532 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 



after it. The worms were very bad here this sum- 

 mer. I suppose you will tell us to drive them out 

 with Italians. My bees are large, yellow, three- 

 banded bees. The queens are large, dark-colored, 

 with three bands. The bands are not as plain on 

 queens as on the worker bees. The drones are black. 

 I never handled bees or paid much attention to 

 them until one year ago last June, when we bought 

 ours. Now, friend Root, I would like to ask you 

 how I can keep the moths out of our hives. If we 

 (that is, my husband, for he always helps me) do not 

 go through them all every two or three days, the 

 combs will be full of worms, eating and uncapping 

 the brood. My bees are on the L. frames. 



Mrs. E. J. Kill am. 

 Dunlap, Morris Co., Kan., Sept. 14, 1880. 



I should think, my friend, that your combs 

 had been exposed to the moth at some time 

 before the Italians had them, and that the 

 eggs are just now hatching out. Keep pick- 

 ing them out as you have done, and, with 

 the help of the Italians, they will soon cease 

 troubling you. I have had similar expe- 

 riences for a little while, but it can not last 

 long if you follow it up faithfully. 



A "VISIT" FROM FRIKiVD (ATHEY OF 

 ARKANSAS. 



SEND you my honey report to-day, with some 

 of my experience with the new honey-plants; 

 and, as there has been something said by sev- 

 eral writers in regard to the cotton as a honey-pro- 

 ducing plant, I thought I would send you a sample, 

 thinking it would be new to many of your shop 

 hands, if not to yourself. 



HONEY FROM THE COTTON PLANT. 



I send you a limb with 3 open bolls on it. They 

 are a little dirty, too, from the effects of recent 

 rains. You will see, also, that the last two bolls 

 open are a little hard in the locks; that is also 

 caused by too much rain. It should all open light 

 and puffy, like the first one. The last two will make 

 very good cotton, but they are not well matured. 

 Had I sent earlier, I could have sent a sample of all, 

 on one limb, which would be, an open boll, then 

 grown boll just ready to open, ?i grown, half grown, 

 quarter grown, bloom, and squares. 



The bloom in early summer comes out and opens 

 2 or 3 hours after sunrise. It is then pure white, 

 with 5 petals, a calyx of 5 leaves, and a bracelet of 3 

 leaves. In early morn, the bees work on the outside 

 of the bracelets, as though they were making fair 

 wages. After the bloom opens, they enter it and 

 suck on the inside of the corolla. They never touch 

 the stamens, except with their backs; but as there 

 is just room enough for them to enter between the 

 corolla and stamens, they come out entirely covered 

 with pollen, and you might take them for a new 

 breed of bees. They enter the hive in that way, but 

 come out clean. 



I am sure that they gather some honey from the 

 cotton, but it is a poor honey-plant. Our friend who 

 writes that his bees are gathering large quantities 

 of honey from the cotton plant, spoke too soon. He 

 had better reconsider and look again. As a general 

 thing, the bees in this country have 5, 10, or 15 

 acres of good cotton to the hive. Would not the 

 whole South be flooded with honey if it yielded such 



amounts? Two years ago my bees gathered enough 

 from it so that I thought I could taste the flavor, 

 which I thought cotton would be apt to give it; viz., 

 a faint sweet. My bees have had free access this 

 year to at least 20 acres to the hive, without going 

 much more than a mile. 



But to return to the cotton bloom. In early sum- 

 mer it is fully open by 8 o'clock a.m , and by 5 p.m., 

 it shows a tinge of red; by night, it is all red; and 

 the next morning it is closed, and by the next eve- 

 ning it drops off. The 3 little bracelets you see on 

 the limb beyond the bloom, is what we call the 

 square. 



The boll-worm miller lays the egg in the tender 

 bud; as soon as it hatches it punctures the square, 

 the bracelets expand, and thereby warns you of the 

 damage done. As the worm grows it follows the 

 limb, puncturing each boll, until it destroys them 

 all, and we lind him about the size of a common cut- 

 worm -a fat, hearty epicure, with about half his 

 length in a grown boll. 



ARKANSAS AS A HONEY STATE. 



This is a poor honey country at least. We have 

 no linden, tulip, sourwood, white clover, aster, or 

 goldenrod. If we could average, one year with an- 

 other, 25 lbs. of honey to the hive, we would think it 

 good. We generally have honey-dew, if it is dry 

 in May. But this year we had a dry May— the only 

 dry time we've had, and not one drop of honey-dew. 

 We have the apple and peach bloom, the whortle- 

 berry, the elbow bush, or button willow, which is 

 good; but the best honey-plant we have is the su- 

 mac. But our bees generally All up late in the fall 

 on— we know not what. 



SPIDER PLANTS IN ARKANSAS. 



I got about 15 of the spider plants to grow, but it 

 is growing wild all around me, and for the sake of 

 euphony we call it "polecat weed." Sometimes the 

 chickens eat so much of the seed that their flesh 

 tastes of it. But there is no doubt but that it pro- 

 duces the nectar, though I have my doubts about 

 the flavor of the honey if you had enough of it. But 

 another season will test this. 



Did the all-wise Creator make a mistake when he 

 made this honey-plant to produce its nectar at night 

 for all shapes, sizes, and colors of moths to consume 

 while the bees were in their hives? I think the rea- 

 son some blooms don't have any nectar in the morn- 

 ing is, that they exude so much that it dropsout. 



SIMPSON PLANTS IN ARKANSAS. 



I succeeded in getting about 6 or 8 Simpson plants 

 to grow. The finest bloom was the 8th of August. 

 It was level full of honey. I waited one month and 

 watched the humming-birds carry off the sweet, and 

 not a bee had ever visited it. 



One day I had extracted some honey, and had my 

 "bulldozing" hybrids excited, and I mixed a little 

 honey and water, and, with a spoon, filled several 

 flowers and sprinkled the leaves. They were soon 

 there. Since then I have never looked there, when 

 a bee could be out, but they were swarming around 

 it. The humming-birds have quit, for they know it's 

 no use trying. 



This has been about as poor a honey season as I 

 have ever seen. Owing to several circumstances, 

 my apiary was reduced to 4 hives last spring, and 

 my bulldozing hybrids robbing my blacks was one 

 cause. They were one Italian and 3 hybrids. T 

 knew there was little honey to gather, and I tried to 

 prevent their swarming, but for all I could do 



