404 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 1, 



be short of stores, to go Into winter with, while the large 

 amount of brood reared during the houey-harvest takes away 

 quite a quantity of what should be secured as surplus. 



Ononda^fa Co., N. Y. 



^ 



Comments on Bee-Keeping in Louisiana. 



BV JAS. B. DRURY. 



The South is indeed one of the Paradises for bee-keeping. 

 Here the bees can fly almost every day In the year, and gather 

 nectar, more or less, almost all the time they fly. We have 

 some flowers that bloom In the winter, which furnish sume 

 pollen and nectar. I have seen them bringing in pollen in the 

 months of December and January. 



The honey outlook Is very good for a surplus crop. We 

 have quite a long flow, but our greatest summer flow is com- 

 mencing, and will continue until about July 10, after which 

 it slacks up until the last of October and forepart of Novem- 

 ber, when we will get a good flow from golden-rod, wild asters, 

 and many other fall flowers that are cultivated here. One dis- 

 trict In this "Crescent City" is called the " Garden District," 

 because every little spot that can be utilized Is made into a 

 garden of some kind. People that have paved yards take up 

 a brick and plant a few seeds of some kind of vine, and in a 

 very short time have their "galleries" (Southern name for 

 porch, balcony, or veranda) covered with a delightful green 

 and cooling growth, which tends to make life a little cooler In 

 this semi-tropical climate. 



Early In April I caught a swarm, or rather found It under 

 a plank walk where It had settled, and putting them into an 

 empty box I noticed a nice, large, but very dark leather-col- 

 ored queen with them, and that evening I took them home on 

 my bicycle, putting them Into a frame hive. Looking at them 

 a few days later I noticed that they were building only drone- 

 comb. " Where is that nice queen ?" says I. Hunt for her I 

 did, and no sign of a "queen " could I find. "Oh," says I, 

 "the bike shook the life out of her; I'll fix that." So I went 

 to one of my best colonies and took a partly-built frame of 

 eggs and brood and put it Into their hive, and In a week I had 

 quite a number of nice queen-cells sealed over. But there is 

 one thing about them I could not understand : I gave several 

 to nuclei, and when the time came for them to hatch, all but 

 two hatcht. I let them stay two weeks longer, aud still no 

 hatch from them, so I took a sharn-polnted knife and cut It 

 open, but nary a queen — the only thing In them was a soft, 

 yellow substance, not unlike a pellet of pure wax. Why were 

 the bees so foolish as to build out a nice, large queen-cell, cap 

 It, and all when there was not any young queen in it ? Hard 

 one, eh ? 



I noticed a rather curious thing not long ago in one of my 

 semi-Carniolan colonies. I saw a cell among the brood that 

 protruded from the comb about the length of a worker-cell, 

 but capt like a drone-cell. I cut it open and found two worms 

 (larvic) In one long cell, one on top of the other. 



As all of my hives had full sheets of foundation when I 

 started, I wondered where all the drones came from. Look- 

 ing, I found that nearly all my queens had laid drone-eggs in 

 worker-cells ; they seemed to be just as large and as vigorous 

 as those I had seen reared in drone-cells. 



Among the many plants we have here which furnish 

 honey and pollen, the sunflower Is In full bloom, nigger-head 

 (honey sharp and biting) ; portulacca, Cherokee rose, coUeopsIs 

 (pollen only) have bloomed. Beans and peas, legulstrum, both 

 hojge and tree kind, and willow, all give some nectar; but 

 our main crop just now is from clover (White Dutch). We 

 have acres and acres of red clover here In Audubon Park, 

 coming up mlxt with the white kind, but I never could see a 

 bee working on It, no matter how long I would look for them. 



There Is another plant I must mention here, that Is cow- 



slip, or what some call the nettle or hunter's drink (so-called 

 because hunters use the young stalk to chew when they can- 

 not get any water to drink). It grows all through the winter, 

 and in the early part of spring sends up usually one stalk 

 about four feet high, which has numerous large flowers on it, 

 from one to four inches In diameter, which is a regular gold- 

 mine of nectar. I have seen as many as six to ten bees work- 

 ing on one flower, and when they got ready to fly to their 

 hives they were so loaded with the " good stuff " that they 

 would fall to the ground. The flower after maturity is used 

 by some for a face-powder pat ; the seeds are somewhat like 

 the seed of dandelion, with a sort of a small parachute, which, 

 when a light breeze blows, take wing, and if they settle on 

 some low, damp spot are sure to take root. People here 

 try all they can to get rid of them, but I for one like to see 

 them grow, because it means honey for other bees besides my 

 own. 



I had one of the worst cases of robbing last summer you 

 ever heard of. (Experience is a very bitter school.) It was 

 all through my own negligence. I took some honey from a. 

 hive in frames, and not having an extractor, I cut it out and 

 put the frames with a little bit of honey under the top-bar In 

 front of a nucleus that had very little, thinking to strengthen 

 them thereby. Well, sir, just as soon as the bees got the 

 scent of that honey my whole bee-yard was In an uproar — bees 

 In the air as thick as swarming time, bees trying to get Into 

 every hive in the yard (and woe to the bea that succeeded in 

 getting Into one — killed outright). I had an empty hive stand- 

 ing In the yard that quite a number of the robbers got into, 

 and staid there for three or four days, and when they found it 

 empty they turned to and protected it, as if it was their own 

 hive. I never saw the like before — dead bees all over the 

 yard aud sidewalk, and I can tell you it taught me a good 

 lesson, never to put honey In reach of them again. 



I see in the Bee Journal one writer says he rears larger 

 bees by putting seven frames in an 8-frame hive, nine In a 10- 

 frame, etc. Now that may hold good with him, but I find 

 that the relation in size is due to the queen. I have some 

 queens that are very large, and their bees are correspondingly 

 large. Then, again, I have some queens (the same stock) that 

 are about as large as some of the workers of my large queens, 

 which produce workers half the size of the others. Therefore, 

 I think the large bee Is due to a large and healthy mother, 

 and not to seven frames In an 8-frame hive. Why, I have In 

 some of my S-frame hives nine frames, which do not seem to 

 inconvenience them, or cause them to be any shorter. 



The seasons seem to be changing here. Think of the 

 golden-rod blooming In December and January, and dahlia* 

 (which are a fall bloomer also) blooming now; and in a few 

 weeks we will have golden-rod again. Some of it is two feet 

 high, aud is beginning to put up flower-heads. We are begin- 

 ning to have 5orae real hot weather here now — 93-' Pahr. in 

 the shade to-day. It has been very cool heretofore, owing to 

 the height of the old Father of Waters. We had a very hard 

 fight to keep the water out here. Levees had to be raised from 

 six Inches to three and four feet, and otherwise strengthened ; 

 also a guard for dvery mile in the daytime, and one for every 

 half mile during the night, but we can be thankful that we 

 have been spared an inundation. The water is going down 

 fast, but all danger is not over yet. 



I think Doollttle's plans of making increase, as described 

 in the American Bee Journal recently, are very fine. Some 

 things that are publisht In the Bee Journal are worth more to 

 me than the year's subscription price. 



Orleans Co., La., May 24. 



Every Present Subscriber of the Bee Journal 

 should be an agent for It, and get all others possible to sub- 

 scribe for It. See ofTers on page 401. 



