706 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



when 1 cut out all the queen-cells and returned 

 thcin. They now went to work with a will, and 

 gave me 63 lbs. of honey in sections. Again we 

 had much rainy weather during our swarming-sea- 

 son, so that the day on which the old colony was to 

 be removed would be rainy or cloudj-, so no bees 

 would be flying; in which case, if moved, of course 

 no bees would be in the field. I generally left them 

 until the next day; but on one occasion the 6th, 7th, 

 8th, and nth days were all rainy or cloudy, so I 

 waited till the morning of the 10th, when several 

 colonies were moved, and all swarmed soon after- 

 ward, owing to the sun coming out bright and 

 warm. In this latter case there can be no help in 

 the matter where any hives are manipulated, and I 

 think even Bro. H. can see plainly where the bees 

 come from. In all cases where I could be on hand 

 when the young bees were having a playspell in the 

 afternoon of the 6th day. and move the hive when 

 said bees were out the thickest, I could make a suc- 

 cess of the Heddon plan. G. M. Dodlittle. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



Friend D., yon seem to have your own no- 

 tions, and friend Ileddon has liis own no- 

 tions, and each of you succeed quite satis- 

 factorily, because your ideas and ways are 

 all in accordance with said notions. 1 have 

 often noticed the way in which you say it 

 works when you move a hive away during 

 cloudy or rainy weather ; but your idea in 

 regard to moving a hive while'^they are out 

 playing, is something I never thought of; 

 and without question the idea is a valuable 

 one. By this means we can get a nice lot 

 of young bees, just the right age to make 

 the nicest kind of a nucleus. 



Bee Bo^f^NY, 



OR, HONEY -PLANTS TO BE NAMED. 



T,EAF-CUP. 



SEND some seeds, leaves, and flowers of a plant 

 I to be named. It is a wild autumn flower grow- 

 ing in the woods. A1 the present date the bees 

 are at work on it ijuito lively. It is an annual, 

 growing 3 or 4 feet in height. While watching 

 the bees at work upon it I could not sec that any of 

 them were gathering pollen. Besides this plant, 

 I)ees are now working (juito fast on btickwlioat, also 

 on smartweed and other kind? of wild autumn flow- 

 ers. There is an inunense lot of smartweed this 

 year. All thrt)Ugh the first part of the season, th«' 

 l)ees could not do much ; but when basswood bloom- 

 ed they worked finely, ('haijmk L. Giiek\kiki,ii. 

 Somerville, O., Sept. 2), 188.'). 



Prof. Devol says of it: 



The specimen sent is leaf cup {l'iilj)winn (una- 

 (knsis, L., variety (Hfirouka, Gray). It is a coarse, 

 broad-leaved, climbing plant, without value, grow- 

 ing in shady ravines and moist woods. It is pecul- 

 iar in having the corolla in the few florets that pro- 

 duce achcnia (seeds) n^duced to a hairy ring around 

 the base of the style. W. S. Devol, Botanist. 



VIUOIN S BOWEH (CI.E.M.VTIS VIKOINIANA). 



I should like to know what kind of plant this is. 

 It is a vine, and is covered with flowers; the bees 

 work on it all day in great numbers. 



(V)rnwitll-on-Hu'lKoi), N. V, ,1. It. Ci,aiik. 



\ Prof. Devol says: 



I The plant is the common virgin's-bower (Clemat- 

 I is Virginiana, L.), the pretty wild vine growing 

 along the rivers and fence-rows, covered in mid- 

 summer with fine white flowers, and in autumn 

 j with flufly, feathery balls of a creamy-white color, 

 t so beautiful for winter decoration. It is quite eas- 

 1 ily transplanted, and makes a beautiful arbor, 

 j screen, or trellis plant, a number of branches from 

 each root growing from 10 to ISO feet in a season. 

 j The downy balls are caused by the plumous tails 

 j attached to the fruit. W. S. Devol. 



Ohio Agricultural Station, Columbus, <>. 



FALSE STATEMENTS IN REGARD TO THE HON- 

 EY BUSINESS OF OUR COUNTRY. 



t A.s a protection to our bee-keejuntf popiilation.we propose in 

 ! tills department to publish the names of newspapers that per- 

 [ sist In publishing false statements in regard to the purity of 

 honey which we as bee-keepers put on the market. 



MB. V. F. BAYMOXI). of Cleveland, 

 Oliio, sends us the following, taken 

 from the East End Siijual of 8ept. 

 1!>, and credited by thein to the Chi- 

 cago News: 



WHAT BEES ARE COMING TO. 



A Michigan apiarist has succeeded in teaching his 

 I bees to make honey from glucose. He began by 

 j setting pans of syrup near the hives, and as the 

 ! bees became habituated to sucking sweets from 

 them he daily reduced the amount of syrup more 

 j and more and filled in with glucose, until finally the 

 i bees were sucking only straight glucose, and mak- 

 ing honey at an astonishing rate. The small, bare- 

 footed son of the apiarist, who innocently "gave 

 the old man away" to a Detroit reporter, said that 

 ' the bees made about twice as much honey under 

 j the new method as they used to when they had to 

 I spend most of their time gathering raw material 



from flowers and clover-blossoms. 

 1 We have long thought that bees were too primi- 

 j five in their methods. We have had a sort of intui- 

 tive belief that they were capable of high civiliza- 

 1 tion if man would only influence and direct them in 

 proper and useful channels, but never until now 

 have we had substantial proof of it. The Michigan 

 I apiarist, however, has opened a field so broad that 

 1 it seems almost boundless. The possibilities sug- 

 I gested by his successful experiment are bewilder- 

 ing. If by straining glucose through bees a man 

 i can get honey, why may he not strain chalk and 

 ■ water through them and get choice milk and cream, 

 I or biin()uet them on soap-grease and get prime 

 i Oraiif2<' ( ounty butter? Why may he not feed them 

 Inn logwood atul cheap alcohol and obtain a flrst- 

 i class bianil of port wine/ or, by substituting some 

 I other ingredient lor the logw(K)d, get a " superior 



article" ol any other convivial bc\-riage? 



! It is not well to educate the bees too highly all at 



once. But if we carry on tlie civilizing process 



I gradually there is no reason why the bee may not 



become one of the most useful factors of future 



1 progressive civilization. 



The writer of the article seems to recog- 

 nize the story as a fraud, judging from his 

 pleasiintry ; but after all, it seems to me 

 that even pleasantry is not the thing where 

 j credence in such reports may be a wholesale 

 damage to a large numl)er ()f innocent peo- 

 l)le. If tlie iS'/f/))<//, and all other jiapers that 

 liavc given surli reports a place, would come 

 j out frankly and correct the impressions to 

 I which they have given publicity, and state 

 that glucose is not honey, and feeding it to 

 l>ees can in no way make honey, any more 

 than feeding chalk and water to a cow can 

 change it to milk, they might do us .some 

 service in righting tlie Avrong they help to 

 disseminate. 



