in 

 the production of comb honey, we are asking 

 the bees to do very much more than Nature 

 asks them to do in their natural environments ? 



The Dadants run for extracted honey, and, of 

 course, give the bees combs already drawn. It 

 is well known that they have little or no 

 swarming. While their large hives in a mea- 

 sure check natural increase. I believe that the 

 drawn combs, empty and all ready for the in- 

 coming surplus, have more to do with it. 



" But," you say. "how are we going to have 

 drawn combs in sections?" Well, I would save 

 all that are unfinished, and level them down by 

 the B. Taylor method. But then, you urge, 

 those unfinished sections left over would not 

 begin to be enough. Perhaps not. Well, what 

 then? I believe that, in the near future, from 

 present indications, a foundation will be made 

 having cell-walls and bases, natural thickness, 

 the walls being %. % inch, or deeper. But for 

 the present I will not say any thing more. 



Later. — After writing the foregoing on the 

 value of drawn combs I find the following in 

 the American Bee-keeper, just at hand, from 

 the pen of G. M. Doolittle: 



Some have the idea that foundation Is preferable 

 to frames full of comb. This I think a mistaken 

 Idea, for the bees must consume some time in get- 

 ting the foundation woikedovitto full combs, to say 

 nothing of the expense of buying it, or the work of 

 putting It Into the frames. Foundation Is good in Its 

 place, and I use very much of it, but I have It all 

 fitted in frames, and drawn Into combs by the bees, 

 or have frames filled with nice worker combs by 

 the bees building the same. 1 can not see any sense 

 In melting It up, or allowing the moth to con- 

 sume It. 



Mr. Doolittle expresses what hundreds of 

 other practical bee-keepers believe. If drawn 

 combs are valuable in extracted honey, why 

 may they not be equally valuable in the pro- 

 duction of comb honey ? But, of course, such 



combs should be thin and as perfect as natural 

 combs. 



SWEET CLOVER HONEY AT THE HOME OF THE 

 HONEY-BEES. 



A SUBSCRIBER reading what I wrote editori- 

 ally in our last issue, on page .502, where I ex- 

 pressed the hope that sweet clover would take 

 the place of white, which has apparently run 

 out, nas written a protest against Gleanings' 

 saying so much in favor of what he calls a 

 "noxious weed;" and he further intimates 

 that, unless we quit talking about it, he will 

 stop Gleanings. In that case 1 do not see but 

 he will have to stop his journal, and, for that 

 matter, all bee-publications. They all recognize 

 that sweet clover is one of the best honey-plants 

 in the world, and they insist, on good authority, 

 that it is not a noxious weed — that it is easily 

 killed out on cultivated lands, and seeks only 

 railroad embankments, roadsides, and other 

 waste places, where nothing else will grow. So 

 far from being a noxious weed, it is now being 

 cut and used as hay. While it is not equal to 

 alfalfa, its near relative, as a forage- plant for 

 stock, it comes the next thing to it. It is true, 

 one experiment station has condemned it as a 

 weed; but it is being recognized, and is now 

 recognized by some of the best authorities in 

 the world outside of beedom, as a forage-plant 

 both for bees and for stock. It is true, our 

 domestic animals have to learn to like it; but 

 when they once acquire a taste for it they will 

 nibble it in preference to any other plant; hence 

 it can never be called a' weed in pasture lands. 



For the first time in our experience we are 

 getting what I firmly believe is sweet clover 

 in sections and extracting-supers. Our bees are 

 just fairly swarming on this plant along our 

 railroad cuts and roadsides. They are bring- 

 ing honey in slowly from somewhere, and we 

 can not find that they are working on any thing 

 but this clover. White clover has been a prac- 

 tical failure, as usual. Basswood promised 

 well, and made a good spurt, but dropped oflf 

 rather more suddenly than we thought it would. 

 While the sweet clover is perhaps past its 

 height, it will probably be in bloom in our 

 locality for at least^ two or three weeks, and 

 possibly a month yet. 



I notice one thing — that, after every rain, the 

 honey-flow- is increased; and when it becomes 

 a little dry the bees work the best only nights 

 and mornings. 



Sweet clover is surelv spreading all over the 

 country, and I think Gleanings and all bee- 

 keepers may be pardoned for speaking a little 

 in its favor, especially since it does not, except 

 in a few isolated localities, occupy cultivated 

 lands; and as it grows where nothing else will 

 grow except ragweed, it adds just so much to 

 the wealth of the country. I, for one, can not 

 help shouting for sweet clover. 



