668 



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COWTEIVTIOBf DIRECTORY. 



1889. Time and Place of Mettinq. 



Oct, 23. 24.— Union, at Mt. Sterling, Ills. 



J. M. Hambaugh, Bee, Spring, Ills. 



Dec. 4-6.— International, at Brantford.Ont., Canada. 

 K. V. Holtermann, Sec, Rooiney, Onl. 



Dec. 16, 17.— Northern Illinois, at Rockford. Ills. 



D. A. Fuller, Sec, Cherry Vallev, Ills. 

 1890. 

 May 2.— Susquehanna Co.. at Hopbottom, Pa. 



H. M. Seeley, See., Harford, Pa. 



IST In order to bare this table complete, Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meetinirs.- Gd. 





Best Honey from Oolden-God. 



• — Chas. E. Dow, Lawrence, Mass., on 

 ■ Oct 7, 1889, says : 



With me the golden-rod is a vahiable 

 honey-plant — the best honey that I 

 have taken this year is from it, and 

 was taken in September. It is very 

 thick, and it is hard to extract the 

 combs clean. Let a person take a 

 sprig of the flower, and compare its 

 odor with the flavor of the honej', and 

 he will be surprised at the similarity. 

 J will send you a sample in a few days. 

 -Mrs. Dow and 1 say, let the golden-rod 

 ■be the national flower. 



Bees Did Poorly. -J. M. Mc- 



Daniel, Peoria, Texas, on Oct. 1, says : 



Bees are doing poorly here. We 

 have no basswood or white clover in 

 this part of the country, which are the 

 main honej-plants in many places, 

 and we have nothing to take their 

 places ; still I shall keep bees, as I like 

 to work with them. Bees do well here 

 in the spring, and sometimes late in 

 the fall, but often in May and June 

 there is a dearth of honey-plants. 



An Opinion of Oolden-Rod 



D. C. Leach, Walton, Mich., on Oct. 4, 

 1889, writes : 



lam glad that Mr. Harris (page 631!) 

 has asked for an "expression of opin- 

 ion as to the value of golden-rod as a 

 honey-producer." I also had thought 

 of calling for such an expressiou. 

 Golden-rod abounds in this vicinity ; 

 thousands of acres of pine plains and 

 "stump lands" are covered with it. 

 It blooms in July and lasts, sometimes, 

 until Oct. 1. I have been watching 

 this jear, to sec how it was treated by 

 the bees ; for weeks I did not see a bee 

 •on it. although on the watch for them. 

 About Sept. 1, I noticed that my bees 

 ■were carrying in honey rapidly, and 

 upon examination, I became satisfied 



that it was gathered from golden-rod. 

 In some localities I found bees quite 

 plentiful on it, and at evening there 

 was about the hives an odor like, but 

 much stronger than, that yielded by 

 the flower of the golden-rod. This 

 continued for about two weeks, and 

 then ceased ; since that time no honey 

 has been gathered. Field and foi'est 

 flowers are good, and the only place 

 that I can find bees at work at 

 all, at this date, is on a small patch of 

 borage in my garden. The borage 

 has been in bloom since early in July, 

 and is still sought by the bees on every 

 pleasant day, as eagerly as ever. 



Results of the Season. — G. G. 



McCoy, Zumbrota, Minn., on Oct. 4, 

 1889, says : 



I started last spring with 3 colonies, 

 and have 11 now — an increase of 8 

 colonies. 1 have taken oft' 280 pounds 

 of comb hone}'. Our fair was not a 

 great success, on account of the cold 

 weather. 



A Worthless Weed is Oolden- 

 Rod.— Frank A. Eaton, Bluft'ton, O., 

 on Oct. 3, 1889, writes : 



I notice on page 636 that an expi-es- 

 sion is desired in regard to golden-rod 

 as a honej'-plant. My experience is, 

 that it is one of the most worthless 

 weeds that grows in this part of Ohio. 

 I have never seen a pound of honey 

 from it, and in rare instances I have 

 seen a few single bees at work on it. 

 It grows quite profuse here along the 

 roadsides and in waste-places. I speak 

 of the variety as illustrated in Cook's 

 Manual, and most generally known. 

 It is very pretty, and quite fragrant, 

 which is the most that can be said of it. 



Oolden-Rod, Hives, etc Mr. 



Daniel E. Robbins, of Payson, Ills., on 

 Oct. 3, 1889, writes : 



I have watched golden-rod carefully 

 every year since getting bees in the 

 spring of 1884, and the bees in this 

 locality do not work on it to any great 

 extent ; the varieties that we have here 

 are practically worthless as honey-pro- 

 ducing plants, Mr, Alley, in his 

 " Handj--Book," page 173, says of 

 golden-rod: "That which yields the 

 honey, grows about 18 inches in 

 height." One sort grows about 4 feet 

 in height. Our honey crop is rather 

 less than an average, the fall flow 

 being very light, 1 think that much 

 depends upon the location, as to what 

 plants are valuable, what size of hive 

 to use, what system of management is 

 best, and whether the ol)ject is to pro- 

 duce comb or extracted honey. 



Honey from Oolden-Rod. — W. 



P. Henderson, of Murfeesboro, Tenn., 

 on Oct. 4, 1889, writes : 



Yes, the bees get honey from golden- 

 rod in our locality. Since the enquiry 

 of Mr. Secor, I have noticed particu- 

 larly that my bees do visit this wild 

 flower in our old fields. On Sept. 20, 

 my 100 colonies (nuclei and full colo- 

 nies) I do not believe had an average 

 of 2 pounds of honey to the hive ; now, 

 Oct. 4, they are heav}- — hives full — and 

 the queens are restricted to a small 

 space. Golden-rod (which I vote for, 

 for the national flower) and tangle- 

 foot, one of the asters, are the plants 

 that the bees are gathering from. 

 Nothing else is in bloom except cotton, 

 from which they now gather only pol- 

 len. Honey from our fall bloom, 

 however, candies long before the 

 clover honey gathered last May, and 

 is a poor winter food for the bees, as 

 they only utilize about half of it. 



A Fair Season. — Allen Latham, 

 Cambridge, Mass., on Sept., 25, 1889, 



says : 



This has been a fair season. Little 

 honey was obtained from apple-blos- 

 soms, as it was so hot that only four 

 days of bloom were obtained. Clover 

 did not do as well as it should. Buck- 

 wheat honey is what filled the hives. I 

 have several colonies, each of which 

 has stored from 50 to 60 pounds of 

 good buckwheat honey. Unless this 

 wet weather stops, little or no fall 

 honey will be obtained, I have sold 

 all my clover honey at 25 cents per 

 pound. 



A Splendid Honey-Plant is 

 Oolden-Rod. — Benjamin Franklin, 

 Franklinton, N. Y., on Oct. 6,1889, 

 writes : 



I see that some claim that golden- 

 rod is not much of a honey-plant. I 

 cannot say how it is in other sections, 

 but I know by the experience of the 

 past twentj- years, that it is a splendid 

 honey-plant here. There used to be a 

 pond covering 100 acres or more, that 

 has grown up to golden-rod ; I get a 

 good deal of honey from that after 

 buckwheat is out of bloom. This fall, 

 while the bees were working on buck- 

 wheat, an}' one passing the hives could 

 smell the buckwheat hone}- ; when they 

 commenced working on the golden- 

 rod, one could smell that. It is splen- 

 did honey. 



Please to gfel your NeiKlibor, 



who beeps bees, to also take the Amemcak 

 Bee JouisNAi,. It is now so cheap that 

 no one cvi afford to do without' •;. 



