1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Southern California has united in a scheme 

 for marketing their citrus fruits. They have 

 organized, have officers who lool< after the mar- 

 kets, and all producers who join tiie Union are 

 bound morally and legally not to sell fruit 

 except through the exchange. Each local as- 

 sociation has a manager who determines the 

 amount of fruit in his province, and he takes 

 charge of all shipping, keeping track of the 

 progress of the ripening of the fruit, informing 

 all in his district how much to bring to load a 

 car. That some such scheme could create 

 markets that no individual effort could secure; 

 could arrange for grading in a way that indi- 

 viduals would not practice; could arrange 

 terms with railroads that could be secured in 

 no other way, seems to go without saying. 

 That wise plans would always be made, esp(>- 

 cially to begin with, or that wise administra- 

 tion would always be secured; wise and honest 

 men always be appointed to office, and fruit 

 really marketed, and not merely consigned 

 before shipping, is too much to hope; yet this 

 seems to be a move in the right direction, and 

 we can not but earnestly wish it success. Of 

 course, it is vastly important that all unite, and 

 remain loyal to the plan. Can this be secured ? 

 I am optimistic enough to hope much from the 

 scheme. 



Now as to the honey. Do bee-keepers wish 

 such an organization? Will they unite and 

 work together? If they organize, shall the 

 effort be made to unite with the fruit exchange, 

 or work separately? Union with the fruit- 

 men would tend to bring the two classes into 

 closer harmony, and would save much expense. 

 It is a plan well worthy of agitation, and 

 nowhere in the world could it be tried with 

 more hope and prospect of success than right 

 here in Southern California. The bee-keepers 

 read, are intelligent, are well organized, and, I 

 believe, could and would work together. I 

 should be glad to hear from our best men on 

 the subject. 



MOTHS AND POI,l.ENIZATION. 



The note in the last Gleanings (Mar. 1) re- 

 garding moths carrying pollen is of much in- 

 terest. There is a large family of moths known 

 as Nociuidcr, or night-flyers, that have long 

 tongues, and do sip sweets from flowers. The 

 cut-worm moths of the genera, Agrotis Hcidena 

 and Noctua are specially wide awake in tliis 

 direction. We catch many of these moths for 

 our cabinets by what we call sugaring. We 

 spread on the trees a preparation of syrup and 

 vinegar, or stale beer. This attracts the moths 

 which collect on it soon after sunset in great 

 numbers, and so the entomologist finds this an 

 easy way to increase his number of specimens 

 of the Noctuidce. The best time to sugar for 

 such moths is in August and September; but 

 ■every one who has worked in the maple-sugar 

 bush knows that these moths are abroad even 

 an early March. I have often seen them by 



scores in the sap in March, before we covered 

 our buckets. They were attracted by the 

 sweets, and were drowned. 



As I said in the article of last week, it is very 

 likely that, before we had large orchards, when 

 the fruit-trees were very few and scattering 

 (and we all know that Such was the case in the 

 wild forests), there were enough indigenous in- 

 sects to carry the pollen. I well remember 

 when the few wild - plum trees were in the 

 woods of my early Michigan home. In those 

 days these moths and the few wild bees were 

 often quite enough, I dare say, to secure good 

 fruitage. 



Clareraont, Cal., Mar. 10. 



A STRANGE FREAK IN COMB-BUILDING BY 

 BEES. 



UURIi-COiMBS WITH A VENGEANCE. 



By L. J. Tenipli)!. 



I send by to-day's mail a picture of a pecul- 

 iar product in the way of comb-building. Hav- 

 ing never seen any thing of the kind, we 

 thought it might be of interest to the readers 

 of Gleanings to see an illustration of it. The 

 circumstances under which this comb wa^ built 

 were as follows: 



Mr. Geo. M. Deibert, son-in-law of the writer, 

 residing in Florence, Colo., drove two medium 



colonies into a hive of the capacity of a ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive supplied only with foun- 

 dation starters. To give plenty of ventilation 

 he placed an empty super on the hive, and on it 

 the flat cover. He intended to remove the su- 

 per in a few days or replace it with one filled 

 with sections. Bi'ing suddenly notified to join 

 a party to go to tlie World's Fair, Mr. Deibert 



