JUNE 1, 1913 



385 



answer to her request to let this young 

 queen live I exiilained mj^ reasons for not 

 wishing to perpetuate this strain, Avhen she 

 suddenly opened her hp.nd and threw the 

 queen in the grass, saying it had stung her, 

 and pointed to the place where the sting 

 had entered. I sympathized with her, tell- 

 ing her that she had had a unique experi- 

 ence, as queens were not in the habit of 

 stinging any tlung but a rival. She remark- 

 ed that it did not hurt as much as a worker 

 did. B. B. Brewster. 



Greenridge Marr, Canada. 



In reading the Feb. 15th Gleanings to- 

 night, page 116, I saw that Elias Fox wants 

 to know if any one was ever stung by a 

 queen bee. I have been. It was at the be- 

 ginning of my apicultural experience. I 

 had two (virgins) I think, in my left hand. 

 There was war at once. Of course one went 

 for the other. The other avoided the thrust 

 somehow, and I received the sting just be- 

 low the second joint on the second finger. 

 It hurt severely. The queen that stung the 

 other flew away; but I kept the other one, 

 and I think she mated. 



John H. Rising. 



Lestershire, N. Y., March 23, 



ANOTHER stung BY A QUEEN. 



Not wishing any more increase Avhen a 

 swarm issued, I hunted out the queen and 

 intended to kill her. I caught one and 

 pinched her head, and she stung me on the 

 finger. This is the first and only time I was 

 ever stung by a queen. She was a full- 

 sized normal queen that had come forth 

 with the swarm. 



Kokomo, Ind. Eli Robertson. 



GREASEWOOD OR CHICO 



BY J. A. GREEN 



Wesley Foster is evidently not well in- 

 formed as to our desert flora, else I have 

 been laboring under a misapprehension for 

 many years. The plant which he illustrates 

 and describes as greasewood on page 50 of 

 Gleanings for Jan. 15 is not what is called 

 greasewood here, but chico or " rabbit 

 brush." Greasewood is one of the most 

 common plants of the arid plains of the 

 West, being second, I believe, only to sage 

 brush. Here it is the principal one of the 

 woody shrubs of the desert, giving place a 

 few miles further west to sage brush. It is 

 a straggling, scraggly bush, growing some- 

 times five or six feet high, though usually 

 not over three. The wood is very hard; 

 and, though it has no real thorns, the tips of 

 the twigs are so sharp that the effect is 

 about the same as though it were thorny. 



The leaves are narrow and very fleshy. 

 When young, stock browse freely on the 

 green tips; and, though it has not a very 

 high reputation as pasturage, it is, accord- 

 ing to analysis, almost as nutritious as al- 

 falfa. The blossoms, which come in early 

 summer, are very inconspicuous, small, and 

 yellowish-brown. The bees work on them 

 very freely for a few days, getting consid- 

 erable pollen and some honey, which, I be- 

 lieve, is very dark in color, though of good 

 flavor. 



Chico blooms late in the fall, resembling- 

 goldenrod in this respect as well as in ap- 

 pearance. The bees get quite a little honey 

 from it, deep yellow in color, rather thin 

 and poor in quality. It granulates veiy 

 quickly, even in the comb; and the section 

 of alfalfa or sweet-clover honey that is fin- 

 ished up on chico is not very much improv- 

 ed thereby, as the chico honey around the 

 lower edges granulates long before the rest 

 of the honey. The worst feature about it, 

 though, for the comb-honey producer, is the 

 intense yellow color of the pollen, which 

 stains the surface of the combs over which 

 the bees travel, besides giving them its smell, 

 and to some extent its flavor. As this smell 

 and flavor are very much like that of the 

 common garden marigold, it does not im- 

 prove the quality of the section honey which 

 remains on the hive through its flow. On 

 this account, manj^ beekeepers remove the 

 supers from the hive as soon as the chico 

 begins to bloom. After the plant is through 

 blooming, the appearance is vciy much the 

 same, except that the yellow of the blossoms 

 is changed to white. This white tufted ap- 

 pearance, somewhat like a rabbit's tail, 

 probably accounts for its other common 

 name of " rabbit brush." 



Another slight error in this article, not 

 of much importance to a beekeeper, per- 

 haps, though it might be to a homeseeker, 

 is the impression which it gives that peaches 

 are raised by the hundreds of carloads near 

 Fruita. .Peaches are not commercially grown 

 to any extent near Fruita, though apples 

 are one of the main crops. The peach dis- 

 trict begins fifteen or twenty miles east of 

 Fruita; and it is here that hundreds of tors 

 of the finest peaches grown in the world 

 rotted on the ground last autumn, because, 

 although we have one of the best organized 

 fruit-shipping associations in the world, our 

 system of distribution is so poor that it 

 would not pay to ship these peaches, though 

 thousands of people could not get any 

 peaches to eat because the price was too 

 high. Some time, let us hope, the produc- 

 er and the consumer may be brought near- 

 er together, to the advantage of both. 



Grand Junction, Colo. 



