THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



158 



lines east, of which we will give the 

 following as a sample, dated Jan. 1, 

 ISST): 



" 15ees in hives — tth class. 



Bee-hives (knocked down) .'!id class. 



l?ee-conib, boxed, ;Jid class. 



Honey in glass, 1st class. 



Honey in barrels or casks, 3rd class. 



In order to make this classification 

 understood, we will enumerate the 

 rates between Chicago and New York: 

 "First class $1; second class. Hoc; 

 third class, 70c.; fourth class, 60c., per 

 100 pounds." 



This classification will no doubt be 

 followed by other railroads as soon as 

 their attention is called to it, and. be- 

 fore another year dawns on the world, 

 we hope that there will be much less 

 cause for complaint by bee-keepers 

 concerning tlie freight classification 

 of bees, hives, honey, etc. 



-Jas. 1). JMeador (Iowa) said every 

 bee-keeper should endeavor to have 

 this matter adjusted to the satisfac- 

 tion of all the bee-keepers of America. 



After some discussion it was voted 

 to appoint a committee to present 

 resolutions setting forth the views of 

 this Congress, and to wait upon the 

 meeting of commissioners of the 

 freight lines, to be held at Atlanta, 

 Ga., very soon. The President ap- 

 pointed the committee as follows : S. 

 C. Boylston, South Carolina ; Jas. L. 

 Meador, Missouri ; and L. E. St. John, 

 New York. 



An essay from Mr. O. O. Poppleton, 

 of Iowa, was read upon 



TASTUKAGE FOR BEES. 



In considering this subject, four ques- 

 tions naturally arise: 1. Is it desirable to 

 have more pasturage for our bees than 

 nature gives us without special effort on 

 our part ? 3. Is it possible to increase tlie 

 ftrowth of honey-yielding plants by ef- 

 forts of our own ? 3. Can we obtain suf- 

 ficient re.sults from such efforts, to pay us 

 for the labor and money expended '.' 4. 

 What are the particular plants, it any, 

 that it will pay to raise for honey. As the 

 first two questions will undoubtedly be 

 answered in the affirmative by all, they, 

 therefore, need no discussion. 



When in this essay I speak of artificial 

 pasturage, I mean all those honey yield- 

 ing plants not usually found growing 

 without having been especially planted 

 for that purposes In considering this 

 matter ot artificial pasturage, the first 

 thiug to do, is to take into account the 

 probable amount of such pasturage nec- 

 essary for effectiveness, and I know of no 

 other way to do this than to examine the 

 extent of our natural resources. I have 

 observed the bees from my apiary, con- 

 sisting usually of between 100 and 300 

 colonies, being nearly or quite as numer- 

 ous on white clover five miles from home 

 as they were in the inunediate vicinity of 

 tlie apiary, thus showing that the liees 

 glean from an extent of country with a 

 diameter of at least ten miles, or about 

 ."iCOOO acres, in round numbers. This is ot 

 course not all covered with clover, but as 

 at least one-tenth of it is .so covered, 

 leaves as a very low estimate, the equiva- 

 lent of some 5000 acres completely covered 

 with white clover. 1 sometimes obtain 

 10,Ooti pounds of surplus white clover 

 honey, or an average yield of 3 pounds 

 per acre. The total yield per acre that 

 might be obtained with just the right 

 number of bees for tlie capacity of the 

 field, is, of course, very uncertain, but I 

 tloubt whether over one dollar's worth of 



honey could be obtained from eacli acre, 

 under the most favorable circumstances, 

 without counting cost of apiary labor, 

 etc., in obtaining that amount, or allow- 

 ing for a reduced yield when circum- 

 stances are unfavorable. Again, there 

 are certainly not less than .'J,O0U basswood 

 trees within reach of my bees, and the 

 largest crop of basswood honey I have 

 ever obtained in one season was 4,000 

 pounds, or less than one pound per tree. 



Of course these calculations are neces- 

 sarily very crude ones, but they show 

 unmistakably that this suliject of arti- 

 ficial pasturage is not one of an acre, or a 

 few acres, but one involving large areas 

 of land, and entirely forbids the use of 

 high-priced, valuable land for this purpose. 

 Again, plants that require cultivation 

 must be discarded from our calculations, 

 as any one can readily see by calculating 

 the expense of caring for, say 80 acres, 

 when planted to any of our most-easily 

 cared-for crops. Neither do I think it can 

 be made profitable to raise any plant for 

 honey alone, that requires to be re-seeded 

 each year. 



From the foregoing we would deduce 

 the following rules or principles that 

 must be observed if we would ever suc- 

 ceed in profitably raising plants for honey 

 only, viz : 



1. Plants must be grown on large areas 

 of ground, not simply on small patches. 



3. Either barren or very low priced 

 land must be used, as the results will not 

 pay the rental of valuable farm land for 

 this purpose. 



3. Plants must be selected that will re- 

 seed themselves year after year. 



-t. They must also be plants that will 

 retain possession of the ground on which 

 they are grown, to the almost entire ex- 

 clusion of other vegetation year after year 

 without annual cultivation. 



n. Plants used for this purpose should 

 not be very troublesome weeds, especially 

 if liable to spread on neighboring farms. 



Now comes the practical question. 

 Have we any plant or plants that possess 

 the proper qualities ? Each one will 

 have to answer this question for his own 

 locality, but for mine, I am very unwill- 

 ingly forced to answer, no. I have tried 

 several, especially figwort and sweet 

 clover, and they are both signal failures 

 in tliose qualities described in rule 4. 



While 1 have been very reluctantly 

 forced to the conclusion that it is not 

 practicable to raise plants or trees on a 

 large enough scale to materially increase 

 our crops of honey, I think it probable 

 that we can increase the growth ot 

 figwort, sweet clover, etc., in waste places 

 in our neighborhoods, enough to keep the 

 bees at least partly employed during 

 what would otherwise be seasons of al- 

 most absolute dearth of honey-producing 

 plants. No experienced beekeeper neeils 

 to be told the advantages of this, even if 

 little or no surplus honey should be gath- 

 ered at tlese times. We now come to 

 the consideration of a different class of 

 plants, viz : those that are valuable for 

 purposes other than the honey thev pro- 

 duce, such as alsike clover, buckwheat, 

 etc. 



I would place buckwheat at the head of 

 this class tor value, it being one ot onr 

 best paying crops for its grain, wherever 

 it can be successfully grown, and vvhat- 

 every honey it yields is so much clear 

 gain, but unfortunately its yield of honey 

 is very uncertain. A few years ago I re- 

 ported at one of our conventions, that I 

 had obtained about (3,000 pounds of honey 

 from some 3.5 acres of buckwheat. As I 

 only estimated the area of the crop grown 

 within 2>^ miles of mv place, and later 

 observations have convinced me that bees 

 profitably gather from a inncli greater 

 distance than that, therefore, the number 

 of acres from which the crop was gath- 

 ered was greater than I stated. This was 



the largest amount of buckwheat honey I 

 have every obtained in one season, while 

 the snialli'st has been s(pme less than 3,000 

 pounds \\ illi at least IiiU acres ot bnck- 

 wheat within tliiee miles of me. 



It is a mistake that this plant <'an be 

 sown so as to make a succession of lioney 

 crops. No matter liow fully it may be in 

 bloom, it usually commences to yield 

 honey about Aug. 10 or 15, the earliest and 

 latest it has ever coniineiiced to yield with 

 me, having been the .5th and IWth of that 

 month respectively. Prof. Cook reports 

 having once seen it yieldhig honey much 

 earlier in the season, but tlii.s single in- 

 stance makes no rule. Alsike clover also 

 yields honey largely, but its coming at the 

 same time white clover does, lessens its 

 value materially. Its high crop-value, 

 however, for either hay or seed, makes it 

 one of our most profitable houey-plants. 

 I have tested mowing it when first com- 

 mencing to bloom, so as to retard its lull 

 blooming until after white clover, with 

 partial success ; but I find the following 

 drawbacks to a full success : Too large an 

 area has to be liaudled to afford a ma- 

 terial help, and a iiartial or entire failure, 

 if the weather should be very dry. 1 

 have, therefore, abandoned this plan 

 after experimenting with it two seasons. 



To conclude, I cannot say that I have 

 much faith in our being able to materially 

 increase our honey resources, except by 

 such means as scattering seeds of honey- 

 plants in waste places in our neighbor- 

 hoods, by inducing our neighbor farmers 

 to raise some or all of the honey-produc- 

 ing crops, and by selecting those kinds 

 that produce honey, whenever we set out 

 shade trees on our premises. 



Some remarks were made upon the 

 advisability of providing bee-pastur- 

 age, by A. 1. Root (Ohio), J. D. 

 Meador (Iowa). Paul L. Viallon 

 (Louisaiia), J. A. Green (Illinois), Dr. 

 Blanton (Mississippi), and others — all 

 agreeing that it was very desirable to 

 obtain something for the bees to work 

 upon, during the regular "gap be- 

 tween the honey-flows," which occurs 

 in mid-summer. 



Paul L. Viallon (La.) then read the 

 following address, giving his views 

 upon the 



A.MOUNT OF HONEY CONSUMED MY BEES 

 TO JI.VKE ONE POUND OF BEESWAX. 



I doubt whether this question will ever 

 receive an accurate answer, as it is a 

 rather difficult problem to solve coireetly; 

 but by experiments I have found that it 

 requires a great deal less than it was 

 formerly believed. It will probably lie 

 remembered that I read an essay at the 

 North American Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion held at Cincinnati in October, 18S2, in 

 which I gave my experiments on this sub- 

 ject, witli bees in confinement. I then 

 stated that I thought that it would re- 

 quire less honey to produce one pound of 

 wax when the bees were at liberty and 

 gathering nectar, basing my ideas on the 

 difference between cane-sugar and honey 

 as wax-producing elements, as I found 

 that bees will secrete more wax with 

 sugar than with honey. 



If we compare the analysis of nectar 

 with that of honey, we see that though 

 the saccharine matters of nectar are com- 

 posed mostly of cane-sugar, and show no 

 trace of glucose, we find honey to contain 

 from 40 to 45 per cent, of glueose and ie> 

 cane-sugar, or at least very little. Now, 

 as bees will make more wax with cane- 

 sugar than with honey, why should not 

 nectar, mostly composed of caiie-sui»ar, 

 when gathered by the bees and used by 

 them before it has undergone its general 

 transformation into honey by the action 

 of the acid incorporated into it, produce 



