THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



515 



lllJWRNilKi 



THOMAS G. NEWMAN, 



Vol. XXI. August 19, 1885. No. 33. 



APICULTURAL NEWS ITEMS. 



EDITORIAL AND SELECTED. 



Who bides his time— he tastes the sweet 



Of honey in the siiltest tear ; 

 And though he g-oes with slowest feet, 



Joy runs to meet liim, drawing near ; 

 The birds are heralds of his cause, 



And like a never-ending rhyme, 

 The roadsides bloom in his applause, 

 Who bides his time. 



"We reg:ret to learn that Mr. Silas M. 

 Locke, editor of the Apicultitrist, has been 

 <;onfined to his residence for three weeks by 

 sickness. 



The Trl-State Fair will be held at 

 Toledo, O., from Sept. 7 to 12, 188.5. Dr. A. 

 B. Mason, of Wagon Works, O., is superin- 

 tendent of the apiarian department, where 

 $2V2 are offered as Premiums. Send to Dr. 

 Mason tor Premium List. 



Ill Spain, more than a century ago, a 

 traveller speaks of an apiary he saw, which 

 contained .=),000 colonies of bees. As there 

 Is an abundance of pasturage in that " flow- 

 ery kingdom," the statement is quite proba- 

 ble. Some 300 years ago the Spaniards took 

 bees to Mexico and the West Indian Islands, 

 and laid the foundation for the immense 

 trade, which has for about. 200 years been 

 carried on in honey and wa.\ in the West 

 Indies. 



^ee - Keepers' National Union. — It 



would be well for all who think of any 

 -*' pointers " for the forth-coming sheep-bees 

 lawsuit, to send them to us for use on the 

 trial. " In the multitude of counsel there is 

 wisdom." All the elected officers have sig- 

 nified their wUlingness to accept the positions 

 to which they have been assigned, and the 

 President-elect sends the following for pub- 

 lication : 



To the Bee-Kccpers' Union:— While I appre- 

 ciate the honor of being elected your Presi- 

 dent for the coming year, I should have 

 preferred some one lietter fitted for the work 

 to be performed. To the best of my ability 

 I shall do my part to make the Unioti a grand 

 success. No matter what may be our diBFer- 

 ences of opinion, we must now all work 

 unitedly, without shirking or jealousy, for 

 the lasting good of the pursuit — for the 

 defense of the right. James Heddon. 



We hope that every bee-keeper will now 

 take hold of the matter, and become a mem- 

 ber of the Union. 



ThOR. W. Con'aii, Ksq., has become the 

 successor of the Kev. Herl)ert K. Peel, as 

 editor of UiK liiitish Uec Jimrnal. Mr. Cowan 

 is an educated gentleman (speaking several 

 languages), a genial companion, and an 

 enthusiastic and successful apiarist. Ho will 

 not find the editorial chair " a bed of roses " 

 by any means, but wo wish our Britist name- 

 sake and its editor much success. A photo- 

 graph of Mr. Cowan ornaments the wall just 

 over our desk. 



Shade lorHives.— W. A. Pryal, of North 

 Temescal, Cal., states that he saw an inquiry 

 in some of the bee-papers some time since, 

 for a vine that would grow quickly, form 

 shade for hives, and, at the same time, be of 

 some merit as a honey-producer. In his 

 climate, in the vicinity of the Bay of San 

 Francisco, the weather is never so hot (so 

 our correspondent states), that shade for 

 hives is necessary ; but from his experience 

 with lanes for trellises and growing in differ- 

 ent situations in gardens, he knows of 

 nothing better than that rapid-gi'owing vine 

 called Cuhoea scandcns. It grows to a large 

 size — has fine, dark-green 

 foliage, and large, bell- 

 shaped flowers, generally 

 two inches broad and as 

 many long. Vick's Floral 

 Guide remarks : " Strong 

 plants set out early in the 

 spring, and in good soil, 

 often grow 20 or 30 feet long, branching 

 freely, and covering a large surface. Plants 

 commence to flower when quite young, and 

 continue in bloom until removed or killed by 

 frost. Flowers are at first green, changing 

 to a deep violet-blue. Put the seeds in moist 

 earth, edge down, and do not water until the 

 young plants appear, unless in a warm place 

 and the earth is very dry. Care is necessary 

 in planting seed, as it is liable to rot in the 

 ground if too moist." 



In California this vine grows much larger 

 than it does here in the East, and, as there 

 are no frosts to do it any great injury, it 

 keeps on growing from year to year, and 

 thus attains a large size. 



When intended to be trained over hives, a 

 rude trellis or arbor may be made of rough 

 sticks— sapplings having a few straggling 

 branches will do. Insert in the ground in 

 rows, 8 or more feet apart. At a convenient 

 height from the ground, fasten poles or 

 scantling. The rows should be from 8 to 10 

 feet apart, and parallel. Brush, or old 

 boards split into strips, should be laid from 

 one scantling of one row to those of 

 the other. Train the young vines up the up- 

 right poles, and in a shorttime they will have 

 reached the top, where they will start out in 

 all directions over the arbor and completely 

 cover it, and some of the branches will here 

 and there hang over the sides in festoons. 

 Try an arbor like this, and see how pretty 

 it is. 



The flowers, we are also told by our corre- 

 spondent, are rich in nectar, and a bee will 

 have only to visit one or two of these honey 

 chalices to obtain as much as it can conve- 

 niently carry to its sweet home. A feature 

 abput the vine is, that it is always in bloom, 

 and sometimes it is thick with flowers. 



The engraving we obtained from the seed 

 catalogue of Mr. J. C. Vaughan, 42 La Salle 

 street, Chicago, from whom the seed may be 

 obtained. 



Tlie Native Bees in C'liba are tlie 



common black, iin|iorted from Spain nipre 

 than a century ago. They work \'igorously 

 all the time, and, under favorable circum- 

 stances, gather lots of honey, refuting that 

 old whim, that bees will only work in warm 

 climates enough to supply their own demand . 



The Island of Corsica produced so 

 much honey in ancient times, that the Ro- 

 matis imposed on it an annual tribute of 

 1,000 pounds. After the revolt of the Island 

 against the Roman Empire, the inhabitants 

 were punished by the doubling of that 

 tribute to Rome. This tribute, which was 

 supplied, shows that the honey crop of that 

 Island must have been at least (5,000,000 

 pounds. And to-day that Island supplies 

 immense quantities of houey and wa.x to 

 Fi'ance. 



Honey Dew in England.— Last year 

 the bee-keepers of America were troubled 

 with the so-called " honey dew." This year 

 we are comparatively free from it, but 

 English apiarists have a profusion of it. A 

 correspondent in the British Bee Journal 

 remarks as follows, calling it " black abom- 

 ination " : 



In my neighborhood the oaks are com- 

 pletely covered with honey dew ; nearly all • 

 clover houey has been spoiled with this 

 abominable stuff ; my bees collect it to the 

 exclusion of almost every other source. It 

 is very annoying to see large trees of lime 

 hardly visited at all by the honey bee, while 

 their more sensible cousins, the various 

 species of humble bees, are collecting the 

 pure nectar. I never remember the honey 

 dews so heavy and abundant as this j'ear : 

 the liquid, in some instances, I have noticed 

 trickles off the leaves, and literally saturates 

 the ground beneath. I should fancy the 

 "dew" deposited by the oak aphidic is darker 

 in color than that deposited by any other 

 aphidfe. Certainly I can produce a beautiful 

 sample of the blackest of black aphidiean 

 honey, which is almost the color of ink. My 

 hives are full of it. 



This should be a glorious season for those 

 ancient bee-keepers who aver that nothing 

 beats a summer prolific in honey dews for a 

 surplus of hooey. Is there any commercial, 

 domestic, or anj' other use for this black 

 abomination ? 



Cleanliness of Bees.— A correspondent 

 in Longman's Magazine gives the following 

 incident showing the dislike which bees have 

 to bad perfumery. He says some years ago 

 there was in my father's garden, a plot of 

 early potatoes, some distance in front of a 

 spot where stood several hives. Early in 

 the season the " rooks " commenced to help 

 themselves to the potatoes, grubbing the 

 young tubers out of the ground, and doing 

 so much mischief that some had to be shot, 

 and the dead body of one was impaled in the 

 middle of the plot, as a warning and example 

 to the rest. Soon after this, a most unac- 

 countable fury took possession of the bees. 

 No one dared to approach them, for they 

 attacked and instantly put to flight every 

 person or animal which vetitured into the 

 garden. This went on for some days with 

 most unpleasant results, and the bees were 

 fast becoming a nuisance in the neighbor- 

 hood, when the mystery was accidentally 

 explained. Some one happening to pass by 

 the impaled "rook" in the evening, discov- 

 ered cause of all the mischief. Every 

 exposed part f the poor bird's bod^v, espe- 

 cially about the mouth and OSes, was 

 literally bristling with the stings of hundreds 

 of bees, which had sacraflced themselves in 

 a vain and senseless revenge upon its offen- 

 sive presence. 



