189d 



GLEANINGS iK BE^ CULTUiiE. 



Eig-hth. Stoie can just beyond. 



With the above conveniences, with the help of an 

 assistant, we took off the hive and put in barrels 

 2r)30 lbs. in 5'/4 hours, or 46i) lbs. an hour. The ex- 

 tractor ia not a reversible. It holds four combs, 

 iwoon each side (not one on each side). I have a 

 light frame, a little larger than the comb, Yi inch 

 deep, with tin on one side and gauze on the other, 

 slipped in a groove 2^4 in. from the outer gauze, or 

 where the first frame hangs. The frame with the 

 tin and gauze has slats in the end for the honey to 

 go out, and at the bottom the tin Is bent, and the 

 machine has a strong gear, 3 to 1, with a short 

 crank at the side. I have one of those machines at 

 all of the out apiaries. You see, it does not take 

 long to get the wheel to reeling, after the horse is 

 taken care of. I have 600 colonies. 



W. L. COGGSHALL. 



West Groton, N. Y., Dec. 3, 1889. 

 "\'ery good, friend C; but it seems to me 

 that you and a good many others, even 

 many of the large bee-men, make a mistake 

 in considering any arrangement whereby 

 the honey must be lifted up, a pailful at a 

 time. 1 do not believe that 1 would submit 

 to any such arrangement, even if I had on- 

 ly thirty or forty colonies. Our extractors 

 are made with the understanding that the 

 honey-gate is to be kept wide open when- 

 ever the extractor is running. Now, the 

 honey may run from the extractor into a 

 barrel, tank, or large can, or any thing you 

 choose, placing the extractor on a platform 

 or big box, high enough so that it will run 

 of itself into a large receptacle beneath. 

 By all means, have the extractor screwed 

 fast to the floor or box. It has been said, 

 that we can not build om* houses alike, be- 

 cause no two people ever agree as to how a 

 house should be arranged to be convenient. 

 There seems to be a good deal the same dif- 

 ference in regard to extractors. Even most 

 of our great honey-producers have an ex- 

 tractor after their own fancy. 



FLORIDA. 



A REPORT FROM PROF. WEBSTER. 



We Started with 35 colonies at the beginning of 

 the year, mostly not very strong. The old honey 

 gave out early in the winter, and the bees natural- 

 ly dwindled away to small numbers. Some had 

 either to be fed or starve. Instead of spring 

 dwindling we have winter dwindling, which gener- 

 ally commences in November or December, and 

 lasts till January or February, according to the sea- 

 son. This refers to our own locality. In other lo- 

 calities the bee-forage varies, and there is more 

 honey gathered late in the season, which causes the 

 dwindling to come at some other season, if it comes 

 at all, and it generally does, so far as I have been 

 able to learn. Some localities are having a scarci- 

 ty just at the time when we are getting our best 

 How, such is the great variety of soil and vegeta- 

 tion in this State. Notwithstanding all that some 

 enthusiasts say about bees gathering honey and 

 pollen during every month in the year here in 

 Florida, I have satisfied myself from actual obser- 

 vation that many colonies are lost from starva- 

 tion. I have met several people who had increas- 

 ed their bees to 10 or lo colonies, and then lost 



them all in a single season. I have no doubt that 

 the loss of queens often contributes a large share 

 of the cause of loss, but that will not account for 

 all. We lost five or six weak colonies from starva- 

 tion during the fall and winter of 1888. It would 

 probably have paid to save them by feeding, and it 

 would have been done had we not been busy with 

 other matters; yet there is small profit in feeding 

 bees where 30 to 50 lbs. of honey is an average yiild, 

 and that worth only 7 or 8 cents per pound. 



HONEY FROM PINE-TREE BLOSSOMS. 



We generally get our first yield during January 

 or February, from the spruce, or scrub pine, as it 

 is called here; but last winter the weather was so 

 cold and rainy that we got nothing from that 

 source. In February we got some honey from the 

 long-leaved pine (PiriHs a)(st)-(xh'8). We could hard- 

 ly believe that the pine would yield any thing but 

 pine gum or pitch. Observation, however, has 

 satisfied us that it yields a very good honey, about 

 as light colored as goldenrod honey, and in quanti- 

 ties that sometimes give a surplus for extracting. 

 When the bees are working very busily on the pine- 

 blossoms, and filling up the hives with honey, while 

 we can find no other bee-forage that they are work- 

 ing on, we can only call it pine honey. 



ORANGE HONEY. 



This is our next yield, and often commences be- 

 fore the pine is all gone. It is liable to get mixed 

 with it in extracting, or with andromeda honey, 

 which comes about the close of the orange season. 

 Andromeda honey is about as dark as buckwheat 

 honey, and has a rather strong taste, that, of 

 course, deteriorates the value of orange honey 

 when mixed with it. Where orange-groves are not 

 abundant, and in full bearing, it is difficult getting 

 it pure; and for this reason, orange honey has suf- 

 fered in reputation, even among good bee-keepers. 

 Some of the leading apiarists from the mangrove 

 region, near the east coast, who are surrounded by 

 orange-groves, had never seen any pure orange 

 honey till I showed it to them last spring. Their 

 bees are near hammocks, where there are many 

 shrubs and vines that yield honey in the spring, 

 and there are too many bees to store much sur- 

 plus from what orange-bloom is in reach of them. 

 They will get more as their groves increase in 

 number and age. We have never taken more than 

 15 or 30 lbs. of orange honey per colony. New 

 groves are being planted, and old ones bear more 

 each year, so that the yield is constantly increasing. 

 The only way to get the honey pure is to extract 

 pretty clean just at the beginning of the orange- 

 flow, and again just before the close. The orange 

 generally blossoms in February and March. One 

 difficulty here in getting a good yield of it is in hav- 

 ing strong colonies at that time, which is at the 

 end of the winter season, when the bees are gener- 

 ally weak in numbers. Orange honey, when pure, 

 is as light colored as white-clover honey, very thick 

 and heavy. As to (juality, we are not afraid to com- 

 pare it with any known honey. The yield last sea- 

 son was very good, and many beekeepers in the vi- 

 cinity of abundant orange-bloom had a surplus of 

 pure orange honey, who had never had any before. 

 We did not get as much pure honey as we might 

 have done, for the reason that my son, Oscar B., and 

 I were off on a trip 300 miles down Indian River and 

 Lake Worth, camping out, and making botanical 

 and conchological collections; but if a love for sci- 

 entific study gives the bees a chance to run their 



