790 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Do not write anything for publication 

 on the same sheet of paper with business 

 matters, unless it can be torn apart without 

 interfering with either part of the letter. 



Booming- on White Clover. 



Bees are just booming on white clover. I 

 never saw such a bloom in all directions, of 

 white clover, as at the present time, and it 

 seems as if every blossom is filled with nec- 

 tar. Basswood will be filled with bloom iu 

 this locality. Chauncey Reynolds. 



Fremont, Ohio, June 8, 1893. 



Ground Bark for Winter Packing. 



I have been reading about packing, or 

 filling, for vacant space in building bee- 

 houses, also hives for wintering out-doors 

 and spring packing. The articles proposed 

 and used are many, even to the most costly 

 and extravagant outlay of money iu filling 

 in with cork ground up fine. 



First, we do not pack in our climate, our 

 only packing needed is plenty of honey ; 

 but I want to advance a thought on pack- 

 ing bee-hives, and filling or packing for 

 space between walls of bee-houses, where 

 bees are wintered above ground, and I 

 think it is according to Nature's own way, 

 provided the inside space is not too large. 

 Well, the article to be used is ground bark, 

 as it is prepared by the tanner for making 

 ooze for tanning hides into leather. Bark 

 once used by the tanner can be bought 

 cheaply, but it must be dried again, per- 

 fectly dry. I could give many reasons for 

 its use. I want to hear from those that 

 must prepare for winter, and use out-door 

 repositories for bees. 



Geo. N. Phillipson. 



Merrivale, Tex. 



The Season in California. 



Some bee-keepers have extracted a little 

 green honey to catch the early prices. 



As this is my flr.st season in California. I 

 can only guess at what the future will be. 

 White sage is beginning to "give down" 

 slowly now, but wild alfalfa is holding out 

 well. About half of the colonies seem to 

 prefer sage, and the other half alfalfa, 

 which makes a poorer quality of honey 

 than clear sage, and better than all alfalfa, 

 and I have extracted some 20 or 30 pounds 

 to the hive to make room for something 

 better. 



It was impossible to get any surplus from 



orange bloom. It all went into brood. I 

 think that orange bloom is a swindle. There 

 is about enough to secure fertilization, and 

 that is all. 



Fruit-bloom here does not yield as in 

 Iowa, but in Iowa it is nearly always cold 

 and cloudy. Horehound also gets mixed 

 in with the fruit-bloom honey, and has re- 

 mained to make the earliest sage bitter. I 

 believe the horehound is what causes bee- 

 paralysis here. It affects most of the bees 

 more like St. Vitus' dance than paralysis, 

 because they shake and shiver, and cannot 

 stand still. It uses a colony up as far as 

 surplus is concerned. C. W. Dayton. 



Five-Banded Bees — White Clover. 



The past winter has been the hardest one 

 for this locality that we have had for 

 years. My bees came through with a loss 

 of about 15 per cent., wintered out-doors, 

 with outside winter cases. My neighbors, 

 who are principally box-hive advocates, 

 have lost heavily. 



My bees now are fairly booming on fruit- 

 bloom, and contrary to the experience of 

 some of the "veterans," the five-banded 

 bees are far ahead of the darker ones, the 

 hybrids being behind all, as far as building 

 up is concerned. But this does not prove 

 definitely that they are superior to the 

 darker Italians, so far as actual value is 

 concerned. Their honey-gathering quali- 

 ties have to be tested yet, and if those 

 qualities prove to be equal to their prolific- 

 ness, they are certainly the more valuable 

 kind, that is, for me. They will certainly 

 have a fair chance to show themselves, for 

 "white clover is very plentiful, and is look- 

 ing well. Jake Everman. 



North Middletown, Ky., April 28, 1893. 



Granulation of Honey. 



Let me say a word in the matter of the 

 granulation of honey. I speak from the 

 experience of having kept bees in all parts 

 of the globe. 



Almost any kind of honey will granulate 

 by cold, but not quite every kind. In 

 Malta, very early honey from Trifofiiuu 

 iiirurnatiim and orange blossom does not ; it 

 is vei"y light colored, almost transparent. 

 Fruit-bloom and wild thyme honey is much 

 darker, and does granulate very easily. 



In Honolulu, very little honey is gathered 

 that does not do so, but I failed to find out 

 what it was gathered from. The main 

 source of supply there is cocoanut and 

 other palms, and algaroba; even in the 

 sections it granulates almost at once, and 

 there isn't any cold to speak of there. 



In this I differ from J. H. Hill (see page 

 493). Granulation is due not only to 

 ''weather, rain, atmosphere," etc., but also 

 to the nature of the blossom the honey is 

 gathered from, and capped and uncapped 

 matters little. I have some sections of 

 honey from California, and although they 

 have been exposed to a good deal of cold 

 they are still liquid. Mai.ia 



