1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



559 



tions they are usually determined to swarm." 

 In this respect he thinks the brown bees 

 better. It would be very interesting to know 

 whether other localities or other management 

 would lead to the same conclusion. Certain- 

 ly there are fine crops of comb honey secured 

 by Italians. What makes the difference ? 



As Mr. Davenport avowedly prefers and 

 keeps black bees, his testimony in favor of 

 Italians should have weight. He says : 



" For extracted honey I prefer Italians. 

 They will gather more honey, go a greater 

 distance, and protect their hive and combs 

 from the ravages of the moth-worms much 

 better than will brown bees, and this is no 

 small matter in my locality. 



" Some claim that moth-worms never injure 

 strong colonies of any kind of bees ; but this 

 is a mistake, for the combs will be injured, 

 and hundreds of eggs, larvae, and hatching 

 brood, will sometimes be destroyed here by 

 moth-worms in strong thrifty colonies of brown 

 bees." 



RED CLOVER — HOW IMPORTANT IS IT ? 



The desire to obtain the nectar secreted by 

 red clover is one of long standing ; and the 

 common impression is that a very large quan- 

 tity of nectar per acre would be secured from 

 it if the flower-tubes were not too deep for the 

 reach of the honey-bee. Latterly some dis- 

 credit has been cast upon red clover as a hon- 

 ey-plant, even supposing that all its nectar 

 could be secured, by the fact that it is not a 

 plant of universal cultivation. 



There are a few plants that yield an enor- 

 mous amount of nectar ; but as they are kept 

 only in greenhouses, averaging less than one 

 plant to the acre, they are valueless from a 

 bee-keeper's standpoint. If, however, any 

 good honey-yielder were widely distributed in 

 dense quantity over a single State, then it 

 would assume some degree of importance. 

 The buckwheat crop of the State of New York 

 would be no trifling matter, even if not anoth- 

 er acre of buckwheat were found elsewhere in 

 the United States. If it were possible to ob- 

 tain certain bees that would double the buck- 

 wheat-honey crop of New York, the amount 

 of money gained by that would warrant no 

 small outlay. Is it not possible that there are 

 single States in which the nectar secreted by 

 red clover would amount to several thousand 

 dollars ? 



But is red clover confined to a rather limit- 

 ed area ? It would be interesting to know 

 just what is the average acreage. Lacking 

 that, some estimate may be made from the 

 amount of clover seed raised. The govern- 

 ment statistics give us the figures, and it is 

 probably safe to infer that by " clover seed'''' is 

 meant that from red clover. According to the 

 last census available, that of 1900, an amount 

 of clover seed, large or small, is given as being 

 raised in every State and Territory of the 

 United States except Montana and Wyoming. 

 Certainly that shows that it is not confined to 

 so small an area as some suppose. 



The North Central division leads with a 

 product of 2,544,864 bushels. The South Cen- 

 tral comes next with 77,783 bushels ; the North 



Atlantic, 71,128 bushels ; So. Atlantic, 35,155 

 bushels; Western, 24,250. Total, 3,753,180 

 bushels. 



That shows a very unequal distribution- ; 

 but the distribution of the growing plants is 

 by no means what the figures would indicate. 

 From the States that are the greatest produc- 

 ers, as New York and Pennsylvania, large 

 quantities are exported, and, of course, other 

 States import, thus making the acreage grown 

 in the different States much more uniform 

 than the amount of seed produced. 



If all the seed raised is sown again — and it 

 is not likely that it is ever used for any other 

 purpose — and if a peck of seed is sown to the 

 acre, it would cover a little more than eleven 

 millions of acres. To speculate as to the 

 amount of honey that could be obtained from 

 this acreage would be outside of the present 

 inquiry, and it is doubtful as to there being 

 sufficient data to justify any thing like a rea- 

 sonable estimate. It is only desired to show 

 that the aggregate of red-clover territory is no 

 trifling affair, and that it is widely distrib- 

 uted. 



BEE-KEEPING AS A SOLE BUSINESS. 



One of the questions likely to occur to eve- 

 ry young bee keeper who has made a substan- 

 tial success with a few colonies of bees may 

 be worded in some such terms as the follow- 

 ing : " Can I make a good living at bee-keep- 

 ing alone?" On this account comes very 

 frequently the question as to what may be de- 

 pended upon as the average yield or profit 

 from a single colony of bees, or the question, 

 " How many colonies of bees shall I need so 

 that I may depend upon them alone for a liv- 

 ing ? " — queslions which no man living can 

 answer definitely. 



C. Davenport gives the matter some discus- 

 sion in the American Bee Journal, and settles 

 the question as to whether one can make a 

 living at bee-keeping alone by saying he has 

 done it. But he says his is a good locality, 

 and that he has no wife or family to support, 

 and adds, " While I would not advise a young 

 man to take up bee-keeping as a lifework, in 

 my opinion there is no question but that a liv- 

 ing can be made at it in a good locality if one 

 understands the business." 



While he may be entirely right in this, there 

 are those who would not be in accord with his 

 ideas when he says, " If I had my life to live 

 over I would not be a bee-keeper ; for I be- 

 lieve the work I have done to make what 

 might be called a success in our pursuit would, 

 in some others, have resulted in better success 

 financially, and also in other ways." It is 

 just possible that, if Mr. Davenport could live 

 his present life through, and then live anoth- 

 er life without bees, in some business at which 

 he could make more money, he might give his 

 judgment as follows : " I must say that, after 

 having lived the two lives so that I am now 

 able to judge between them, I prefer the bee- 

 keeper's life, which, although giving less op- 

 portunity for amassing wealth, gives one the 

 opportunity for a greater amount of happi- 



