1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



663 



REPORT FROM W. S. HART. 



ANOTHEK VEHV FAIR KEl'OHT, AT LEAST, KKO.M 

 FLOKIUA. 



•r^DITOK GLEANINGS:-According to custom 1 

 '^\ will now make a rejjort of the season's work 

 ^j' in my apiary, up to date. Last season closed 

 •*™ with 117 colonies; started this season with 

 the same, all in good condition; increased to 

 148, and have taken, as nearly as I can tell at pres- 

 ent, 11,900 lbs. of honey, of which 250 was comb in 

 pound sections, and the rest extracted. This, as 

 you will see, gives me about 100 lbs. to the colony, 

 spring count, which is about thirty pounds below 

 any previous average made since I took charge of 

 my bees, eight years ago; and although a small re- 

 port, still I believe it is a " paying " one. 



The season jn-oved an anomaly. Almost every thing 

 in the way of bloom has been from two to si.v weeks 

 later than u.«ual; and when it did come it was 

 quickly over. Saw-palmetto produced almost no 

 honey, and gallbcrry very little. The bright amber 

 honey of May and the first half of June, that usual- 

 ly constitutes our first surplus for shipping, was 

 entirely wanting this season. What early honey we 

 did get is considerably darker, and has a stronger 

 flavor than usual. Mangrove honey came in very 

 late, and, like the cabbage-palmetto, which yielded 

 freely, was in bloom but a short time. The man- 

 grove, however, was blooming freely some days 

 before the bees fairly went to work upon it. Why 

 this was so is a mystery to me. 



The mangrove and cabbage-palmetto honey is of 

 as fine a cpjality ps need be. I believe it is better 

 than ever before, and partly, perhaps, on account 

 of my new method of curing it in a sun-evaporator 

 under glass instead of as formerly in large tanks, 

 which were run out into the sunlight when full. I 

 may speak more particulaily of my new honey- 

 house and fixtures at another time. 



The honey crop for the State will, so far as I can 

 learn, run short of an average one in about the 

 same proportion as my own, or, say,one half acrop; 

 but that fact seems not to have discouraged any of 

 our apiarists, so you nniy look out for a big crop 

 from our State ne.xt year. 



A larger proportion of comb honey is being raised 

 than formerly; and surely, if it can be placed in the 

 market without breakage, it will bring the "top 

 price." Now for a few words on various subjetts. 



WAX-E.XTHACTOUS. 



I have now had in use for the past two years the 

 sun-extractor described by Mr. O. O. Poppleton in 

 back numbers of Gleanknoss, and so far I have 

 seen or read of no better plan for rendering wa.\. 

 Its good points are, 1st, Its cost is very little; 2d, 

 Almost any one can make one who has a frame of 

 sash; 3d, It cleans the wa.\ perfectly, and brings it 

 out bright, clean, and handsome, the first time 

 melting, and no mussing about it; 4th, By having 

 two pans for it, one can always be at hand ready for 

 all odd scraps, while the other is in the extractor. 



Well, perhaps I had better not tell the rest now, 

 but will just say, try one. 



YELLOW .lESSA.MlNE. 



This grows plentifully throughout our hummock 

 and scrub lands, and considerable of our winter 

 honey comes from it. Both myself and many of 

 my neighbors have eaten freely of it, both after it 

 , had been capped over and also before, when it had 

 just been pjithered, and 1 have never known any ill 



efliects, nor have I ever found that it injured my 

 bees in any way; yet Dr. J. P. H. Brown tells me 

 that in Georgia they lose a great many young bees 

 by it. Evidently, locality makes a great ditt'erence, 

 or else there is some other plant that causes the 

 trouble. The honey is never taken from the hives 

 to be shipped, as all of it is needed for brood-raising. 



CLIPPING queens' wings. 



Let me say, that 1 vote for clipping the queen's 

 wings cvenj time. I have done it for years, and Mr. 

 Mitchell, who has had full charge of my apiary for 

 the past two years, does the same. It would take 

 considerable money to hire us to give up the prac- 

 tice. It certainly has been of great profit to me, 

 and I think the loss of one queen is all there is to 

 be charged to the practice in all this time. Some of 

 ray neighbors who do not practice it are losing more 

 or less swarms that go to the woods every year, 

 while we have not lost a colony from any cause for 

 about three years. I think this last fact may be a 

 good argument also to support a number of state- 

 ments and claims that I have made in past writings. 

 It also speaks well for Harrie's management. No 

 artificial swarming for us, if we are working for e.x- 

 tracted honey. 



I make it my business, and I consider it the busi- 

 ness of every olHcer of any bee-keepeis' society to 

 watch over the newspapers of their lespective 

 States; and if any thing is published that is damag- 

 ing to our industry in any way, at once reply to it ; 

 or, if it is false, correct it by an article showing its 

 fallacy. Editors are sometimes misled, but seldom 

 or never i)ublish any thing of the kind with a delib- 

 erate intention of injuring any honest industry, 

 and, I believe, are always glad to receive and pub- 

 lish such matter as is sent to them by any well- 

 known and lespected bee-keeper. Such a letter 

 may be made not only to counteract the influence 

 of the libelous article, but may give a few hints and 

 facts that will help create a " hankering" for some 

 of that genuine "bees' honey." Of course, I would 

 have all bee-papers ready to refute any mis state- 

 ments in the future ns in the past; but bee-papers 



i go mostly to bee men, who know honey when they 

 examine it, while the newspapers carry the correc- 

 tion right where the other article went, and itthere- 



j by reaches the parties most likely to be influenced. 

 Hawks Park, Fla., Aug. 31, ISf*.".. W. S. Haht. 



APIS DORSATA. 



.V FEW .MOKE lUUEF WOHDS FU().M FKIEND IICNKEH. 



fKIEND KOOT:— In reply to questions in 

 Gleanings of May 1.5th I will say, the comb 

 lor brood is not cylindrical, but flat. On the 

 right of this comb, however, and attached to 

 it -yes, forming a part of the brood-comb— is 

 this cylindrical comb. Though built on the same 

 limb as the brood-comb, yet the store-cells are so 

 elongated in the middle portions of the comb as to 

 give the general form of the comb a spherical shape. 

 Perhaps this is the better term to use in describing 

 the honey-comb of this bee. 



I could discover no drones or drone-cells in the 

 stock 1 captured. The brood-cells were all the same 

 shape and size— at least so far as I could discover. 

 The store cells, however, varied much in depth, ac- 

 cording to measurements given. No brood is ever 

 raised in the store-cells. These are exclusively for 

 honey, and so I have called them the honey-comb 



