988 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



A word to back this up from our experi- 

 ence in this county (Manatee), When I 

 came to the county I stayed at Parish, a 

 village set among orange-gi'oves. I bought 

 a few bees and transferred them from old 

 box hives. I cut bee-trees in the woods, 

 and transferred to the hives. I expected 

 these bees to fill up on wild sunflower in 

 October. There was a 

 vast field of it a mile 

 northeast of my yard. 

 In the early fall it 

 burst out into acres oi 

 gold, a thing of beauty 

 and a joy to all. The 

 flowers were full ol 

 nectar, thousands of 

 pounds of it, but none 

 got to my hives. So 

 far as I was concerned 

 these flowers were born 

 to waste their sweet- 

 ness on the desert air 

 — dollars upon dollars' 

 worth of honey, but 1 

 got none of it. So 

 much for thinking that 

 the Florida bee would 



gather sweets and bring them home if they 

 were within a mile or two of the hive. 

 Money was lost because of an error in judg- 

 ment based upon the old belief that bees 

 work a long way from home. 



One more experience because it seems to 

 bear upon this matter. Mr. Clute and I 

 have bees in town. Palmetto. A mile north 

 is the 450-acre gTove of the Manatee Fruit 

 Co. They keep bees to pollinate their fruit. 

 It adds largely to their yield, but they are 

 busy with other things and don't care to 

 bother with the bees. They have turned 

 them over to Mr. Clute who works them for 

 half the i:)rofit. The big grove is full of 



Spanish needle, which last fall secreted lots 

 of niciar. The hives in the grove were 

 filled with honey. Our bees a mile away 

 got very little of it. What little they got 

 came, in my belief, from the Aveeds that are 

 scattered here and there in small patches in 

 the back yards of the town. 



Please don't misunderstand. It is not the 



Winter case made of c 



lapboard, siding, as used by A. J. Knox, Orono, Ont. 

 See page 905, Nov. 1. 



intention to show that bees never go a mile 

 or more for nectar. But it is probable that 

 they do not often do that. If my Florida 

 observation is worth anything to me I must 

 figure on the bees working over a radius of 

 less than a mile; and that if I want mj' 

 bees to get a full season I must be prepared 

 to move them to stores that are a mile or 

 more away. They will be just playing at 

 gathering honey from scattered blooms here 

 and there to no profit. If I'd move them a 

 mile to where some plant is in full flower, 

 play would quicklv become work, and I'd 

 greatly profit. 

 Bradentown, Fla. 



THE COLORS OF WESTERN HONEY 



BY M. H. TWEED 



A little carelessness in heating honey, 

 changing it from water-white sage to a 

 dark tasteless article, set me thinking about 

 the question of dark and white honey from 

 alfalfa. I talked with a man who is an 

 inspector in one of the counties of southern 

 California^ many years in the business, and 

 who, I noticed, took a leading part in the 

 convention at Los Angeles. His idea is 

 that the muddy condition of the Colorado 

 River water used for irrigating is the cause 

 of the dark alfalfa in tlie Imperial Valley, 



and other 23oints where water is taken from 

 that river. I think he is mistaken, for I have 

 seen at Rocky Ford, Col., the whitest of 

 honey from alfalfa, and the water from the 

 Arkansas flowing through the town in the 

 irrigation ditches is almost thick with silt 

 and vegetable matter. 



Alfalfa honey from Utah or Colorado is 

 invariably white. Now, why is it that hon- 

 ey from the same blossom in the great 

 alfalfa valleys, Im]ierial, San Joaquin, and 

 valleys of southern Arizona, is always 



