THE AMERlCAl^ BEE JOURNAL. 



455 



Scientitlc American. 



Fertilization of Red Clover by Bees. 



To the Editor of the Hcie^ttific Ameri- 

 can:— I notice a conespoiulent of 

 your paper says that lioiiey-bees do 

 not fertilize red clover blossoms. They 

 are often very busy working on red 

 clover, especially the Cyprians and 

 Italians, and why do they not fertilize 

 it y Tliey may get honey too far from 

 the base of the tube, while the bumble- 

 bee's tongue reaches to ihe base. If 

 the scarcity of bumble-bees accounts 

 for the lack of seed on the first crop 

 of clover, why not cultivate and 

 domesticate the bumble-bee, and win- 

 ter them so as to have enough of 

 them to fertilize the first crop i* It 

 would certainly be advantageous to 

 the hay, also seed the ground by 

 shattering. 



We need not cultivate bumble-bees 

 if we could find some other insect 

 that would answer the purpose, and 

 one that would combine some other 

 points of usefulness would be pref- 

 erable, but clover seed in first crop is 

 a price worth some labor to secure, is 

 it not y B. 



[A valued correspondent, who is an 

 experienced agriculturist, to whom 

 the foregoing was submitted, gives 

 the following reply : Italian bees and 

 some other varieties of honey-bees 

 gather some honey from red clover 

 blossoms, when the secretion of 

 honey is profuse, but no race of bees 

 has yet been introduced or produced 

 having a tongue of sufficient length to 

 exhaust the honey secretion from red 

 clover blossoms. The honey gath- 

 ered from red clover is of superior 

 quality, and very flue color. 



The fact that not more than one- 

 flfth of the first crop of red clover 

 blossoms contains seed, seems to 

 prove that honey-bees do not fertilize 

 that variety of flora. This failure 

 probably results from the insufficient 

 length of the ligula in honey-bees to 

 properly deposit the fecundating pol- 

 len. May it not, in a measure, be due 

 to some singularity of the form of the 

 pistils, which may only be entered by 

 the longer and stronger ligula of the 

 bumble-bees V It would also appear 

 that the fertilization of red clover 

 blossoms is chiefly, if not wholly, per- 

 formed by bumble-bees. 



Darwin, in his " Origin of Species," 

 alluding to this fact, says : " We may 

 infer as highly probable that were the 

 whole genus of humble-bees to be- 

 come extinct or very rare in England, 

 the heart's-ease and red clover— which 

 they fertilize by carrying pollen from 

 flower to flower— would become very 

 rare, or wholly disappear." 



The cultivation of red clover was 

 not successful in Australia until after 

 the importation of bumble-bees to 

 that country. 



In suggesting the cultivation and 

 domestication of the bumble-bee, in 

 order that a sufficient number may be 

 present in time to fertilize the first 

 crop of red clover, the correspondent 

 introduces a subject full of interest 

 and stings, particularly stings. He 

 also apparently overlooks the fact 

 that the bumble-bee belongs to the 



solitary species, and, as is the case 

 with the wasp, ordinarily only the 

 queen survives the winter. 



The partial domestication of the 

 bumble-bee, even to the extent of 

 furnishing warm winter quarters, and 

 the stimulation of early breeding, 

 would be attended with suchditiiculty 

 that economy would suggest that the 

 matter be left entirely to nature.] 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Eating Poisonous Honey. 



A. I'RYAL. 



All bee-keepers have probably seen 

 bees at some time or another, work- 

 ing on plants that are known to be 

 of the most poisonous character. 

 Thus we see an occasional bee on the 

 flowers of Solanum nigrum (black 

 night-shade), one of the most poison- 

 ous of plants. In Europe we read 

 that bees gather honey from the 

 flowers of the rhododendron, the eat- 

 ing of which honey is said to be at- 

 tended with fatal results. In this 

 State there are one or two native 

 rhododendrons, and up to the present 

 time we have not heard that the 

 honey gathered from them, if any is 

 collected by the bees, is poisonous. 



Not many months since our news- 

 papers published dispatches from 

 New York State, giving the fatal 

 poisoning of a family that had par- 

 taken of wild boney. The telegram 

 gave the name of the supposed plant 

 from which it was obtained by the 

 bees, but as I did not make any note 

 of it, the name has slipped my 

 memory. 



Many cases of supposed poisoning 

 from dangerous honey-plants I think 

 can be traced to where the bees have 

 had access so some other poisonous 

 substance. I remember of reading in 

 one of the bee-papers, 7 or 8 years 

 ago, where some person, a scientist I 

 believe, recommended fruit-growers 

 who were bothered by bees, to place 

 cobalt within their reach. At once 

 the cry from every one in the land 

 wbo had heard of this advice, was 

 raised against it, for reasons that are 

 apparent to the reader. 



In this State ground-squirrels are a 

 great nuisance, and they keep the 

 farmer at his "wit's end'' devising 

 means to exterminate them. Poison- 

 ing them is the usual way, and for 

 this purpose strychnine and phos- 

 phorous is used in different ways. 

 One method is to boil wheat till soft, 

 then add strychnine and sugar — the 

 sugar forming a coating on the wheat 

 which holds the poison. Some dry 

 this mixture ere it is placed at the 

 squirrel's burrow, while others throw 

 a spoonful of the moist compound at 

 the holes of the burrows for the 

 pestiferous little animals to regale 

 their appetites at their leisure. Just 

 imagine that a bee should chance to 

 pass and smelling some sweetness 

 wasting itself on the desert air, and 

 should improve the shinins hour by 

 going in quest of it ; and finding it, 

 suppose the bee should store up some 

 loads of it in its own sweet home ; and 

 let us suppose further that the man 



who was dealing out death to the 

 ground-pests slioiild lay his bucket of 

 poison down in order to drive out a 

 cow from his garden, and that he 

 should forget to return to the bucket 

 for some hours; that during his ab- 

 sence one of those far-smelling bees 

 should make a raid on the bucket, 

 and in due time invite his brethren to 

 feast on the spoils; in those few hours 

 how many droi)s ot fatal poison might 

 those bees store up in the waxen 

 cells, which, in course of time, would 

 find its way to market ! (Though we 

 write of this, let us hope that it will 

 never happen). Thus a whole family 

 might be poisoned through the 

 tlioughtlessness of this man. But, 

 according to our supposed case, our 

 readers know the reason, still the dis- 

 patches and newspaper reports would 

 not be likely to state it in the same 

 light ; instead it would be flashed over 

 the wires that the family was pois- 

 oned by eating " wild honey,"' thereby 

 giving the impression to the reading 

 public that it is dangerous to eat 

 honey at any time, as in it may lurk 

 "grim death." 



Cases of poisoning are apt to occur 

 in "the best regulated families," and 

 honey— admitting that " wild honey " 

 is sometimes poisonous— may cause 

 some unpleasantness in the house- 

 hold. But hoiiv much more often do 

 we hear of the fatal results of eating 

 canned meats, fruits and vegetables, 

 the " taking of the wrong medicine," 

 and others ad infinitum. Cases of honey 

 poisoning are " like angels visits — few 

 and far between," and hardly one 

 case is reported in ten years, and 

 then when the bottom facts are known 

 it might turn out that it was not 

 poisoning at all. 



North Temescal,*o Calif. 



Farmers' Advocate. 



Extracted Honey, and Extracting. 



G. B. .JONES. 



Extracted honey is obtained by 

 means of a honey extractor. The 

 combs from which it is to be taken 

 are uncapped and placed into this 

 machine, which, when operated, sep- 

 arates the honey from the comb by 

 centrifural force. The honey is then 

 drawn oSf through a faucet, and the 

 comb returned to the bees, or not, as 

 considered best. 



Extracting should begin as soon 

 as the brood-chamber becomes clog- 

 ged with honey sufficiently to pre- 

 vent the queen laying to her full 

 capacity, and repeated as often, but 

 no oftener, as is necessary to keep 

 the brood-chamber open to the queen. 

 The one-story hive has less room 

 than a two-story one for the accumu- 

 lation of honey, and so must be 

 oftener treated (which is a serious 

 objection to it), and for its manipula- 

 tion for extracted honey no better 

 rule than the above can be given here. 

 But if we use the two-story hive, then 

 we can regulate our time for extract- 

 ing so as to procure the best results, 

 as follows: Until the clover has 

 begun to yield plentifully the bees 

 should be confined to the lower story, 

 and this should be kept freed from 



