598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 



I wish some of your readers could see the profu- 

 sion of bee-food going to waste in this beautiful 

 mountain countrs . Just now we have the locust, 

 basswood, white fringe, white clover, kalmia, aza- 

 lea, calycanthus, and I can not tell you how many 

 other shrubs and trees in bloom, while the silver- 

 bell, red-bud, cherry, plum, thorn, and a number of 

 others, are past bloom. We have a profusion of 

 flowers all through the summer. The sourwood is 

 especially abundant, and so are the magnolia and 

 tulip trees. Indeed, this country is tlowing with 

 honey, and there is room for thousands of hives, 

 and water is everywhere - pure, cool, running 

 streams Hlled with brook trout, and yet the bee- 

 keepers have nothing but old half-rotten "gums" 

 for the bees. I have been telling the folks here 

 about your Simplicity hives and the honey-boxes, 

 and they see the point; but it needs more enter- 

 prise than the natives have been used to, to gather 

 in all these lavish stores. No winter housing want- 

 ed here, where the witch-hazel is in bloom in Feb- 

 ruary. Henry Stewakt. 



Webster, N. C, June f, 188.5. 



Now, then, are some of our readers so sit- 

 uated that they can test this matter of filter- 

 ing honey through animal charcoal? Will 

 the honev go through without diluting, or 

 how thick IS the sugar syrup when it is 

 passed through the animal charcoal? Who 

 can tell us more about it? 



REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA, BY OUR 

 OLD FRIEND GALLUP. 



HONLV HY THE ton; ALSO SOMETHING IN HEGAHD 

 TO IMPORT.\TION OF QUEENS. 



"T^DITOR of Gleanings:— I have been up into 

 '^j the mountains for a short time with the bee- 

 W^''r keepers, and have taken a few notes. One 

 •*~ has taken out three tons, one si.\ tons, one 

 eight tons, one tlfteen tons, etc. The season 

 has been quite unfavorable. Mr. S.T.Miller has 

 all together on hand now, between si.xty and sixty- 

 five tons. He held over about fifty tons last year, 

 and he has some fifteen tons of this year's crop. He 

 has 2~ry stands of bees, and they are kept in splendid 

 condition. Mr. Miller had quite an experience in 

 getting queens direct from Italy. Ho ordered from 

 Chas. Bianconcini, I think; the first eight were all 

 dead, and of the next fourteen, five were alive, but 

 two were so feeble that they did not live. They 

 came by express, so the three living queens were 

 quite expensive. Mr. B. can not see why they 

 should arrive safely to you and others east, and not 

 here. He can not or does not understand that they 

 have to be some eight days longer on the road, and 

 have to pass over a hot, arid desert, and then be 

 carried thirty miles over a rough mountain road. 

 The fact was, they consumed all their food, and 

 perished by starvation. Dh. E. Gallup. 



Tustin City, Cal., Aug. 8, 1885. 



Thanks, friend G.,for your excellent re- 

 port from California. In regard to the mat- 

 ter of importing queens from Italy, we have 

 had more die from starvation than from any 

 other one cause. It seems to me that friend 

 Bianconcini has no method of getting at the 

 exact number of bees he puts into a cage. 

 The stores would be all right, if the quanti- 

 ty of bees is not too great. I would suggest 



that he weigh out his young bees, or, if it 

 would not be too expensive, count them out, 

 and then weigh the quantity of food. To 

 put in very much more food than is needed 

 is not desirable, because it adds so very 

 much more to the express charges. I think 

 our friend Charley will succeed, though, for 

 he is a pretty careful man, as a general 

 thing. You know he has sent us pretty 

 good-sized importations, with the loss of 

 hardly a single (lueen. I should like to know 

 how your bees from these imported queens 

 compare with the others, in regard to work- 

 ing qualities, in California. 



REPORT OF A NUCLEUS IN FLORTDA. 



ALSO SOME FACTS ABOUT FLORIDA IN GENERAL. 



CAME here last November and brought with me 



If a one-frame nucleus with a pure Italian queen. 



It My location was fixed before I left home, hence 

 I had not the privilege of looking up a place 

 producing the most honey-plants. My little 

 grove, containing upward of one hundred trees, 

 has about forty which bore some last year, and are 

 bearing more this year. Some have over one hun- 

 dred oranges on, while others have only a few. 

 These have been budded about four and one-half 

 years. I brought the bees with me to see what they 

 could do in this locality. In a short time after my 

 arrival they commenced gathering honey and pol- 

 len, and kept themselves in feed, and reared brood 

 up to Jan. 10, when 1 thought it time to begin feed- 

 ing to strengthen them up more rapidly for the 

 orange-bloom. I do not know whether they would 

 have kept themselves in honey during the latter 

 part of January and the fore part of February or 

 not, as it was colder and more cloudy. I shall know 

 more about it next winter. 



When the oranges came in bloom they had three 

 frames filled with brood and honey. I had another 

 frame of empty comb, and gave it to them. When 

 the orange-bloom was gone they had increased to 

 ten frames filled with honey and brood, and threw 

 out a youd swarm. 



Orange-groves are numerous in this section, and 

 bees gather more honey from them than I had 

 thought. I believe a colony will gather as much 

 honey from orange in this locality as from white 

 clover in Ohio. 



A few weeks after orange-bloom was gone, saw- 

 palmetto blossomed. This plant grows on flat 

 ground and in low places. In (his immediate vicin- 

 ity it is scattering, and bunches of it only here and 

 there. But it grows in abundance in the "flat 

 wood" which is two and a half miles from me. I 

 suppose my bees do go there, but I wish I Avere one 

 and a half miles nearer. The bee-man in this local- 

 ity—near Orlando— will get his surplus honey from 

 orange and saw-palmetto; and I am reliably in- 

 formed that goldenrod and other wild flowers will 

 furnish honey enough to keep the bees the entire 

 year through. Anyhow, I have confidence enough 

 to want an apiary, and am increasing as fast as I 

 can, with the expectation of supporting myself by 

 my bees until the oranges come into full bearing. 

 I intend to keep only Italians, and am rearing my 

 own queens. One week I lost three out of five; 

 think the bee-martins took them. Some call thein 

 " mosquito - hawks," 1 think. When bees bang 

 out at the entrance at night, toads eat them. I have 



