352 



April 25, 1907 



More Texas Honey-Bloom 



I have been asked to continue giving 

 a list of Southern honey-plants, to- 

 gether with a description of each and 

 their blooming period each month, but 

 space forbids doing so in a satisfactory 

 manner. A list will be given, there- 

 fore, of the rest of our March and April 

 bloomers without the description, and 

 these, if desired, can be looked up in 

 some work on botany : 



Populus moniliferu. Ait. Our common Cot. 

 tonwood or Necklace Poplar. Much pollen 

 and honey. Extends into west Texas. 



Citrus trifuUata, L. Hardy orange. Culti- 

 vated. Planted for hedges. Not abundant. 



l>pirea iiirginica, Britt. Bridal Wreath. Cul- 

 tivated. Not important. 



Asparagus ojticinalis, L. Cultivated aspara- 

 gus. Bright colored pollen ; little honey. 

 Naturalized from Europe. 



I'haceHa globra, Nutt. " Phacelia." Ranges 

 from Arkansas into eastern Texas. 



J^icitais comniuyiis, L. Castor-oil plant. 

 Cultivated and escaped. Pollen and honey ; 

 nectar-glands at base of leaves. 



Celtis 7nississippiefisis, Bosc, and C. ocriden- 

 talis, L. " Haeifberry '' trees are most exten- 

 sively planted for shade-trees. Valuable for 

 pollen and some honey. 



Corutts aspenfolia, Mx. Dogwood ; extends 

 from Southern States into central Texas. 

 Bees fairly roar on the blossoms. 



Luplnus subcarnosus^ Hook. Blue Lupine, 

 or Blue Bonnet, is our State flower in Texas, 

 and covers the ground with a blue mantel on 

 fertile slopes and open places in woodlands; 

 intermixed with L. tcxensis, not so plentiful. 

 Honey-yield fair; much pollen of bright red 

 and orange colors. Blooms into April. 



Tisuni saliiiuin,h., cultivated garden pea ; 

 unimportant, but pollen sometimes. 



Mnlus malus (L ), Britt. Apple, with fruit- 

 bloom. Blooms into April. 



Jiohinla pseudacucla^ L. Black Locust; 

 ranges from Pennsylvania into Texas. Honey- 

 yield good if not hurt by cold weather, which 

 affects it easily. 



Vercis canadensis, L. Red-bud or Judas-tree. 

 From Ontario to Texas; yields honey early, 

 and aids in brood-rearing. March into April. 



Hex dicidua, Walt. Passinu Haw. Bear- 

 berry or Yonpon of the Southern States, into 

 west Texas. Short honey-yield ; sometimes 

 very early and valuable for stimulating early 

 brood-rearing. .V. caroliniaHa, Irel., Yonpon; 

 not so important. 



Eyse7ihardlia amorphoides^ H. B. K., com- 

 monly called Eysenhardtia^or Rock Brush, of 

 southern and western Texas. Honey-yield 

 abundant and of good quality; blooms sev- 

 eral times during good seasons with much 

 rain. In March, April, and May, and some- 

 times in June, July, and August. 



It is difBcult to give exactly the time 

 these plants bloom, as an early or a 

 late season influences plants very 

 much, so that any of these may, in 

 some years, bloom a month later, or 

 even earlier, than during the average 

 years. 



American ^ee Journal 



ing, and will lay more than double the 

 amount of eggs than the young, poorly- 

 reared queen — and the bees will persist 

 in superseding this old queen. So I 

 conclude it's not altogether the amount 

 of eggs a queen lays that causes her 

 supersedure, but more her age. 



When any colony of bees in this 

 State (Texas) on Feb. 1st has as much 

 as a quart of good, healthy bees, and a 

 queen that fails to bring her colony up 

 to the swarming point by the middle of 

 April, provided they are not allowed to 

 run short of stores — you might as well 

 pinch that queen's head off now as 

 later, for such queens are not worth 

 keeping. Let me illustrate : 



Last fall, when I reared my last 

 batch of queen-cells, I noticed that one 

 of the queens that hatched from this 

 lot of cells was small, and showed all 

 signs of being worthless ; but as I 

 needed her I concluded to use her any- 

 way until I could replace her with a 

 better one. So I put her and a full 

 sister (but well developed) each in a 



Causeof Supersedure of Queens 



There is something about bees super- 

 seding their queens that I have never 

 been fully able to understand. You 

 may take a poorly-reared queen — one 

 that will not keep more than 3 or 4 

 Langstroth frames filled with brood in 

 the height of the breeding season, and 

 so long as she is young the bees, as a 

 rule, will not offer to replace her with 

 a better one. Take this poor young 

 queen away, and introduce one that is 

 2 or 3 years old — one that her colony 

 has been trying to supersede but is lay- 



small colony of bees as near the same 

 strength as I could tell, but both well 

 supplied with stores. To-day (April 6) 

 the large, well-developed queen has 

 brood in 13 Langstroth frames, and 

 the one with the small queen has 

 brood in only 4 frames. Neither has 

 had any help, only to give room as 

 needed. 



Let me say, it pays, and pays dig; 

 too, to have good queens. 



Rescue, Tex. L. B. Smith. 



}'es, sir, it pays ! It is an unknown 

 quantity of honey that would have 

 been secured year after year if the 

 gueens were better looked after. Noth- 

 ing disgusts me more than to have col- 

 onies in the apiary that come up with 

 empty supers, while others are 

 "chucked full." And why ? Just be- 

 cause the queen below these supers was 

 not a good one. It makes a big differ- 

 ence whether the product from an aver- 

 age apiary is only 6000, or 10,000 

 pounds. 



Mf n^sm 



The 



' Old Reliable " as seen through New and Unreliable Glasses, 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



Making Fences Carry the Sections. 



Peter Bohm's scheme of making the 

 fences carry the sections, and so dis- 

 pense with the T-tins altogether, is 

 quite ingenious, at least. Whether a 

 great many will thoroughly like the 

 arrangement is another matter. Pos- 

 sibly some will find it difficult to get 

 the right kind of tacks. Possibly some 

 will find the tacks pull out too easily. 

 The old advice, "Try a few, and go 

 deeper if you like them," seems sage. 

 Page 147. 



Non-Swarming Experiments. 



Whoever can run a series of experi- 

 ments in non-swarming and /mve thetn 

 succeed is a public benefactor. Had a 

 senate of experts voted on the theory 

 propounded by E- W. Diefendorf, I 

 doubt if a majority would have made a 

 favorable forecast. But the results 

 reached by trying this " off-side " the- 

 ory are rather startling. First, in a 

 year when nearly all swarmed the 2 

 experimental colonies did not. Next 

 year — a year when more than half 

 swarmed — 24 experimental colonies 

 gave but 2 swarms. One of these 

 seemed not normal, but due to a quar- 

 rel over queen-cells that had to be built 

 on account of the death of the queen. 

 But sad was the result last year. Forty 

 colonies were experimented with ; not 

 one swarmed — all right so far — but 

 neither did the rest to any extent. 

 Doubtless Mr. D. will go on until he 

 makes assurance still more sure. Well, 



the results already attained entitle the 

 theory to a respectful consideration. 

 It may be stated in this shape : One 

 great reason why colonies swarm is 

 that they overwork their queens. Re- 

 move that cause and they will swarm 

 less, or not at all. The theory seems 

 to have some power to account for 

 things. Old queen more easily over- 

 worked than one in her first prime — 

 hence, colonies with old queens swarm 

 worse. 



Perhaps I can use its explanatory 

 power in my own case. I have many 

 rather weak colonies in spring. They 

 squeak along making little headway 

 for a long time. At last circumstances 

 get favorable — warm weather, lots of 

 pollen, some nectar (not enough to 

 turn their heads), and the bees, now no 

 longer weak, are most of them young. 

 The way they come forward when they 

 do get started once is a caution ; and 

 my, oh my, the swarms ! Long since 

 I came to suspect that this sudden for- 

 ward rush was somehow or other part 

 cause of the unusually swarmy record 

 of my yard. If I thought to look into 

 the why of it I stopped at saying, too 

 many nurse-bees with no larva; to feed. 

 I see that this else might be said : Be- 

 cause in this vehement rush queens 

 just then get awfully overworked. In 

 either case my first labor in the non- 

 swarming effort might profitably be to 

 winter my colonies better. Then they 

 would come forward more steadily, and 

 queens would stand it better. Between 



