592 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



a. From June 10 to 20; b. About one month; c. 

 Willow, apple, and teasel; but baBswood gives far 

 more honey than all the rest combined. Some 

 years a Utile alsikc clover is sown, which yields far 

 more honey than Ihe white, \\iih us; but the honey 

 is of so dark or reddish a color that I do not like it, 

 on account of its being sure to spoil the looks of 

 the first sections off in the basswood yield. 



G. M. Doolittle. 



a. About June 1, varying about ten days one way 

 or the oi her, according to the season, b. It always 

 lasts clear into the basswood, which begins bloom- 

 ing July 1, as a rule, and many times I have known 

 the bees to gather considerable white-clover honey 

 after the basswood was over, after July 20. c. The 

 basswood is our only other source after white 

 clover, to any considerable extent. The pleurisy- 

 root yields white horeyand is a profuse yielder too; 

 but as yet there are not enough of the plants in my 

 locality for my large apiary to make much surplus 

 from; however.it has been rapidly increasing for 

 several years past. James Heddon. 



a. It conies into bloom about May 20, and begins 

 to yield honey about twenty days afterward. I 

 have kept close watch of this for several years, and 

 here is the record -that for 18S6 being lost. 



1884. 1885. 1887. 1888. 1889. 

 First bloom - - 5 23 5-20 5-20 5-23 5-12 

 Began to yield honey 6-14 5-28 6 4 6 6 6-11 



As will be seen, this year it bloomed earlier and 

 began to yield honey later than usual, b. The yield 

 runs into that from basswood, which begins about 

 July 1, and does not amount to very much after 

 that closes, about ten days later, c. Besides bass- 

 wood, the crop from which grows less and lees each 

 year as the trees are cut down, we frequently get 

 considerable honey from sweet clover, for which 

 there is an excellent prospect this year. 



J. A. Green. 



White clover seldom yields much surplus before 

 June 10 in this locality, although it blooms much 

 earlier; and at the close it tapers off and mingles 

 with other things in such a way that it is hardly 

 possible to state its duration. Some years it seems 

 to yield scarcely at all; but the fact that I do not 

 see bees working on it is not full proof that they 

 are not doing so on some other portion of their 

 range. In regard to its blooming, I And the follow- 

 ing on my records: 



Year. Began. Closed. Days. 



1880 May 20 Aug. 15 88 



1881 " 22 Sept. 11 113 



1882 " 27 Sept. 13 118 



1883 " 29 Oct. 7 125 



1884 " 19 Sept. 6 110 



As to other sources of white honey, I have some 

 basswood. I used to credit wild basil and white 

 cornel with furnishing considerable white honey; 

 but with the lapse of time I have come to doubt it. 



E. E. Hasty. 



The above question was intended to indi- 

 cate to some extent whether it is practica- 

 ble to move bees from north to south, so as 

 to keep in the clover bloom. Friend Man- 

 um, I believe, is the furthest north of any 

 of our reporters, and he gives the date as 

 June 15 ; while Freeborn, of Wisconsin, 

 might be nearly as far north, he gives his 

 report as from the let to the 6th. Friend 

 Elwood, in York State, puts it not far from 

 June 20. Friend Wilkin, of California, says 

 they don't have any clover, which I was 



well aware of. Friend Viallon says they 

 seldom get any yield of honey from clo- 

 ver before March. Sometimes it lasts till 

 August. Mj impression is, that we. are in- 

 debted to white clover more or less in all 

 our loc ilities, say up to August or even lat- 

 er. Even here in Ohio I have seen quite a 

 yield of what 1 pronounced white-clover 

 honey, during August and September; and 

 as the bees were woiking on white clover 

 almost as much as on the red, it is difficult 

 to decide, if, in fact, we can decide at all, 

 which kind of clover gives the more. The 

 above answers also indicate that basswood 

 is not, as a general thing, as widely distrib- 

 uted as white clover. 



Question 136.— a. Do you ever get enough honey 

 from red clover to secure a surplus to any extent? b. 

 What is the most you ever secured from tins source? 



No. 



No. 



a. No. 



a. No. b. (?). 



a. No. b. None. 



a. No. b. Winter stores. 



Dadant & Son. 



H. R. Boardman. 



A. B. Mason. 



A. J. Cook. 



E. France. 



Geo. Grimm. 



a. No. b. I am notable to tell. P. H. Elwood. 



No; but little red clover is raised near me. 



O. O. Poppleton. 



a. No; b. It has been so mixed up with honey 

 from other sources that it is impossible to tell. 



Mrs. L. Harrison. 



Several times red clover has been planted here ; 

 but I never had the bees gather any nectar from 

 it. P. L. Viallon. 



a. Only once in a great while we secure more 

 honey from red than from white clover, b. I don't 

 know. C. F. Muth. 



a. I once credited red clover with a few barrels of 

 honey, but afterward thought that the blue vervain 

 should have had the credit. S. I. Freeborn. 



a. No red clover here. I never got any that I 

 knew of when I lived in the East, and even had my 

 doubts of any one else getting any worth counting. 



R. Wilkin. 



a. No. b. I never learned. The yields reported 

 from red clover, I think, are in localities where a 

 second crop is raised for seed; the blossoms are 

 smaller. H ambler. 



a. No. b. I don't know that I ever got any; but 

 one year, during a yield of buckwheat, two colo- 

 nies gathered light honey that may have been red 

 clover. C. C. Miller. 



Though 1 have known my bees to work on red 

 clover, I never knew them to make much surplus 

 from it, and I leave it altogether out of my calcu- 

 lation in estimating the honey-crop. 



J. A. Green. 



a. Only one year did I ever get any considerable 

 quantitj of red-clover surplus honey. I think near- 

 ly two thousand pounds of extracted honey was the 

 amount that year. b. Answered above. 



James Heddon. 



Not of late years, as there is a little worm which 

 works on it and this prevents its blossoming at all. 

 In 1872 I obtained about 30 pounds of honey from 

 this source from some of my best colonies, and did 



