806 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1 



the doctor as any thing to be compared with 

 catnip and sweet clover; but between the 

 two last, catnip would rank considerably 

 ahead in the amount of honey it would se- 

 crete as well as in the quality of it. 



Taking it all in all I am inclined to the 

 opinion that Dr. Gandy's large yields, 

 which he limits to his home yard, are due 

 more to the large hives, the general excel- 

 lence of his locality, and to the natural bee 

 pasturage that grows spontaneously, than to 

 any artificial sowing of catnip, though there 

 is no doubt that he gets some honey from it. 



The soil in and about Humboldt, and, in 

 fact, all through that portion of the State, 

 is very rich and productive; and the wild 

 pasturage, where it is allowed to exist hy 

 the farmers, is very abundant. The catnip 

 that grows around Humboldt attains about 

 twice the size of that found in Ohio, al- 

 though I found plants in and around Ma- 

 rengo, 111., that would compare very favor- 

 ably with those in Nebraska. Asked as to 

 whether catnip would grow in the open 

 fields, Dr. Gandy said he saw no reason 

 why it would not; that it had grown in 

 patches when exposed to the direct raj^s of 

 the sun. Still it seemed to me that the 

 plants sought the shade of some other plant, 

 especially that of the osage orange. In- 

 deed, Dr. Miller, whom I saw later, told 

 me that one of the characteristics of catnip 

 in his vicinity was that it would be found 

 hugging close to the osage-orange fences. 

 Personally I am inclined to doubt, although 

 I may be wrong, whether catnip could be 

 made bo grow in an open field like wheat, 

 alfalfa, and other farm crops. My own 

 judgment is that the only thing we can do 

 is to sow it in waste places on lands other- 

 wise worthless, shaded to a greater or less 

 extent, and remote from the scythe of the 

 township trustees. I am, therefore, not ex- 

 tremely hopeful that the average bee-keeper 

 in average.localities will be able to increase 

 his honey crop very materially by sowing 

 catnip. At the same time, I am going to 

 sow seed in our vicinity and see what it 

 will do. 



Dr. Gandy is to be commended for the in- 

 dividual effort he is making in testing the 

 value of catnip and other honey-plants. In- 

 deed, I believe he has done more to study 

 up and test this subject of the artificial 

 pasturage of bees than perhaps any other 

 man. His enthusiasm is little short of con- 

 tagious. Possessed of anj^ amount of capi- 

 tal, and having unlimited faith in catnip, 

 he may be able to show some good results. 

 The only wonder to me is that he has not 

 yet succeeded in getting large fields of cat- 

 nip before this; but it is possible he did not 

 realize the importance of the plant till with- 

 in the last year or two. 



THE STATEMENTS OF SOME OF DR. GANDY'S 

 NEIGHBORS. 



It is but fair to say that a number of bee- 

 keepers and others in the vicinity of Hum- 

 boldt met us' at different times, and asked 

 how Dr. Gandy could average 300 or 400 



lbs. of honey per colonj', spring count, when 

 they could not with their bees, in the same 

 vicinity, get more than 25 or 50 lbs. They 

 also stated that the value of catnip, in their 

 opinion, had been greatly overrated by the 

 doctor; and while they had nothing against 

 him personally they felt that his article in 

 our July 15th issue was misleading. Dr. 

 Gandy had stated that catnip was very dif- 

 ficult to eradicate when once started. This 

 made it all the more valuable as a forage- 

 plant. "But," said the local residents, 

 "if that is true, then there is danger of its 

 being a pest to those who sow catnip indis- 

 criminately, as they may find they are in- 

 troducing a bad weed on the farm." 



Dr. Gandy feels that some of his neigh- 

 bors are jealous of his success, and that, 

 because they can not produce such results 

 as he does with bees is no reason why he 

 can't. Certain it is he has out-distanced 

 them all in the amassing of property, and his 

 success and wealth have, he says, made him 

 the special object of envy. No one contra- 

 dicts the claim that Dr. Gandy is a success- 

 ful business man; that he owns farms in 

 several counties, and that his total land- 

 holdings might be 20,000 acres. Besides 

 owning several hotels he owns one or two 

 grain-elevators, and he is interested in va- 

 rious kinds of property in different portions 

 of the West. His total wealth would ag- 

 gregate from one million to a million and a 

 half dollars; and that leads me to say that 

 Dr. Gandy does not claim to have made all 

 this money from bees. But he does claim 

 that his bees gave him ^ start ■a.it&r his fail- 

 ure; and with this start he was enabled, 

 through the rise of land and other invest- 

 ments, to get to the point where he is. 



Dr. Gandy feels that the readers of 

 Gleanings have read more into his article 

 than he put in it. For instance, he does 

 not claim to have made 400 lbs. per colony 

 from each of 3000 colonies. The editor of 

 the Pacific Bee Journal figured up the sum 

 total of all this to be $135,000; and someone 

 else has estimated that Dr. Gandy's claims 

 of honey production, if sold locally, as he 

 says, would amount to about 1000 lbs. to 

 every man, woman, and child in the vicini- 

 ty — an amount, of course, all out of pro- 

 portion to the average consumption of an 

 ordinary person. But these misconceptions 

 doubtless arise from Dr. Gandy's having 

 described his ideal bee-keeper, inadvertent- 

 ly leaving the reader to conclude that he 

 (GandjO had actually fulfilled the condi- 

 tions of such a bee-keeper. If, therefore, 

 he had 3000 colonies, and if he obtained 400 

 lbs. per colony — well, well! no wonder peo- 

 ple shook their heads. The doctor's arti- 

 cle, as I read it over, is somewhat suscep- 

 tible of misunderstanding ; and, unfortu- 

 nately, the general reading public has con- 

 strued it all through to the point of exag- 

 geration, when, in fact, the doctor dis- 

 claims any intention of so doing. 



I took a number of photos in and around 

 Humboldt, and at a later time will present 

 them. 



