1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



77 



BEE-KEEPING AMONG 

 THE ROCKIES. 



By Wesley Foster. 



COMB HONEY IN GLASS. 



The method of putting up bulk comb honey 

 in glass, shown on page 28, Jan. 1, should never 

 be practiced where honey granulates at all easily. 



One preserving company in Denver has been 

 bottling honey with a piece of comb inserted, 

 and it was very pretty when first put out, but is 

 now nearly all candied solid. On the bottles is 

 this label: "Should this honey granulate, place 

 bottle in hot water till liquid." The piece of 

 comb of course will melt, and form a mass of 

 wax on the top of the honey whenever this is 

 done, and will likely cause both grocer and con- 

 sumer to feel as if they had been sold a gold brick. 



SORTING COMB HONEY. 



If not already done, now is the time to re-sort 

 all unsold comb honey. One is almost certain 

 to find some which is candied, and this should be 

 taken out, as well as any that shows any signs of 

 granulation whatever. The combs that are can- 

 died solid can be cut out and rendered, and all 

 the partly candied sold for just what they are. 



The best place to do this sorting is before a 

 good-sized window, so the combs can be held up 

 to let the light shine through if it will. The 

 edges of the comb next to the wood usually show 

 the first signs of candying. 



Dec. 26 I went over sixty cases of comb honey 

 and found five of them candied or partly candied. 



When selling honey to the home grocer it pays 

 to go over his stock occasionally and exchange 

 any which is canditd. There is often a great 

 loss of trade resulting from selling a good cus- 

 tomer a section of candied honey. The grocer 

 should know how to detect any slightly candied 

 section honey. 



# 



SIXTY-POUND CANS NOT STRONG ENOUGH. 



Mr. Scholl is right, page 1493, Dec. 15. The 

 60-lb. honey-cansare too light. They should be 

 made of heavier tin. I have seen a can burst 

 when the case was dropped only a few inches, 

 and in handling two or three hundred cases weigh- 

 ing 135 lbs. each, one is apt to work with the 

 least effort possible, and often let a case bump 

 the ground too hard. Cans made of heavier ma- 

 terial can be secured, but they cost ten or fifteen 

 per cent more. 



Second-hand cans should not be used for ship- 

 ping long distances, as they burst much easier 

 than new cans. 



The cases also, in many instances, are too light, 

 and are made of very poor material. A case 

 should weigh fifteen pounds, and have a center 

 partition-board between the two cans. The 

 great percentage of broken cases is due to the 

 splitting of the end board, allowing the sides to 

 spread. I have had an end split while the case 

 was in my arms, and the cans fall out of the case 

 before I could set it down. 



Freight-handlers use hooks in moving pieces, 

 and they strike these hooks into the hand-hole, 

 often breaking through the thin wood wall and 



piercing the can itself. The hand-hole should 

 be done away with, and a cleat, say an inch thick 

 and two inches wide, nailed at the top, and also 

 one at the bottom at each end of the case. The 

 cover should extend over the cleats and be nailed 

 to them. These four cleats would save the ends 

 from splitting, and would make it even possible 

 for the end boards to be made of two pieces. 

 The two cleats at the top would also give a far 

 better grip for the hands than the hand-holes. 

 « 



IRRIGATION, ALFALFA, AND HONEY. 



I have read from time to time the reports of 

 new irrigation projects in the west by Mr. W. 

 K. Moirison. There are several points relative 

 to irrigation and bee culture in the West and 

 Rocky Mountain region which he has not brought 

 out — if he is familiar with the facts. On page 22, 

 Jan. 1, Mr. Morrison refers to the Garden City 

 pumping project of Kansas. Kansas raises alfal- 

 fa, some with irrigation and some without; but 

 alfalfa honey in paying quantities has never be- 

 come common. The same thing is true of Ne- 

 braska. From North Platte to Kearney are great 

 fields of alfalfa, but bees do very little there. 

 Alfalfa raised by means of irrigation, and lack- 

 ing the soil and climatic conditions, does not fur- 

 nish nectar. The mountain valleys and slopes, 

 both east and west of the continental divide, yield 

 the most continuously. When more than one 

 hundred milesawayfrom the mountains the crops 

 are very risky. 



Another thing, a new irrigation district is not 

 profitable to the bee-keeper for several years. 

 The first year after water is to be had, alfalfa is 

 not sown. The next year there may be some, 

 but it does not bloom, and the third year is the 

 earliest to expect any nectar from that source, 

 and then it will be small. Five to ten years more 

 will be required for sweet clover to get in and 

 line the ditch banks and waste places, thus put- 

 ting on the finishing touches to a location. 



In this connection there is one other point which 

 is of vital interest to Rocky Mountain bee-keep- 

 ers. There are alfalfa districts such as that sur- 

 rounding Ft. Morgan, Colo., where good yields 

 of honey were the rule ten years ago and now, 

 though alfalfa is still grown, the bees do not 

 make the surplus that they did in former years, 

 and most of the bees are for sale. The lower 

 part of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado is anoth- 

 er district where this is the case. A good many 

 things enter in to bring about this effect. First, 

 the plowing of the land for sugar beets, though 

 alfalfa is still grown very plentifully, and is the 

 best soil-renewer. Second, the farmers may cut 

 the alfalfa sooner than formerly. Third, insect 

 pests increase where the opportunity for life is 

 greater. The yellow butterfly, or one almost 

 yellow, works on the alfalfa, and undoubtedly 

 gets considerable nectar. Then the mite, which 

 causes the onion blight, is credited with getting 

 into the alfalfa bloom and making the nectar- 

 fountains dry up. The fourth element entering 

 in is the loss by the soil of the elements which 

 aid the plant to secrete nectar. The luxurious 

 growth and heavy nectar secretion seem to go 

 together, and alfalfa is not now making the rank 

 growth in several sections of Colorado that it did 

 ten or fifteen years ago, and the yields of honey 

 are not equal to those of former times. 



