102 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



SWEET CLOVER AS A TREE IN TEXAS. 



Editor Gleanings:— Yon doubtless remember a 

 note I sent you in October, about a plant which 

 grows along the cliffs and rocky lands of our coun- 

 try. 1 also sent with the note a branch and blos- 

 som of the plant, or tree, you might call it, and 

 asked you to name it, but you seemed to be sur- 

 prised that I didn't know it was nothing but com- 

 mon sweet clover. Well, it's true that I never saw 

 any sweet clover to know it, but supposed it was a 

 weed or grain. For fear you might have made a 

 mistake, or that you did not take much time to 

 examine the branch sent you before, I send you a 

 block of wood sawed from one of the branches, and 

 I ask you to reconsider the matter, and see if you 

 can find a name for it. Tt grows from six to ten 

 feet high, and is sometimes large enough to make 

 fence-rails out of. The timber is very hard and 

 durable. The shoots are very straight, and often, 

 while out hunting, I have used them for ramrods 

 for my ritle. J. P. Caldwell. 



San Marcos, Tex., Dec. 6, 1886. 



Ill reply, I wrote friend C. as follows : 

 I never saw any sweet clover with a stalk 

 as hard as the sample you send ; but as it 

 has the very familiar taste of the plant, I 

 think there is no question but that it is the 

 same thing we have here. With us, how- 

 ever, it always dies down in the winter. 

 Do you mean to say that with you the same 

 stalk grows year aftei' year like" trees ? 



Certainly, the plant grows year after year, like 

 any other tree or bush. The blossom is vei-y fra- 

 grant, and the mountains are strewn with its de- 

 licious flavor twice a year. J. P. Caldwell. 



San Marcos, Tex. 



From the above it seems there is no ques- 

 tion but that sweet clover, in climates suf- 

 ficiently mild, changes its habit to that of 

 a hard woody tree. I presume the leaves, of 

 course, drop in the winter time. The next 

 question will be. Is it still a good honey- 

 plant V If I am correct, with us it fre- 

 quently produces two sets of blossoms in a 

 season, especially where a severe drought 

 causes it to drop its leaves and dry up. 



HONEY FROM HARD MAPLE. 



The honey I sent, I think no doubt was obtained 

 from hard maple, a part of it. I had no honey-dew 

 honey— never have had in this State. I get some 

 of the same kind every warm May. The largest 

 colonies get it— the small ones, never. This year I 

 extracted the first of it the fore part of June. 

 Next year ] will watch and make assurance doubly 

 sure. 



We have much maple timber near us, and we 

 have large colonies early enough to gather it, and 

 I think we fail only when the weather is too cool 

 for bees to work, or the colonies are too small to 

 get it. All my bees wintered in the cellar, and 

 were not brought out till April 15. 1 failed to get 

 any to show. Their brood probably used up all 

 they obtained. 



We regard our last season's experience as 10 lbs. 

 per colony in favor of outdoor wintering, on ac- 

 count of this early gathering. Another spring 

 may not so prove, but we shall see; 80 colonies are 

 now in the cellar, as nice as can be— have been in 

 just a month; 11.5 are outdoors, which had a nice 

 fly Dec. 11. I have no doubt my outdoor bees will 



surpass my cellar bees in early honey by more than 

 10 lbs. next year. T. F. Bingham. 



Abronia, Mich., Dec. 30, 1S86. 



The subject of hard maple came up at the 

 Michigan Convention, and I asked friend B. 

 to send me a sample of the hard -maple 

 honey. I thought perhaps it might be 

 something like maple molasses ; however, it 

 tasted to me more like honey-dew; hence 

 my suggestion, and the above is friend B.'s 

 reply. 



HOW TO MAKE MILK PAINT FOR COVERING 

 HIVES, ETC. 



I have been reading part first of Our Homes, and 

 have commenced making drains, foot-paths, and 

 cisterns, as per your directions. I should like to 

 know just how you make the milk paint that stands 

 so well; also directions how to make the very best 

 kind of cistern for greenhouses. I have only one 

 colony of bees left. I lost all the others by foul 

 brood. 1 am very busy now with the greenhouses 

 —no time for bees, but expect to try them in a 

 cucumber-house before long. E. Grainger. 



Toronto, Ont., Nov. 33, 1886. 



Friend ii., milk paint is made by stirring 

 water lime, such as is used for cisterns, in 

 skimmed milk. If you can not get skimmed 

 milk, use sweet milk. It will be much 

 cheaper then than paint ; and if put on new 

 rough boards it will stand for years. If the 

 boards are old, and have commenced to de- 

 cay on the surface, it will peel ofl:, taking 

 the old surface with it. — I should enjoy 

 hugely taking a peep at your cucumber 

 greenhouses. 



THE LOW PRICE OF HONEY, AND ITS COST OF 

 PRODUCTION. 



I can not forbear letting you know how well I 

 like Gleanings. T take several very interesting 

 papers; but when I get Gleanings they all have to 

 wait until that is read, even to the advertisements, 

 for 1 am always anxious to know all that is going 

 on in the bee-world, even to who has got some- 

 thing to sell, and what it is. 



I should like to say a few words on a subject that 

 is being ablj' discussed by several of our leading 

 bee-masters; namely, the low price of honey. In 

 the years gone by, bee-keeping has been highly 

 profitable where any effort was made to make it so, 

 and wbyV Simply because it was not very much 

 of a business in those days. There were but few 

 specialists then in the business; the farmers pi'o- 

 duced the most of the honey-crop, and but a com- 

 paratively small amount was then placed on the 

 market, and it brought fancy pi-ices. Now the 

 large numbers of specialists engaged in the busi- 

 ness are placing so many thousand tons of honey 

 on the market that bee-keeping is being forced 

 down to a business basis, and I do not think it is 

 quite down yet. In the near future I expect to 

 sell a nice article of comb honey for 10 cents per 

 lb., perhaps for eight; but if I can get to winter my 

 bees successfully, I am satisfied that I can raise it 

 for that at a profit. G. E. Hutchinson. 



Rogersville, Genesee Co., Mich. 



May I caution you a little in regard to be- 

 ing in too great hurry to get the price of 

 honey down f It will get down fast enough 

 without any such suggestions as you make. 

 I think you will find it close enough work to 

 produce" comb honey at 12^ cts. wholesale, to 



