214 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUItE\ 



May 



HONEY DEW. 



THE REAL, VERITABLE, GENUINE ARTICLE, "CAUGHT 

 IN THE ACT" OF FALLING FROM THE CLOUDS. 



GOOD deal has been written on the origin of 

 honey dews, and I wish to make a statement 

 J of what I have seen. "When I was a young 

 man, my father owned a farm in Lorain Co., Ohio, 

 on the Vermillion River, 2 miles from Vermillion 

 J f arbor. We were clearing and making fence on the 

 river Hats. The honey dew had covered the leaves 

 of the bushes and weeds, and the dry leaves and 

 sticks on the ground so that they stuck fast to my 

 bare feet. I licked it from the leaves, and it was 

 very sweet. One afternoon, I saw the air full of 

 small shining particles, resembling a shower of rain 

 tailing gently to the ground. My father said it was 

 the honey dew coming down. There was no wind or 

 clouds. The sun had fallen behind the wash bank 

 nearly 100 feet high. While standing in the shade, 

 we could see the shower of illuminated drops like 

 rain. I have seen something like it by throwing 

 water in the air when the sun shines. I think they 

 were visible over 150 feet from the ground. This 

 shower continued till the sun went down behind the 

 trees. The drops were exceedingly small; not as 

 large as they were in the blossoms of the spider 

 plant, but I am sure the bees could have licked up 

 the spilt honey all the day long from the ground. 

 What do you think of this? J. B. Graves. 



Richmond, Mich., Jan. 16, 1881. 



The above should have followed the arti- 

 cle on page 218, but it was overlooked. 

 From the facts furnished, it would seem 

 that there is considerable more to be learned 

 about this strange phenomenon than we are 

 perhaps aware of. It has been suggested 

 that these showers are due to the presence of 

 swarms of insects in the air above, beyond 

 the ken of human sight, and that after play- 

 ing in the rays of the setting sun awhile, 

 they go back to feed on the foliage of plants 

 and trees, preparatory to producing another 

 such shower on the succeeding day, and so 

 on. Who can undertake to say "positively 

 that such is or is not the case? 



STILL MORE ABOUT HONEY DEW. 



In the summer of '78, honey dew was so plentiful 

 with us (this was in Douglas and Franklin Cos., Kan- 

 sas), that the bees tilled up their hives almost tight, 

 so to speak, in July. Hives were so well filled that 

 brood rearing was almost cut off, and, although bees 

 had done well all the fore part of the season and 

 put out an abundance of swarms, nearly all stocks 

 were weak in the fall, but had plenty of .honey. 



This dew appeared in the greatest abundance on 

 the leaves of the black or shellbark hickory. Con- 

 siderable of it was found on what most people there 

 call jack oak; some on sumac, and but little on Pa- 

 paw, there being no beech or hard maple. My opin- 

 ion is, that this saccharine substance exudes from 

 bursting buds, and the young, tender shoots of some 

 kinds of timber. I do not think it is an exudation of 

 the leaf exclusively, for the following reasons: If 

 the weather is windy or cloudy, this dew does not 

 appear. It is always found on leaves of a smooth or 

 glossy surface, and not on velvety leaves unless they 

 are in close proximity to those on which it appears 

 most copiously. It is never found on the under side 

 of a leaf, or on leaves that are sheltered. If there is 

 ho common dew, there is no honey dew. If the 



growth of timber has been very thrifty, and the 

 weather is very clear day and night, and common 

 dews very heavy, the yield of honey dew will be very 

 copious. I have given my reasons in a very positive 

 way, simply because it is the shortest way. My ob- 

 servations have given me the above conclusions, 

 yet I may be mistaken. 



THIS HONEY DEW FOR WINTER STORES. 



I put 41 stands of bees into winter quarters, in a 

 warm, dry cellar. None of them with more than an 

 ordinary number of bees, but most of them well 

 stored with this honey-dew honey. I took them all 

 from the cellar alive, and only one had dysentery, 

 and that had been troubled by a rat. Most of the 

 people through the country let their bees stand out, 

 without any protection, and nearly one-half of them 

 froze to death, and most of those that lived through 

 had dysentery in the spring. S. A. Shuck. 



Bryant, 111., Dec. 22, '79. 



SMAKTWEED ANU OTHER HONEY 

 PliANTS OF NEBRASKA. 



¥-OU and all other writers on honey plants seem 

 to be mistaken in the kind of smartweed 

 from which honey is gathered. In this sec- 

 tion of country, bees never work on blackheart or 

 on the small variety of smartweed. There appear 

 to be three intermediate varieties that produce hon- 

 ey, and one that does not. These are the plants 

 from which the greatest yield of honey is procured 

 during the month of August. The honey is nearly 

 as light colored as basswood honey, and without 

 nauseating qualities. When candied, the grain is 

 very fine. Last year we had several thousand 

 pounds of it, but, this year, like all other honey 

 plants, they failed to furnish any surplus. From 

 basswood in June, and smartweed and buckwheat 

 in August and the first 8 or 10 days of September, 

 we obtain all our surplus honey. A little honey is 

 sometimes gathered in the fore part of June from 

 red clover, and about the tenth of the month early 

 sumac blossoms, but neither furnishes surplus. From 

 the 15th to isth basswood blossoms, and some years 

 furnishes a large yield; in other seasons none. In 

 July a late variety of sumac blooms, and a little hon- 

 ey is gathered. The Simpson-weed blossoms in this 

 month and continues to bloom until the latter part 

 Of August, but never furnishes honey in sufficient 

 quantities to make any perceptible difference in the 

 yield. When the smartweed blooms, about the 8th 

 or 10th of August, a change comes over the spirit of 

 the apiarist's dreams. The swarming season opens, 

 and honey is gathered at the rate of 4 or 5 lbs. a 

 day in good swarms, up to the 8th or 10th of Septem- 

 ber, when the season closes. We have soft maple, 

 red bud, white willow, and hazel, from which_pollen 

 is gathered in March, and the various kinds of fruit 

 trees in spring. In June, we have the oak, dogwood, 

 red clover, early sumac, and red willow; in July, 

 late sumac, Simpson weed, the Rocky Mountain bee- 

 plant, and the various kinds of milkweed; also the 

 various kinds of sun flower, wild and tame, on which 

 bees never work. Many of these continue to bloom 

 through August. In the fall we have aster and 

 golden rod, and yet we have never known any or all 

 of these to secrete honey in su fiicient quantity to 

 make it worth while to extract. White clover has 

 not been introduced into the country in sufficient 

 quantity to be mentioned. If I could procure some 

 of the American variety, I should like to test its 

 honey producing qualities here. So far I have not 

 been able to get the right kind. We ought to be 

 able to reduce this business to system, and to be 

 able to tell just when to expect a flow of honey. 

 Ruin, Neb., Dec. 12, 1879. Jerome Wiltse. 



