278 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



August 



low, mostly 4Sc ; dark, mostly 43c per 

 pound. 



Kansas City— Local receipts, about 

 25 cases new honey; old crop, sup- 

 plies practically exhausted; demand 

 good, movement moderate, market 

 firm, all sales in small lots. Native 

 Missouri old stock: Firsts, 24-section 

 cases, mostly $4@4.2S ; seconds, sup- 

 plies exhausted. New stock: firsts, 

 mostly $4.25. Supplies extracted 

 stock exhausted. New crop late this 

 year and will be very light. 



Chicago — No car lot arrivals; Sup- 

 plies— practically exhausted, not 

 enough to make a market. First 

 shipment new, few cans Minnesota; 

 rather light color, 12c. Old extract- 

 ed: few sales; 12@13c per pound. 



Cincinnati— 1 car California, il 

 crates Georgia, 75 pounds each, ar- 

 rived. Light local receipts. Market 

 very unsettled, few sales. Comb 

 honey: old light amber, $3.60 per 

 case ; no new stock on market. Ex- 

 tracted, old stock: dark amber, 13c; 

 light amber, 15c. Nearby: new 

 honey, few sales; small lots; cash 

 paid to beekeepers, extracted dark 

 honey, amber, 8^c per pound. Near- 

 by honey expected to move heavily 

 in two weeks. 



Philadelphia— 33 barrels Southern 

 extracted; no imports; no comb 

 honey arrived; no demand, no sales. 

 Quotations reported are merely ask- 

 ing prices. Extracted: jobbing in 

 barrels: Southern, 10(ai2c ; Califor- 

 nia, light orange, 60-pound tins, 13c 

 per pound. Comb honey, no quota- 

 tions. 



St. Louis— No fresh arrivals. 

 Bright amber in barrels, 8^c; in 

 cans, 9@9i^c; dark amber, J4@lc less 

 per pound. Comb in case : amber, 

 10@12c per section; dark and in- 

 ferior, 9@10c. Fancy clover, 14@17c 

 per section. 



Minneapolis — No new stock ar- 

 rived. Supplies old stock practically 

 cleaned up. Few sales. 



St. Paul— No new stock arrived. 

 Supplies old stock practically 

 cleaned up. No sales. 



Denver — Unreported. 



CHARLES J. BRAND, Chief. 



Alsike Clover.— Geo. W. Williams, 

 of the United Honey Producers, sug- 

 gests that every beekeeper make it 

 his business to learn of the combina- 

 tion of grasses in which is included 

 alsike clover, that will make the best 

 hay and then try to get these planted 

 by local farmers by publicity in the 

 local press. Alsike clover is a 

 mighty good honey yielder, as those 

 acquainted with it will testify. 



TO WISCONSIN BEEKEEPERS 



Owing to the high price of food 

 products the 1916 honey crop of the 

 United States is short and buyers 

 will pobably pay better prices for the 

 1917 crop. 



It is the duty of every Wisconsin 

 beekeeper to produce as much honey 

 as possible this season. In order to 

 do this, allow but little swarming or 

 increase in colonies and furnish an 

 abundance of room in the hives. In 

 case your bees, or those of your 



neighbors, are diseased, you should 

 report at once to the State Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture at Madison, so 

 that they may be treated in time to 

 secure honey crops this year. 



The U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture has promised to include bees 

 and honey in the several market re- 

 ports. Dr. E. F. Phillips, of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, has issued many valu- 

 able circular letters to beekeepers 

 of late and if you have not received 

 them, let us know at once, so that 

 your name may be placed on the 

 mailing list. 



In order to demonstrate the possi- 

 bilities of Wisconsin beekeeping the 

 State Beekeepers' Association is of- 

 fering the following premiums : 



Comb Honey — For the greatest 

 number of pounds of comb honey in 

 sections from single colonies of Wis- 

 consin bees, not including any in- 

 crease of colony, four premiums will 

 be offered, as follows: 



1. 1917 Revised Edition of ABC and 

 XYZ of Beekeeping, 830-page volume. 



2. Rauchfuss foundation cutting 

 .box with special knift. 



3. 1917 Edition of American Bee 

 Journal. 



4. Three pounds of thin comb foun- 

 dation for comb honey. 



Extracted Honey — For the greatest 

 number of pounds of extracted honey 

 in glass bottles from single colony of 

 Wisconsin bees, not including in- 

 crease of colony, four premiums will 

 be offered, as follows : 



1. 1917 Revised Edition of ABC and 

 XYZ of Beekeeping, 830-page volume. 



2. Frame wedge driver and wire 

 embedder form. Very useful. 



3. 1917 Edition of American Bee 

 Journal. 



4. Four pounds of brood founda- 

 tion, prepaid. 



Apply to N. E. France, State Apiary 

 Inspector, Platteville, Wisconsin, for 

 rules governing the contest. 



The first premium lot of comb 

 honey (also first premium lot of ex- 

 tracted honey) is to be sold at mar- 

 ket price September 3 (Labor Day), 

 and will be on display September 10- 

 15, at the Wisconsin State Fair. Af- 

 ter that date it will be on display at 

 the University of Wisconsin and at 

 the next State Beekeepers' Conven- 

 tion at Madison. A full report from 

 each contestant will be required, 

 copies of which will be printed and 

 distributed among members of the 

 State Association. 



Cross Bees. — After several years of 

 effort to weed out the cross bees in 

 my apiary I was congratulating my- 

 self that I had about succeeded. 

 Every colony was headed by an Ital- 

 ian queen last season. After the 

 heavy honey flow of 1916 many 

 queens were superseded and several 

 mismatings resulted. Of course there 

 were some cross bees again this sea- 

 son, but not many. Following the 

 flow from dandelion came a time 

 when little honey was coming in, 

 then, bless you, they were all cross. 

 The hybrids were as cross as the 

 very old Nick, and the Italians, which 

 I had been showing off by opening 

 the hive without smoke, were little 



better. The only exception which was 

 conspicuous in the whole yard was a 

 colony of bright goldens. Here we 

 have been talking about bad tem- 

 pers as the predominant golden trait, 

 but this colony is gentle when every- 

 thing else is on the war path. This 

 particular colony is from a yard 

 where special care has been taken 

 for years to breed only from the gen- 

 tlest colonies which are at the same 

 time good honey gatherers. It really 

 looks like it is possible to accom- 

 plish something very definite in the 

 improvement of bees by careful se- 

 lection, within a comparatively short 

 period of time. 



Nebraska. — I have just returned 

 from a 600-mile auto trip through 

 Eastern Nebraska. The clover be- 

 comes more abundant as one goes 

 north. In the vicinity of Omaha it is 

 very spotted. In some places white 

 clover seems very abundant, while a 

 little farther on there is very little. 

 The same is true in southwestern 

 Iowa. The Elkhorn valley from Fre- 

 mont to Norfolk offers some very at- 

 tractive locations which are appar- 

 ently entirely unoccupied. If appear- 

 ances are not deceptive there is room 

 for thousands of colonies of bees in 

 this valley, with dependable forage 

 in sight. Dandelions furnish an 

 abundant early flow, followed by 

 white and alsike clover. What the 

 sources of fall honey may be I could 

 not entirely determine, but a fall 

 flow is quite likely in a valley of this 

 kind. 



White clover is extending its range 

 westward quite rapidly. Near the 

 little town of Chambers in the south- 

 ern part of Holt county, are some 

 neighborhoods where both white and 

 alsike clover are present in abund- 

 ance. Sweet clover is also growing 

 commonly along the roadsides and 

 to some extent in the fields. There 

 are but few localities all the way 

 from Omaha to O'Neill where sweet 

 clover is not common along the road- 

 sides. Judging from reports from 

 this section the yield is heavier and 

 more dependable than further east. 

 There is a home market for hundreds 

 of tons of honey right at hand in the 

 Elkhorn valley. With forage and 

 market at the door, it is surprising 

 that more beekeepers are not to be 

 found there. F. C. P. 



Virginia Creeper. — There are num- 

 erous plants which secrete nectar in 

 abundance which would be valuable 

 sources of honey if only they could 

 be planted in sufficient quantity. On 

 the Fourth of July the Virginia 

 creeper on the arbor in our door- 

 yard was in bloom. There were hun- 

 dreds, yes thousands, of bees hum- 

 ming among the blossoms. There are 

 few plants that attract bees in such 

 numbers to a small amount of bloom 

 as does the Virginia creeper. 



This plant, Ampelopsis quinquefo- 

 lia, also known as American ivy and 

 sometimes as woodbine, is an attrac- 

 tive climber which is very valuable 

 for covering porches, trellises, etc. 

 The flowers are small and unattrac- 



