524 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



AuGi'ST, 1919 



HEADS OF GRAIN T £?i 



forage plant. Their fields are a bright pink 

 with its flowers shortly before I find the 

 first alfalfa blossom. The bees seem to be 

 working on it quite busily, and the honev 

 that appears in the supers at that time is 

 very nice. It is a delicate honey of a pale- 

 yellow color that makes a pretty appearance 

 in the section, and it does not candy readily. 

 A few years ago one of the merchants in 

 our nearest town sent me word that if I had 

 "any more of that honey made from flow- 

 ers — not out of alfalfa,'' he would like 

 some of it. Since then he has always insist- 

 ed on having yellow honey, and has explain- 

 ed to me that for his personal taste he finds ' 

 alfalfa honey too much like granulated 

 sugar syrup. 1 have suggested to him that 

 a case of the white and a case of the yellow 

 side by side offer a pretty contrast, and 

 that some of his customers might choose one 

 and some the other; but while the other lo- 

 cal merchants do not seem to care which I 

 bring them, he remains firm in wanting only 

 the yellow. It was the kind of honey that 

 we take to be esparcet, which is very 

 superior, that first prejudiced him in favor 

 of the yellow honey; but he does not dis- 

 criminate when I take him other kinds, and 

 we have several kinds of yellow honey. I 

 suppose "the trade" would speak of them 

 as amber. We get only a comparatively 

 small amount of the white alfalfa honey, as 

 we are at an altitude just under 8,000 feet 

 here in the Wet Mountain Valley, and the 

 alfalfa plant is not cultivated very exten- 

 sively. It does not make as rank and rapid 

 a growth, and therefore pay as well, as in 

 the lower warmer altitudes. 



Westcliffe, Colo. Mary T. Comstock. 



[Sainfoin is raised extensively in Europe, 

 but is not very common in our country. — 

 Editor.] 



g ) — t o ^ ac= t o 



Moves Twenty- 

 seven Truckloads of 

 Bees Every Year. 



This picture shows 96 

 two - story ten - frame 

 hives of bees arriving 

 at their new location 

 98 miles from their former home. We load- 

 ed this truck at sundown, started at an ele- 



DIFFERENT FIELDS 



The canvas on top of the bees is to keep the 

 hot desert sun from smothering them. I 

 move an average of 27 truckloads of this 

 size every year, and never lose a colony. I 

 never sprinkle the bees with water, for 

 every one I gave the least bit to always 

 smothered. It does not pay to haul bees 

 such a long distance unless you are sure of 

 a large crop of honey. The largest percent- 

 age of my bees are in three-story ten-frame 

 hives, which I believe is the best hive for 

 this locality; but it does not pay to haul 

 three-storey hives so far. A. E. Lusher. 



Pasadena, Calif. 



Thinks Everyone 

 Should Keep Bees. 



Everybody ought to 

 keep bees, it seems to 

 me. We started with 

 a runaway swarm which came from a pub.ic 

 building. The bees pollenize our fruit and 



Apiary of Cora June Sheppard. 



furnish us no end of sweets. I do all my 

 canning and preserving with extracted hon- 

 ey; and during the war I used honey for 

 cake, and liked its flavor and keeping quali- 

 ties. We also made icecream with honey.. 

 We learned to get along without sugar dur- 

 ing the war. The bees have proved to be 

 wonderfully interesting, and last season 

 they supplied us with $90 worth of honey. 

 Shiloh, N. J. Cora June Sheppard. 



Summering Diffcult 

 in Japan. 



vation of 841 feet, passed thru one mountain 

 range, and 4,100 feet in the second range. 



1 think the term 

 ''summering" will be 

 a new one to you. 

 There is no flower for the bees, unless in an 

 exceptional locality, thruout the summer 

 months in Japan, especially in the middle 

 and southern parts of the country, altho any 

 kind of garden flowers is scarcely ever to 

 be seen. 



There is some continuance of rainy wea- 

 ther almost day by day during 30 days in 

 early or middle summer. It is not so hot as 

 to melt the combs in hives; but wax moths 

 have a chance to breed. 



Suppose, how will the bees do without 

 any pollen and nectar to gather, and with so 



