412 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



KPt a start. 



bees, and manag'es a part of them himself. 

 In a later article we will sliow a picture of 

 one of his apiaries, located on a shed roof. 

 The upper riglit-hand view shows the home 

 of F. W. Brainard, Canon City; and the 

 next one, the middle view on the left, the 

 home of Geo. F. Lester, at Delta. The mid- 

 dle view on the right, while not the home of 

 a beekeeper, is nevertheless the home of one 

 of them for a part of the working hours, 

 being the mouse-proof bee-house built by R. 

 W. Ensley for one of his out-apiaries in 

 Delta County. It is covered with sheet iron 

 painted black. The two lower pictures show 

 the homes of A. F. Foster, Boulder, and A. 

 F. Stauffer, Delta. In connection with the 

 latter, it is interesting to note that the bees 

 paid for it in one year. 

 Boulder, Colorado. 



THE WILLOW AS A POLLEN AND HONEY 

 PLANT 



BY J. L. BYER 



Am.ong the different honey sources of 

 Ontario and other sections in the same lati- 

 tude, probably none are more important 

 than the willows, so familiar to nearly every 

 one. True, they are not to he compared to the 

 bassAvood, clover, and othei- sources of sur- 

 plus honey, yet indirectly they play a very 

 important part in beekeeping, as they are 

 very necessary for the early pollen and 

 honey they yield at a time when brood- 

 rearing needs just such a stimulus. I be- 

 lieve it is estimated that there are about 30 



varieties of willows native to Ontario; but 

 personally I know only a very few by their 

 right names, and generally the ones we are 

 familiar with are called by local names 

 whenever we refer to them. Mr. Doolittle, 

 if I am correct, claims that the pussy wil- 

 lows yield no nectar; but 1 am convinced 

 that in this locality they do yield some as 

 well as an abundance of early pollen. In 

 this connection it is well to recall the fact 

 that Mr. Doolittle claims that the basswood 

 yields no pollen in his section, while here, 

 more than once, I have seen the bees getting 

 large quantities of greenish-colored pollen 

 fi'om this tree, all of which goes to show that 

 eitlier localities differ or that observations 

 liave been luade at a time wlien atmospheric 

 conditions Avere not favorable for the secre- 

 tion of honey in the case of the pussy wil- 

 low, or for pollen in the basswood. 



The large varieties of the willows, such as 

 are commonly seen around mill-dams and 

 creeks, are great yielders of nectar, and I 

 have often seen the bright drops glistening 

 in the early morning of a warm day in late 

 April or early May, according to whether 

 we have an early or late spring. With good 

 weather for a few days, the strong colonies 

 will literally flood the brood-nests with nee- 

 tar, and brood-rearing receives a tremen- 

 dous impetus such as no artificial feeding 

 will bring about. Once I knew of a large 

 quantity of surplus taken from an apiary 

 near us, but that was an exceptional season, 

 and the bees Avere abnormally strong. It is 

 not likely to happen again in tAventy years. 



The AvilloAVS in general are very easy to 

 propagate, a small limb stuck in the ground 



