230 



July, 1916. 



American Me Journal j 



No. 2.— A Trip Through Texas 



BY THE EDITOR. 



MARCH 10 was the day set for the 

 first local beekeepers' meeting at 

 Pearsall, county seat of Frio 

 county, 60 miles south of San Antonio. 

 The State Entomologist, Mr. F. B. Pad- 

 dock, who had promised to accompany 

 us, was unable to leave the college 

 before the following Monday, so we 

 went with friend LeStourgeon and his 

 wife only. At Our arrival, the first 

 man I met, when stepping off the train, 

 was the president of the local associa- 

 tion, Frank Talbot, who turned out to 

 be from our county in Illinois. Both 

 he and his wife were as delighted as 

 we were. They invited us for lunch 

 before the meeting and we had a feast. 



At the meeting, which followed and 

 took place in the Court House, we met 

 16 or 20 beekeepers. The Texas sources 

 of honey were discussed. Besides the 

 mesquite, some of the leading honey 

 producers are the guajilla (huajilla, 

 pronounce waheeya), or zygia brevi- 

 folia, like the mesquite a mimasace;c, 

 producing fine white honey; the cat- 

 claw (Acacia gtegii), another shrub 

 yielding plentifully; the horsemint fur- 

 nishing honey which is called "a little 

 strong," indeed, and numerous others. 

 Of course, in the cultivated spots, the 

 cotton plant yields honey also. The 

 hackberry was in full bloom and bees 

 working upon it. I am told they get 

 honey as well as pollen from this 

 source. 



I asked a question which brought a 

 short discussion. What is the color of 

 beeswax when first produced by the 

 bees? Most authors call it "pearly 

 white," but is it always so, even when 

 the bees are gathering yellow honey ? 

 The beekeepers of the sainfoin dis- 

 tricts of France state that while gath- 

 ering that exceedingly white honey 

 their bees produce dark wax. The 

 pollen of sainfoin is brownish. Along 

 the lowlands of the Mississippi river, 

 during a flow of Spanish-needle honey, 

 the combs assume a yellow color. What 

 is, after all, the original color of bees- 

 wax ? 



Opinions were divided. It ought not 

 to be difficult, if the wax is colored 

 only after production, by the action of 

 pollen of deep shade, to make sure of 

 the color of the newly made scales. 

 Yet no one could speak positively. 

 Some held that, since wax is a product 

 of digestion, its color must be the same 

 regardless of the color of the pollen or 

 the honey. To this Mr. Talbot replied 

 that cows produce butter of different 

 shades according to the food they get. 

 He also said that steers fattened upon 

 corn yield white tallow while in the 

 steers fed upon cotton-seed meal the 

 tallow is yellow. Why should not the 

 bees produce wax of deeper shades 

 when they feed upon dark yellow 

 honeys ? This reasoning seems plau- 

 sible, and the beekeepers agreed to 

 watch more closely the newly formed 

 wax-scales and report in the Bee Jour- 

 nal. It is quite probable that we will 

 have to change slightly the description 

 of wax-scales as "pearly white," in our 

 text books. 



The foulbrood situation is well in 

 hand in Frio county. Mr. R. A. Little, 

 the inspector for that county, reported 



finding only two cases in 1915. But 

 sacbrood is plentiful at times. It always 

 disappears in summer. There is no 

 European foulbrood in Texas. 



The readers will perhaps remember 

 that in our February number the dis- 

 tance bees fly for honey was discussed, 

 and that Texas, with its extensive 

 plains, was suggested as perhaps the 

 most favorable to long flights. This 

 was a good opportunity for investigat- 

 ing the matter. But practically every 

 beekeeper declared that in his experi- 

 ence bees rarely went beyond a mile or 

 two though they can fly much farther. 

 Mr. Talbot mentioned having had seven 

 colonies at one spot which harvested 

 honey from the bitterweed, so as to 

 produce a surplus of that bitter honey 

 of 60 pounds per colony, while 75 colo- 

 nies, 1 '4 miles away, secured no bitter- 

 weed honey at all, even although the 

 crop of mesquite honey was about over 

 when the bitterweed came into bloom. 

 The statement quoted on page 49 of 

 February, that Mr. L. B.Smith reported 

 his bees as working, by preference, at 

 the distance of 4 miles rather than 

 within one mile of their home, was not 

 confirmed by any one. 



The cons;;nsus of opinion is that 

 bees smell the honey odor brought by 

 the wind. As the wind helps them in 

 their return trip, it was said that they 

 were most successful when working in 

 the direction of the prevailing breeze. 



"This," said friend LeStourgeon, "is 

 another evidence of the mosaics of Na- 

 ture fitting together so well. If they 

 went by sight the bees might fly with 

 the wind. When they had to return 

 against it, in a heavy honey flow, count- 

 less numbers of them would never 

 regain the hive. To my mind this is 

 one of the strongest arguments in sup- 

 port of the smell theory as against the 

 sight." 



The next day was spent in a trip to 

 Pleasanton, Atascosa county. As the 

 distance was but about 35 miles from 

 San Antonio, we made the trip with 

 Mr. LeStourgeon and his wife, in their 

 automobile. The day was fine, and we 

 stopped here and there to examine the 

 vegetation. It is astonishing to see so 

 many blooming plants in such a drouth. 

 In some spots the ground was covered 

 with a carpet of purple verbenas. As 

 they had not had any showers for about 

 two months and no real rain since 

 August (we were then in the middle of 

 March), it is evident that all those 

 plants and trees can get along with 

 very little moisture. 



Most of the cabins found along the 

 way are inhabited by dark-skinned 

 people. No rain seems to be needed 

 for the crop of little darkies or Mexi- 

 cans that swarm about those homes in 

 the brush. As my wife put it, there 

 were " more children than chickens." 

 Why do they not keep chickens and 

 pigs ? Because they leave home for 

 two or three weeks at a time and " go 

 fishing" and camp out, and they can- 

 not leave anything at home that re- 

 quires attention and care. There are 

 many lakes in the country and plenty 

 of fish in the lakes. 



We saw some daisies and phlox and 

 a number of other flowers. However, 

 we were told that the soil is compara- 

 tively bare, on account of the drouth, 

 as the land is carpeted with bloom in 

 ordinary years, at this date. We saw 



bull-nettles with fine blooms. These 

 plants are armed with spurs about one- 

 half inch long and a little bag of poison 

 at each spur, which causes more pain 

 than a beesting. The seed is large, 

 shaped like a castor bean and edible, 

 with rich nutty flavor. They are very 

 plentiful, but the barefoot urchins ap- 

 parently fear neither these nor the rat- 

 tlesnake dangers. Yet there are rattle- 

 snakes, and large ones, too. 



A very interesting little animal, which 

 feeds on insects and roots and gives 

 testimony to the " survival of the fit- 

 test" is the armadillo, a four-footed 

 mammal, with a carapace or shell 

 which enables it to get around safely 

 among the numerous thorns. It looks 

 as if a mongrel of the opossum, the 

 turtle and the hedge-hog or porcupine. 

 It is absolutely harmless, and its shell 

 is made into baskets by fastening the 

 end of the scaly tail to the tip of the 

 slender snout or nose. It lives in the 

 ground, and when caught after it 

 reaches its hole, it braces itself with 

 claws and shell, so that a strong man, 

 pulling at its tail can rarely succeed in 

 drawing it out. 



But why are plants and shrubs so ex- 

 ceedingly thorny in southern Texas? 

 The catclaw, for instance, is named on 

 account of its thorns having a return 

 curve similar to the claws of the cats, 

 an ugly tree to handle, but a splendid 

 honey yielder. LeStourgeon says that 

 these thorns are another evidence of 

 the survival of the fittest; that in such 

 a climate their thorns are the only 

 thing that protect them against ex- 

 termination by the grazing animals, in 

 seasons of drouth. 



At the meeting, in the Pleasanton 

 Court House, we met the inspectors of 

 Atascosa and Wilson counties, and the 

 State Representative, F. H. Burmeister, 

 who secured the State inspection law, 

 in concert with our old friend and con- 

 tributor, Louis Scholl, who is also a 

 State Representative. 



Here we heard for the first time of 

 the dwindling of colonies, in spite of 

 the mild climate. From the consensus 

 of the reports, lam inclined to think 

 that it is due to lack of pollen for 

 breeding, during a succession of months. 

 Several apiarists practice feeding cot- 

 ton-seed meal, as we feed flour in the 

 North, for a pollen substitute. I be- 

 lieve this will become popular in Texas, 

 if it is not already so in a number of 

 locations. 



There was also reported another 

 kind of dwindling which could not be 

 caused by this pollen shortage. Some 

 apiarists ascribed it to unhealthy honey 

 harvested late in the fall. Mr. J. E). 

 Bell, of Jourdanton, accused soured 

 horsemint honey of the mischief. In 

 different countries different sources of 

 honey are claimed to be the guilty 

 agents. It is probably more the con- 

 dition of the honey, its unripeness, 

 which causes the trouble, rather than 

 the kind of honey. There is ample 

 field for study in these incidents. 



Corn is grown and yields good crops, 

 when there is enough moisture. In some 

 comparatively moist spots we saw 

 fields of it. It was about 4 inches high, 

 but suffering. However, they have had 

 a good rain since and the prospect is 

 improved. 



Mr. V. Booer, the inspector for Wil- 

 son county, made a suggestion worth 



