628 



gLeaniKgs In bee CULTUllJ^. 



Alto. 



rod or boneset or mint or orange," etc.? Whence 

 Ihis nh Tty to distinguish? What property in a 

 plant can we look to lor the cause? Every honey- 

 producing plant produces its own peculiar honey 

 and no other, and this honey conies from its own pe- 

 culiar juices, and pai-takes of the tlavor of its own 

 peculiar essence, and, to a greater or less degree, 

 will be found to contain this essence. Unripe hon- 

 ey contains this essence in greater quantity than 

 ripened (n- cap honey. 



1 lived some years on the St. John's Itivor, in Flor- 

 ida, among the yellow jessamine. I had a lew hives 

 of bees one year, but did not get enough of the 

 honey to know much about it; but the reputation 

 of the yellow jessamine there was "then that it is 

 poisonous, and I was told by the natives that it liad 

 produced death. How and why, I think I can ex- 

 plain. When the natives got honey in the spring, 

 they either got it by cutting a beetree or by " rob- 

 bing" a bo.x gum; and much of such honey, you 

 know, would be fresh and unripened. You know, 

 also, that people who are not accustomed to eating 

 honey will almost always gorge themselves when 

 getting it in such shape and quantity. A good por- 

 tion of new uncapped honey of any kind, you well 

 know, will be as good as a dose of pills, and those 

 people not used to bees and ripe or unripe honey do 

 not understand these things. Hence the use of 

 honey is often much abused, and particularly so the 

 yellow jessamine, which undoubtedly has poisonous 

 properties to a certain extent when unripe. It is as 

 good honey as any other when it is capped over. 



It is a very great blessing to honey-producers that 

 there are so few injui-ious honey-bearing plants in 

 this countrj-. Bee - keepers ought to be taught 

 through the bee-journals this one thing: That hon- 

 ey is not fit to market until it has acquired a consis- 

 tency which, had it been left in the hives, would 

 induce the bees to cap it over. If any one has ever 

 heard of any one sutlerJng from eating capped or 

 ripe honey, let him speak out. It is doubtful if such 

 a case will be reported or can be verified. Let it be 

 generally understood, that no honey is fit for sale 

 that is not fit to cap. If the bee-keepers are not 

 caueful, those enterprising newspapers that know 

 80 little of honey adulteration, while pretending to 

 know so much, will soon be saying that all the ex- 

 tracted honey in the United States, whether it be 

 white, black, or green, is all yellow jessamine, and 

 certain to kill on the first taste. When the time 

 comes that all our honey is either glucose or poison- 

 ous, some of us will have to go out of the business. 

 There are plenty of people of intelligence who, were 

 they to see a statement in a newspaper, prejudicial 

 to honey, would think the statement e.vactly correct, 

 because it teas in the newspaper, and bee-keepers 

 should be bold enough to correct these lies when- 

 ever they find them. C. M. Hiogins, 7.')— i;i9. 



Hahnville. Q» La., July 7, 1885. 



Friend II., by haying? tliat the talk of 

 Prof. Cook "struck at the root of the mat- 

 ter,'" 1 did not refer particularly to his con- 

 cluding sentence. And this concludiiif; sen- 

 tence, I am sure, did not mean to convey the 

 idea as you put it; but, ratlu'r, that if a 

 plant we're p(tisonous in its juices it would 

 not </Mv>v((;'//// follow that the honey secret- 

 ed by its blossoms woulil also be poisonous. 

 —I am glad of tiie additional facts you give 

 us in regard to the yellow jessamine. I have 

 eaten unripe honey in considerable quanti- 



ties, l)ut I never experienced any bad effect. 

 Of course, I did not gorge myself with it, 

 for my taste does not lie in that direction.— 

 Are wo not in danger of falling into an error, 

 friend II. and other friends, in criticising 

 too severely the course of the iiewspapersV 

 They are on the lookout, of course, for 

 items ; and as their patrons seem to prefer 

 sensational items, no doubt there is a temp- 

 tation to cater to that taste ; but as a whole, 

 are not our newspapers the great educators 

 of the day? AN'hat we want to pray for, it 

 seems to me, is for more of a spirit of fair- 

 ness and truth, and I suppose we all need 

 it. I know for one I do. 



LARGE BLACK ANTS. 

 Another Protection against Moth and Worms. 



ALSO .SOME FACTS ON AFTER-SWARMING. 



g LEANING 3 for July 15th came to-day. It al- 

 ways seems like a visit from a friend. I am 

 s till making bee keeping a specialty, and 

 therefore am obliged to make it paj-. I try 

 to keep my number at 100, or thereabouts, 

 and have ever since 1871 I remember then you 

 predicted that my enthusiasm would not last, and 

 that I would give up the business. I trust I have 

 learned something about beekeeping since then. 

 The article from Kev. L. L. Langsti-oth, on spiders 

 preserving combs was given some years ago, and 

 in 1ST'.» and '80 I used them with success. I discard- 

 ed them, and for thi-ee years I have used the large 

 black ants, which I assure you are very energetic 

 hunters, and will take moth worm.s out of their bur- 

 I'ows. They make no litter, and do not cover combs 

 with webs. To procure them, go into the w^ooda, 

 hunt up a rotten log having a nest of them, take a 

 section with enough of them (say 300) to seour your 

 room. My room is tight; the log is stood in a cor- 

 ner. They never leave it, but make daily raids 

 over all the combs. In the absence of moths they 

 can eat honey or drone brood. I wintered them two 

 winters, and they cared for :3C0 combs. 



I have tried Ileddon's plan to prevent after- 

 swarms. It will not always work. Last season it 

 failed eight times, and this season six times. I 

 have a plan which I follow which tends to weed out 

 poor strains of bees, and at the same time prevents 

 after-swarms, and ensures a large surplus yield. 

 It is as follows: Stimulate all good strains early, 

 and get them to swarm first. Make nuclei of their 

 brood and queen-cells. They will hatch, and be 

 laying by the time the other bees of the apiary 

 swarm. When a swarm issues, take the old hive 

 away and hive swarm on old stand, giving one 

 frame of their brood; then proceed with the rest of 

 brood to where one of your ni:clei sat. Kemove it, 

 and place this hive in its place; then raise the 

 fi-ame with (jueen from nucleus, and place it in the 

 hive. I forgot to say th:it I brush olf all bees in 

 front of swarm; the nucleus queen with the bees 

 are at once a rousing swarm. The swarm has all 

 the field-bees and many young ones besides. Both 

 are ready to give suridus and all swarming is done 

 for the season. 



Clipping queens' wiujis, wilii me, still ensures 

 their loss by their being superseded at once. 



E. A. Morgan, 

 the child that grew so fast. 

 Columbus, Wis., July 20, 1886. 



