April 11, 1907 



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America n Hee Joarnal^ 0y^^ 



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Conducted by J-uiis 11. tiouoLb, New Braunsfels, Tex. 



spoken of, is C. ca^jVtti, Michx., a larfje 

 croton. I have seen bees on all of 

 these, but the "red sage" seems to 

 give more honey than the others, at 

 least in the localities where I have ob- 

 served it. 



Here is an instance again that shows 

 that it behooves us, as bee-keepers, to 

 study botany, or at least so much of it 

 that we may be able to know our 

 honey-plants ' by their right names. 

 The study of botany has not only been 

 valuable to me in my bee-keeping, but 

 of great interest as well. 



The "Sages" of Texas and of 



California— Color of Sumac 



Honey 



Mr. Louis H. Scholl:— I notice in your 

 department of the American Bee Journal 

 (page 00), a letter from .J. E. Chambers, in 

 which reference is made to sage honey as 

 (larl,\ and I inferred that sumac yielded white 

 honey. With me sage is the principal source 

 of surplus, and if taken off before other honey 

 is mixed with it. it is wafer-white, and the 

 flnest-llavored honey in the world. I think 

 sumac comes later, and is amber. Soon tar- 

 weed comes in, and the honey is then darker 

 and considerable off flavor. I have black or 

 button eage and white, coming in the order 

 named, 3 or 3 weeks apart. The black sage 

 yields the whitest honey. Can you account 

 for the difference? A. J. Burns. 



Lusardi, Calif., Feb. 5. 



Mr. Burns' letter was forwarded to 

 Mr. Chambers for reply, which is given 

 here : 



Mr. Louis H. Scholl: — I note what you 

 have to say about the different local names 

 for plants. I am sorry indeed to learn that 

 any one could be misled by such trifles. I 

 have always known that the little common 

 sage, found to a great extent all over Texas, 

 was not the same as the white, blue, and black 

 sage of California, and 1 have never said that 

 it was. While I am no botanist, there is no 

 man in Texas who watches the different 

 flowers more carefully than I do, and I think 

 there are few who follow the bee-papers more 

 closely. This being true, I would indeed be a 

 pretty one not to know tlie difference between 

 these plants. 



The sage we have here is a small bush — red 

 sage with dun-colored flowers; and white 

 sage with larger leaves but flowers of the 

 same color ; the leaves of a strong mint flavor. 

 I know you have seen it. In this locality it 

 blooms in the latter part of June, and in sea- 

 sonable years until August, and yields a very 

 dark, strong honey, in Southwest Texas. 

 There is a large kind common to East Texas. 

 It has a seed-pod, which, when broken, shows 

 two flat sides and a round side. It is dead at 

 this season, but I am sending you a lot of 

 the dried leaves. Now, this is about all I 

 know about it, and, though not much, is per- 

 haps Buffleient to enable you to identify it. I 

 am also sending you a sample of the honey 

 from it. 



I note Mr. Burns says that sumac is amber 

 in color; it may be in his locality — 1 can't 

 answer for California. I am not keeping 

 honey records for that part of the country, 

 but here it is, if not white, so very close to 

 that color that we all call it white. I saw 

 sumac honey at San Antonio, but none of it 

 was as light as ours when pure; however, as 

 you know, it is not often that we can get 

 honey that is absolutely free from any admix- 

 ture. I think there are but very few apiarists 

 who know how much bees move and change 

 honey about in the hives, and this is one rea- 

 son why it is so hard to get honey all clear of 

 admixtures. And you know how impossible 

 it is to get every particle of honey out of the 

 combs when extracting, or even to uncap 

 every cell. The only way I could ever be 



sure of getting all honey from a given source 

 was to hive a swarm on starters during a flow, 

 and when there was only one kind of plant in 

 bloom such swarms, if given combs that are 

 new, will, of course, get all the honey from 

 the desired source. But time must be given 

 for them to use up the honey that they car- 

 ried in their honey-sacs before the new combs 

 are given, or else an admixture will result. 

 Vigo, Tex. J. E. Chambers. 



In writing to Mr. Chambers I men- 

 tioned the inadvisability of using com- 

 mon or local names when speaking of 

 honey-plants of different localities, as 

 a name may mean one thing in one 

 locality and quite another thing some- 

 where else. I believe there is hardly 

 anything else in this respect like com- 

 mon names of plants. Just as it hap- 

 pened, that what was called " sage " 

 in Texas was not the sage of Califor- 

 nia, so well known to the bee-keepers. 

 Here in Texas it is exactly one of those 

 cases of using common names wrongly 

 for plants that do not obtain that name 

 in botany ; hence, such names can not 

 be relied on, and should never be used 

 unless the name is a universal one, and 

 means one and the same thing every- 

 where. 



Instead of the real sage of California, 



One of My Inspection Trips 



The picture here shown is a reminder 

 of one of my trips of inspection, and 

 shows to some extent the hospitality 

 shown " the inspector " upon this oc- 

 casion, quite different from some of 

 the experiences on other occasions. 



The bee-keepers involved here, in- 

 stead of objecting to such inspection 

 of their apiaries, not only willingly 

 allowed this, but insisted not only on a 

 thorough inspection but thorough 

 treatment. " The inspector" was met 

 at the train by them, taken to their 

 homes and cared for. Then prepara- 

 tions were made for the extended over- 

 land trip to inspect the apiaries from 

 25 to 30 miles west of the town, and 

 lasting over a week. The picture 

 shows the inspection party in one of 

 the " camps." Over2000 colonies were 

 examined, but only two cases of dis- 

 ease were found, which, only a short 

 time before, had been imported into 

 the neighborhood with a lot of bees 

 shipped from another State. These 

 cases were promptly dealt with and 

 eradicated, thus leaving the district 

 free of the disease. 



Another Kind of Inspection Work. 



that mentioned by Mr. Chambers is 

 not a sage at all. but a croton instead, 

 belonging to the Spurge family {Eu- 

 phorbiacea:). These crotons are quite 

 common in our State, and there are 

 many species. That referred to as 

 " red sage " is very probably Croton 

 glandulosus. L-. while the "white 

 sage " is C te.i'ensis, Muell, or Texas 

 Croton. The one of eastern Texas, 



Location and Management- 

 the Hive 



-Not 



I'll tell you, the location and man- 

 agement have more to do with the yield 

 of honey you get tftan the kind of hive 

 you use, supposing, of course, you use 

 one of the many frame hives on the 

 market to-day. 



