242 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



COMMENTS ON RAMBLER'S TROUBLES. 



Alfalfa, Why it Fails to Yield Honey at Times; 

 Rambler's Wee-waw Hives; the Heddon Hive. 



BY W. A. H. GILSTRAP. 



Rambler's writing's have a peculiar at- 

 traction to me. When he was writing- of 

 California honey conditions from the south 

 end of the State it was trying- on our nerves. 

 We can write all we please about apicul- 

 tural conditions to Gleanings, and still 

 our Southern California friends seem to 

 know but little about the greatest mountain- 

 inclosed valley of the world. The way 

 Rambler writes on page 977 shows that he 

 has spent some time in our valley, and we 

 will not quarrel with him for being in Cal- 

 ifornia so long before he learned of our sec- 

 tion. As I slung honey fifteen or twenty 

 miles west of Rambler's retreat for several 

 years, and alfalfa honey in other localities 

 as well, perhaps my experience and obser- 

 vation would help the traveling man the 

 next time he comes our way. 



To my mind, alfalfa is a desert plant. 

 If it is excessively flooded it is thrown out 

 of its normal condition, and makes poor 

 success as a flower or honey producer, and 

 almost completely fails for seed. These 

 conditions are more pronounced on some 

 soils than others, and it is evidently influ- 

 enced by the atmosphere. The weather 

 that is best for honey production in New 

 York is not normal summer weather here, 

 and will not give best results. Mr. Doo- 

 little has said that the honey season is bet- 

 ter with occasional thunder showers, I be- 

 lieve. It will not work here " a little bit." 

 Alfalfa is said to be a poor honey-producer 

 in the Northern States. That could be ex- 

 pected of a dry-weather plant. Perhaps 

 sweet clover is a good honey-producer 

 nearly anywhere. 



But some seasons alfalfa presents an 

 abundance of fragrant blossoms which look 

 all right, and yet very little honey is pro- 

 duced. Why? The most striking case of 

 the kind that I have observed was when 

 an unusual amount of lightning was notice- 

 able. This led me to believe that an excess 

 of electricity in the atmosphere was detri- 

 mental to honey production. This view has 

 been strengthened since, but still there is a 

 question as to this theory being reliable. 

 Who knows? 



But the great enemy to alfalfa-honey pro- 

 duction is the change in cutting the crop. 

 I have not heard of a farmer who has tried 

 making hay of very young alfalfa who has 

 changed back to his former plan of allow- 

 ing it to stand in bloom quite a while. 



"The great problem in this valley is to 

 ■ learn how to hold the bees in when they 

 want to increase, and make them increase 

 when they don't want to " (page 978). As 

 you, Mr. Rambler, are a Heddon-hive 

 crank (me too), you would probably con- 

 tract the brood-chamber to one case about 

 the last week in August. In the spring 



you would turn the queen loose with that 

 rather light colony- As they would not get 

 strong enough to swarm, with empty combs 

 present, until the "starving time," they 

 would still try to get extra strength, and 

 perhaps would be your strongest colonies 

 early in the honey- flow. 



Now, Rambler, that brings us to wee- 

 waw hives. The name "astral hives," 

 from a prominent word on many of the 

 hives, may go into oblivion, so far as I am 

 concerned. You certainly never tried to 

 move bees in such hives. As there is hard- 

 ly any thing to nail to you can not nail 

 them tight. As they are sure to be warped 

 and split, tying is a failure. Do the best 

 you can, and then some bees will come out 

 and push you off the wagon. But if you 

 want to enjoy life, just ship some bees in 

 wee-waw hives by rail. I tried it once. 



But there is one redeeming feature about 

 them. When a man g-ets 300 or 400 wee- 

 waw hives he buys a ranch or improved 

 town property, or loans money out at inter- 

 est. Did you ever know it to fail? Per- 

 haps these old rattle-trap hives will give 

 better results in average hands than the 

 best Dovetailed hives made, as you are sure 

 of ventilation. Let me illustrate. 



A friend of mine, a good bee-l^eeper too, 

 ran short of good hives during swarming 

 one spring, and then put the rest of his 

 swarms in old discarded hives that were 

 quite leaky. To his surprise the bees in 

 the leaky hives stored more honey than 

 those in the tight hives — more ventilation. 

 In this locality we need good bees and good 

 worker comb. The outside part of the hive 

 is of less consequence. Of course, this is a 

 matter of locality. 



Gra5'^son, Cal., Jan. 6. 



[As I went through the alfalfa districts 

 last summer I heard a great deal about 

 getting the roots of the plants too wet or 

 too dry. In some localities it seems to 

 thrive more vigorously than in others. 

 While the soil and climate may have some 

 thing to do with the bloom, yet it was very 

 evident that the method of handling and 

 watering had also much to do with it. 



But the matter that is of great concern to 

 the bee-keeping interests is the increasing 

 tendency on the part of farmers or ranchers 

 to cut the hay before it comes into bloom. If 

 this practice continues at the rate at which 

 it has begun, it will be only a question of 

 time when the great alfalfa-growing re- 

 gions will become less and less known as 

 honey localities ; and the alfalfa honey 

 which we prize so highly will have to come 

 from those fields where the plant is culti- 

 vated for seed. Some regions are devoted 

 entirely to seed-growing ; and when a bee- 

 keeper can get into one of these lofcalities 

 he has a bonanza — or, as some of them told 

 ine, a "snap." The general practice at 

 the present time is to cut the alfalfa after 

 it has been in bloom for a few days. If it 

 were only to the interest of the hay-grower 

 to let the plant continue on through the 



