258 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



July 



its throwing water about when run at a high 

 speed. The emery wheel can be removed 

 in an instant. I have accepted the agency 

 of the machine, and will send you one for 

 just $2.60 ; or for 6 subscribers at $1.00 each. 

 They are shipped from N. Y., at very low 

 rates of freight, and it seems to me, in a 

 year's time, they must be worth five times 

 the cost to every family, to say nothing of 

 their value to the bee-keeper, in keeping all 

 his tools and himself, too, sharp and up 

 with the times. 



^»-«*»- 



HONEY PLANTS OF FLORIDA. 



"PINTS and tea-cupfuls ?" 



EN the Apr. and May Nos. of Gleanings, I see 

 mention made of the Spanish bayonet {Yucca 

 gloriosa), as producing cupf uls of honey. Those 

 articles were quite interesting to me, as both that 

 and the Yucca Philamentosa, or bear grass as it is 

 called, grow wild here. They are the grandest flow- 

 ering plants that I ever saw, having a perfect tower 

 of pure white, waxy, pendant cups, often three 

 feet high, that may be seen from miles away. I am 

 not, however, prepared to set them as high in the 

 list of honey producing plants as your brother and 

 some others; yet they may deserve the place. Not 

 having had occasion, until lately, to study the honey 

 producing plants of Fla., I have never, until I saw 

 them mentioned in your valuable paper, taken more 

 than a passing notice of them. During the past 

 three weeks, I have examined a number of the bay- 

 onets, and, so far, have found very little honey. Jn 

 fact, some had scarcely a trace of it, even in the 

 morning. It may be on account of the season, as, 

 for some unexplained reason, we have had an un- 

 usually severe honey drought for the past six weeks. 

 I will keep an eye on them in the future, and report ; 

 and if I find any of the fruit still hanging, I will 

 forward some to you. 



We have a plant now coming into bloom, however, 

 that can be relied on. I refer to the saw palmetto 

 (Chamcvrops Palmetto, I believe), which, with the 

 cabbage palmetto {Areca oleracea), although being 

 two of the best honey plants on earth, I have never 

 seen mentioned in any work on bees or bee pastur- 

 age. The first is a low growing plant, covering- 

 thousands of acres of land, in this state, so densely 

 as to be almost impenetrable. In fact, its removal 

 is the main expense of clearing a great deal of our 

 land. It has one large root from three to eight in- 

 ches through, lying on or near the surface of the 

 earth, with numerous small, tough feeders running 

 straight down from the under side. The large roots 

 are from two to twenty feet long and nearly as large 

 at one end as at the other. At one end, and at in- 

 tervals along its length, it puts up buds from which 

 reach up long stemmed leaves to a height of 4 to 6 

 feet; also the bud puts out several (often as many 

 as eight) branching fruit stems, large enough to till 

 a l A bushel measure, and perfectly encrusted with 

 small, yellowish white blossoms. These blossoms 

 secrete large quantities of thick, light yellow honey 

 of good quality. They are very sweet scented, fill- 

 ing the air with perfume, and the bees, forgetting 

 every thing else, swarm upon them from daylight 

 until dark. 



The blossoms open about the middle of April, and 

 last about two months. The fruit is a black, oblong 

 berry, much resembling the date (to which it is re- 



lated), and about twice the size of the concord grape. 

 When ripe, it contains large quantities of saccha- 

 rine matter, which, oozing through the skin, stands 

 in large drops of thick honey on the outside, from 

 where the bees take it to the hive. The berries 

 ripen the middle of Oct., and remain on the stems 

 until Christmas thereby furnishing the last crop of 

 the season. During the early part of last winter, 

 the bees filled every inch of space given them with 

 this honey, and as it is dark, and thick as molases, 

 and has a peculiar taste, it was packed away by 

 most of us to use to stimulate breeding after the 

 orange blossom crop in Feb. 



The cabbage palmetto in my opinion is the king 

 of honey producing plants. It comes in about the 

 first of June and lasts until Aug., producing im- 

 mense quantities of clear white, beautiful honey, 

 moderately thick and of a delicate flavor. It has 

 clusters of flowers like the saw palmetto, only much 

 larger, many of them too large to go into a bushel 

 basket. The berries are of no account for honey. 



We have a great variety of honey producing plants 

 and trees. Conspicuous among them is the black 

 mangrove. While it is in blossom a person may 

 sail mile after mile up or down our rivers and be 

 constantly within hearing of the hum of thousands 

 upon thousands of bees all the way. 



When we take into consideration the advantages 

 which Florida enjoys,— the magnificent pasturage, 

 the wonderful natural increase of our bees, the 

 mild winters, and the easy transportation to the 

 best markets of the world, we feel perfectly safe in 

 predicting that this state will see the day when the 

 products of her honey bees, like those of her orange 

 groves, will be second to those of no state in the 

 Union. W. S. Hart. 



New Smyrna, Fla., May 12, 1879. 



HOW TO "SPRING" BEES. 



t firY success in saving my bees this year was not 

 1|[ in wintering, but in springing. I believe I 

 should have lost heavily, if I had left my bees 

 for spring, as I had them for winter, since nearly all 

 bees came through to the 1st of March. 



For winter, 1 followed Gleanings, using Simplic- 

 ity hives, and chaff cushions at sides and on top. I 

 packed outside with buckwheat chaff one foot thick, 

 except in front, where it was 4 inches thick, from 

 the 25th of Feb. to the 1st of March. When the 

 weather would permit, I overhauled, and fixed for 

 spring as follows : 



Every colouy that was on five cards of comb was 

 forced onto three, if possible (I think it will general- 

 ly be possible by placing the combs a little farther 

 apart than usual), and the chaff cushions were 

 crowded as close together as possible; those that 

 were on four cards Were forced on to two, if possible, 

 etc. In other words, I fixed my bees for springing 

 just as Gleanings directs for wintering, only, after 

 fixing for winter, Gleanings says, "Let them a- 

 lone." Now, in springing, don't let them alone, but 

 watch them closely. If dysentery shows itself in 

 any hive, take them out, give them a clean hive and 

 a card of clean capped honey, and crowd them up 

 with clean cushions, having some kind of cloth tack- 

 ed on that side of the cushions which is next to 

 the bees, but crowd them up, crowd them up, even 

 if you get them on a single card of honey. If they 

 have a good queen, they will show you how fast they 

 can grow. I had one colony so small that I started 



