Apr. 15, nni 



age Italians. They always have i)lenty of 

 drones. They are less inclined to rob. They 

 supersede their queens readily and oftener. 

 Fewer colonies become queenless. The col- 

 onies are more uniform in strength. They 

 enter the supers niore readily. <^>ucenless 

 colonies anil nuclei accept queens from ripe 

 cells more readily. The bees build up fast- 

 er when it comes to dividing and making 

 artificial increase. 

 Cordele, Ua. 



A WESTERN APIARY IN WINTER QUARTERS 



BY M. D. PRICE 



On the front covers of Gleanings we 

 have been having a number of views of 

 eastern apiaries in winter quarters. I am 

 sending you a view of my apiary in Califor- 

 nia that was taken two days before Christ- 

 mas. 



The large piles of frames are some old 

 ones that I discarded. I bought my apiary 

 of a party here whose hives w-ere 18 inches 

 long and 10 deep, so I got rid of them, for I 

 wanted to use hives of Langstroth dimen- 

 sions. These 1 like better in every way. 



One of the views shows a cluster of man- 

 zanita. This commences to bloom the last 

 week in December, and is valuable, because 

 it allows the bees to breed up early. There 

 is very little surplus from it; but the honey 

 is water-white whenever there is enough to 

 extract. 



1 have in my apiary 220 colonies which I 

 handle all alone, except at extracting time. 



2:?7 



I make all of my own hives and frames of 

 redwood lumber, which does not rot as 

 quickly as pine. Some of the hives that I 

 bought were fifteen years old. and were as 

 sound as a dollar, and yet had never been 

 painted. 



Arroyo (irande, Cal. 



BEES AS BUILDERS OF FLOWERS 



The Part Bumblebees have Played in the Growing 

 of Red Clovei; How Bees Pollinate the Flowers 



BY JOHN H. LOVEI.L 



The English nation owes its power^^^and 

 wealth largely to bumblebees. This state- 

 ment sounds a bit sensational, not to say 

 improbable. Jkit it was the opinion of a 

 distinguished Cf rman scientist, Carl Vogt; 

 and it is endorsed by one of the most emi- 

 nent of living biologists, Ernst Ha?ckel, of 

 Jena. Let us examine the evidence. 



The red clover {Trifolhon pratenfit) is 

 chiefly pollinated by bumblebees, and is, 

 therefore, called a buaiblebee llowef. The 

 early settlers of New- Zealand learned this to 

 their cost. When they attempted to grow 

 this valuable fodder plant, much to their 

 astonishment it failed to produce seed. On. 

 inquiry it was learned that there were no- 

 bumblebees on those two large islands; but. 

 when about 100 of these bees were imported 

 from Europe, the red clover soon became 

 very fertile. Once introduced, the bumble- 

 bees multiplied apace, and a few years ago 

 a letter appeared in one of the New Zealand 



Typical CaliioniKi view, apiar.v of .M. D. Price. Arroyo (iraiule, in the distance. 



