1887 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



829 



ditched it to c;irr\ otT nil surplus water. 

 Now, then, 11 iieighb;)!- tliat annoys >ou ful- 

 ly as much as that hen and licr brood an- 

 noyed me by scratching, may b.' utilized to 

 do yourself and the world a ,L;reat amount of 

 good; and the line in which yon are to work 

 for the accomplishment of this end is 

 through Christ Jesus, as expressed in tlie 

 language of our text. 



A LATE HONEY FLOWaFROM ASTERS. 



DO WE OFTEN HAVE ONE AS I.ATK AS TIIH; MID- 

 DLE OF OCTOBEK ? 



?S^ 0-DAY is warm and sunny, after three hard 

 2f frosts. I am very much surprised at the 

 < way the bees are still workinj^, and storing- 

 honey. To-day tlicy arc- working- almost as 

 well as they did through the honey-How of 

 last June, when white clover was in bloom. I 

 have a nucleus of bees with three frames. They 

 have glass on two sides, and I have been able to 

 watch them closely. They are storing honey very 

 fast, and since yesterday I see they have sealed 

 over considerable. They seem to fill the cells near- 

 ly full, and let it remain tor several days that way, 

 then nil up and seal over. 1 know of what I speak 

 when 1 saj' they are gathering- honey as fast as 

 they have at any time in the early season. There 

 is one thing- that hinders them from filling- the 

 hives right up— cool eveningrs and mornings, and 

 a few days have been too cold to do much good. 

 Another drawback is the shortness of the working 

 hours. They do not get more than half as many 

 working hours in as they do in the month of June. 

 I have never known such a honey-harvest in my 

 experience in the bee-business at this season of 

 the year. It is now October 17. The bloom I spoke 

 to you about came out in the last week in Septem- 

 ber, perhaps a little earlier, and has now begun to 

 decline; but if the weather keeps warm the bees 

 will have another week to reap this harvest. 



I have justj returned from a visit to the woods 

 and neighboring fields. I find a wonderful supplj' 

 of the wild 'aster— such a crop I don't think I ever 

 saw before, and you ought to see the bees on it. It 

 would do you good just to roam over the old pas- 

 ture-fields and ravines where it has been about 

 half cleared out, and then suffered to grow up in 

 weeds, to see the busy bees on this fiower. It is a 

 flower that secretes Inectar all day— not a morning 

 supply and then gone. The bees continue to work 

 on it as long as it is warm enough. Some days, 

 when it was rather sultry, they continued till dark; 

 but at this time of year it gets a little cool toward 

 night. 



As to my bees, I am better pleased with them this 

 season than before July. August, and September of 

 this year— the first parr of July and last week of 

 September excepted. I hope we shall have one 

 week yet of gooa weather. Have we had a honey- 

 flow anywhere else as late in the season as this be- 

 fore? W. S. Jones. 



Central Station, W. Va., Oct. 1", 1>^87. 



Friend J., I would go a good many miles 

 to see such a yield of honey in October, as 

 you speak of. I remember passing, years 

 ago, through the fields quite late. It was 

 alter severe frosts, I remember, biit 1 was 



astonish(!d to see a small swarm— it looked 

 almost like a little swarm of Italians— hov- 

 ering over a single plant covered with blos- 

 soms. It was siicli a siglit that I thought of 

 taking tiie plant up and of trying to propa- 

 gate it. I did not know what it was at the 

 time, but I afterward found out that it was 

 aster, and we made some attempts at do- 

 mesticating it, but it didn't take well to 

 cultivation. I don't suppose it would pay 

 in dollars and cents, but it certainly would 

 be worth something to a live bee-keeper, 

 to see about a quarter or an eighth of an 

 acre roaring with bees away along in Octo- 

 ber. Your statement revives my enthusiasm 

 on the subject. As there is such a great 

 variety of asters, I think it would pay well 

 to get ffur roots or our seed from some of 

 the very plants that yield honey largely 

 very late in the season. The aster has 

 yielded botmtitully this season in almost all 

 localities, as you will see by the reports. 



MORE ABOUT THE ASTER. 



ITS VALUE AS A'IIONEY-PLANT ; ALSO THE PEl.U- 



liak:odoi{ of the honey at times. 



ip BOUT the 1st of October I noticed a very of- 

 1^ fensive smell in my apiary of ten hives. I 

 V- concluded thei-e was something wrong— prob- 

 ^ ably foul brood, as I had never seen bees 

 affected with that disease. It smelled like 

 dead: bees, or moldj'^or soured, honey. We could 

 smell it ten steps from the hives, on a still evening; 

 but on examinati(jn the bees were strong and lively, 

 and in good condition. They were working strong, 

 and gathering- honey and pollen j from the weed 

 herewith inclosed, called here by some the " last of 

 summer," and I believe they stored more honey 

 from it than from any other fiower we had this 

 summer (it being a very poor season) except linn. 



It still looks white with bloom after a hard 

 frost on the a:.*d, with the^thermometer at 26°; but 

 they gathered pollen, and I suppose honey too, 

 after several frosts, and had considerable brood 

 and even small larvae, a week ago. I noticed no 

 eggs. The Howcrrsent, blooms from about the I.5th 

 of Sept. until hard trosts'.kill it. It grows from two 

 to three feet high, and is a very common weed 

 here. 1 can't imagine any thing that caused the 

 bad smell, except the honey from this weed. The 

 bad odor has now^disappeared, and the honey has 

 no bad taste. A. S. Hill. 



Tygart Valley, Greenup Co., Ky., Oct. 24, 1887. 

 You are right, friend H. This peculiar 

 odor does come from this particular plant, 

 and the plant is tlie common aster of our 

 tields. Tlie specimen that blossoms so very 

 late is a small -tlo'uered variety. I have 

 noticed this same smell, and I have felt 

 pretty sure it came from asters, because 

 nothing else was in bloom at the time ; 

 and when I walked among the plants in the 

 helds I felt sure I could detect an odor quite 

 similar. At times one would think the 

 honey was all in a ferment, like the contents 

 of a barrel of feed for the pigs during a hot 

 day. I donl believe this occurs every year, 

 however; but it may occur whenever 

 aster honey c^mes in profusely. 



