86 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



&4^ 



A COLONY THAT ECILT COMBS IS THE OPES AIR. 



SOME CONDITIONS THAT AFFECT 

 THE CLOVER -HONEY CROP. 



Clover Does Not Yield Much Honey the 

 First Year of Its GroA^th: a Dr\- Fall 

 Kills the Old and Not the Young Plants; 

 No Clover-honey Crop During a Year 

 Following a Drouth. 



BY VIRGIL WEAVER. 



[in oar Sept. 15th issne, p. 1198, 1907, Mr. Weaver bad an ar- 

 ticle in wbicii he took the groond that a severe droath woald kill 

 the old clovers; that yoong clovers from seed woald spring op in 

 the meantime, as they woald not be choked by the old clover: 

 btit as the plant does not yield much honey the first year of its 

 growth there will, consequently, be little or no honey that year. 

 He farther claimed that, on the second year, there woald be a 

 yield of honey from it. 



This article, alihocgh poblished in September, was written 

 May 5, 1907. He then made the prediction that there woald be 

 no honey in 1907, north of the Ohio River, bat a " hamper crop" 

 in 1908 — a ptedictioc that was almost literally fulfilled. 



In the present article he has given additional data along the 

 same lines. He has. apparently, given the subject not a little at- 

 tention and stndy, bat Mr. Doolittle, another close stcdent of 

 nature, apparently does not agree with him. See his article in 

 this issoe. 



We shoold like to have this subject thorooghly discussed. In 

 short, is Mr. Weaver correct in his claims; Do the facts in yonr 

 locality bear them oot r — Ed.] 



I want e^ery reader of this article who lives in 

 the drouth-3tricken area to mark my words; that 

 is, that during this coming year there will not be 

 ten per cent of a white-clover crop east of the 

 Mississippi River. There are, of course, sections 

 here and there where the rainfall has been suffi- 

 cient to make a clover crop for 1909. I have 

 been trying to hammer this very thing into the 

 heads of bee-keepers for the last five years — that 

 is, that there is no honey-flow following a dry 



year. I have studied this white-clover question 

 cloier than any thing else, as I deem it the most 

 important question connected with bee-keeping. 

 I have not missed a white-clover crop in seven 

 years, although there were two complete failures 

 in Central Kentucky during this period. I will 

 explain: I had a good crop in 1902, averaging 

 10«J pounds per colony, and again in 1903. The 

 fall of 1903 in Central Kentucky was very dry, 

 killing out the white clover wherever I saw it, so 

 I shipped my bees to Iowa for the season of 1904. 

 Inexperience in shipping bees long distances by 

 freight cost me several colonies and weakened the 

 rest; but laboring under these dirr.culties 1 se- 

 cured an average yield of 75 pounds per colony. 

 The year 19t'>4 was dry again in Central Ken- 

 tucky, and there was an average rainfall where 

 my bees were in Iowa, so I remained where I was 

 for another season, and my 1905 crop in Iowa 

 was 60 pounds per colony. The season of 1905 

 in Central Kentucky gave an excess of 1.25 inch- 

 es rain, and I knew what this meant, so I shipped 

 my bees back there. Out of 130 colonies shipped 

 I landed and wintered 115, and sold, in 1906, 

 12,000 lbs. of white-clover honey, and increased 

 to 240 colonies. From these in 1907 I sold 

 30,000 lbs. of honey. For the season of 1908 the 

 drouth cut us short, and our crop does not exceed 

 15,000 lbs. Where my bees were located in Iowa 

 the season of 1906 was a complete failure; 1907 

 and 1908 were little better. Most of the honey 

 gathered there for the three seasons mentioned 

 was from other sources than white clover; but 

 in that very locality, Washington County, Iowa, 

 the prospects are good for a white-clover crop in 

 1909. Here in Central Kentucky there will be 

 nothing doing in the white-clover line for next 

 year, and I shall ship my bees to the mountains 

 of Eastern Kentucky for the season of 1909, 

 where there is basswood, poplar, chestnut, and 

 sourwood galore. 



HOW DROUTH AFFECTS THE CLOVER-PLAN'TS. 



I want to tell that farmer, page 1425, Dec. 1, 

 something about white clover. In one way he is 

 right, in another he is wrong. He is wrong so 

 far as honey is concerned for 1909. Take a 

 young clover-plant that started last May, for il- 

 lustration. With a normal rainfall and plenty 

 of room, room that nothing but a drouth can 

 give, by the first of November, in my locality, 

 this plant covers the ground with roots and run- 

 ners in a circle that varies from 6 inches in poor 

 soil to 2 feet in the best soil — an average of about 

 a foot to the plant; and with a normal amount of 

 rain the next May and June it makes a hundred 

 blossoms or more. Now, if the rain stops, say, 

 the first of July, this plant covers but one-third 

 of the space it would have covered had the rain 

 continued, and sets but one-third as many blos- 

 soms to bloom the following June. The honey 

 from these young plants, therefore, is cut two- 

 thirds. On this point the farmer was right. If 

 all our plants were started from the seed in 1908 

 we could count on at least one-third of a crop 

 this year; but this is not the case. During the 

 second year of the life of this young plant, with 

 a normal rainfall it continues to grow, and sets 

 new roots and runners, also embryo blossoms, 

 and by Nov. 1 of the second year it covers a 

 larger space and is ready to set almost as many 

 blossoms as it did the first year of bloom. How- 



