18 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



best lot of loug-tougued bees. I shall have 

 to conclude that, so far as my study of the 

 subject has g'one, there has been no indica- 

 tion of any strain of the common honey-bee, 

 Apis niellijica, worthy of the distinction 

 long- tongue; and if any of the bees exam- 

 ined are worthy of such a name it is the 

 Cyprians. . . I have received bees from 

 colonies that were said to work freely on 

 red clover, and along with them bees from 

 other colonies in the same apiary that were 

 said not to work on red clover, and I have 

 been unable to find any difference in the 

 tongue lengths in favor of the clover work- 

 ers." 



In concluding, Prof. Gillette says: 



I do not wish to carry the impression that I think it 

 would not be to the advantage of a honey-bee to have 

 an increased tongue length, but I can haidly under- 

 stai d how the addition of one or two hundredths of 

 an inch is going to Iv Ip very much to gather honey 

 from red clover The length of the corolla - tube 

 through which the tongue must reach, in the heads of 

 red clover that I have examined, have varied between 

 .34 and .'M of an inch. The extrtme reach of the 

 tongue bevond the mandibles in wny bees I have mea- 

 sured has been 23 of an inch. It makes me wonder 

 if it is possible that those who think bees have gather- 

 ed honev from red clover can be mistaken, and that 

 they vi.s[t the blossoms of this plant for i ollen only. 

 This i- onlv a suggestion, but some one who has the 

 opportunity should settle it for a certainty. 



In regard to this last, I feel that Prof. 

 Gillette has gathered a wrong impression, 

 and certainly wrong in supposing that pol- 

 len may be the only thing sought by the 

 bees. The red-clover corolla-tubes grown 

 throughout the East, as I have measured 

 them, in hundredths of an inch, vary all 

 the way from .12 to .36 or .37 in length, the 

 depth increasing from the outside to the cen- 

 ter. In the rain-belt, at least, I am sure I 

 am right for these measurements. What 

 they may be in Colorado I am not able to 

 say. As nearly as I can estimate, half of 

 the tubes in an ordinary head of red clover 

 come within the range of .20 and .22; so 

 that the bees that have a tongue reach, no 

 matter what their tongue lenofh ma3' be, 

 will be able to gather froin half of the tubes; 

 and probably half of all the nectar in the 

 head, as they get some out of the long tubes. 

 That there is honey in these tubes is well 

 known, a fact which can be easily demon- 

 strated. All one has to do is to pull the 

 tubes at the right season of the year, 

 squeeze one between the thumb and finger, 

 and a good-sized drop of nectar will issue 

 from the end. Nay, I have gone further. 

 I have watched bees working on red clover, 

 and I have repeatedly seen them extract all 

 the nectar out of the shallow tubes, and 

 draw it down in the long tubes to a point 

 just equal to their reach. While the bees 

 do, of course, gather sotne pollen from red 

 clover, yet I think the fact is demonstrated 

 beyond doubt that tons and tons of such 

 honey is gathered, because there are times 

 when nothing else is in bloom, and the bees 

 will store in sections quantities of honey 

 that tastes very inuch like the bumble-bee 

 honey of our boyhood days. On all other 

 points I believe the professor's conclusions 

 are mainly correct, except that some bees 



have greater reaching powers, probably, 

 than actual measurements will show. His 

 tables show a variation in tongue reach in 

 Italians from .15 to .22. It will be noticed 

 that he says he had measured the tongues 

 from red-clover bees, and also the tongues 

 of those that were said not to work on that 

 plant, and that he was " unable to find any 

 difference in tongue length in favor of the 

 clover workers." The italics in this case 

 are mine. It would be interesting in this 

 connection to know whether those same bees 

 showed a difference in tongue reach; for, 

 as the professor has very properly shown, 

 there is a difference in tongue reach and 

 tongue length, and the variation of the for- 

 mer is much greater than the latter. 



It has been shown — indeed, I believe it is 

 generally admitted — that some bees will 

 gather much more honey from red clover 

 than others. Whether there is a physical 

 difference between them has not been prov- 

 en so far; and, to speak frankly, it looks 

 now as if tongue length certainly has noth- 

 ing to do with it. Whether tongue reach 

 has or not, will have to be determined by 

 means of much more perfect glossometers 

 than have yet been devised. I say gtossoin- 

 eters, because I am convinced that the rule 

 plan of measuring (which I have hitherto 

 advocated) is not altogether reliable. It 

 gives an idea, but does not show, as Dr. 

 Miller says in Stray Straws in this issue, 

 what the Dees witl or can actually reach 

 when alive. 



I have had much to do in stimulating a 

 demand for red-clover bees. My idea all 

 along has been to develop a race that would 

 be better workers. The mere question of 

 tongue length was an incident and not an 

 important part of the problem, as will be 

 evidenced by the fact that we of the Root 

 Co. never advertised long-tongued bees ex- 

 cept once, and immediately withdrew that 

 advertisement. Our advertising, with this 

 exception, has referred to red clover because 

 we were sure that we had a strain that dis- 

 tinguished itself away beyond anj^ thing 

 else we ever tried, and because we were 

 also sure that some of the daughters from 

 those same mothers had done equally well. 

 We purposely did not emphasize long 

 tongues in our advertisements, for the value 

 of that organ, whether long or short, we 

 felt had not at that time been determined. 

 Editorially in Gleanings for last April, 

 page 296, I called particular attention to 

 this, and again at other times. 



I wish to saj^ this in justice to those who 

 have advertised long tongues : The queens 

 they have sold have, so far as I know, been 

 red-clover stock, and the tongues were only 

 an incident, or supposed to be such. So 

 sure have our friends been that long tongues 

 were part and parcel of red-clover-gather- 

 ing qualities, that they have in some cases 

 made mere measurement predominant in- 

 stead of some other quality unknown and 

 yet contributing to the peculiar energy 

 which was shown when red clover was in 

 bloom. 



