92 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 



guanacaste mora, mahogany and al- 

 mond are the commercial lumber 

 woods. All produce honey; some are 

 first-class honey yielders. The cedar 

 has no resemblance to the cedar in 

 the States except the lumber. The 

 shape of the tree, the leaves and the 

 blossoms are altoeether different 

 from our northern cedar. 



The calabash or gourd tree grows 

 everywhere and is an important, 

 honey plant. It blooms about six 

 months of the year. The gourds that 

 grow on these trees are very durable 

 and are used by the natives for 

 drinking cups, for dishes and for 

 water containers, and they are also 

 used in making the marimba, the 

 sweet-toned Indian musical instru- 

 ment. The calabash flowers and fruit 

 come right out of the stem of the 

 tree and large limbs. Seemingly the 

 bark bursts open and the flowers 

 come out. 



Bread-fruit trees and the wild fig 

 tree are said to produce honey, but 

 I have not seen bees on them while 

 in bloom; perhaps something else 

 was producing honey at the time that 

 was more to the bees' liking. 



Among the good fruits that pro- 

 duce honey, there are two kinds of 

 zapote, the zapotia, the annona, the 

 mamong, the kaki fruit, the loquat 

 and the nancitas. In fact, I find a 

 new fruit every few days that yields 

 honey. The papayas I think I have 

 mentioned before. 



The corn is very valuable as a pol- 

 len yielder. There seems to be a 

 dearth of pollen here sometimes. 



The mangrove, of which there are 

 more than a dozen varieties, bloom 

 the greater part of the year. Some 

 yield considerable honey. 



Most of. the plants and trees of 

 Costa Rica, except the grasses and 

 some garden vegetables, yield honey. 

 Among the vegetables the chayote 

 produces honey and pollen. The gher- 

 kin, or wild cucumber, produces con- 

 siderable honey during the rainy 

 season. Mesquite, catsclaw and wild 

 cotton also give us some honey. 



A peculiar thing — flowers will 

 often continue secreting honey after 

 they have fallen to the ground, and 

 bees will continue to work on them; 

 children sometimes get stung by 

 stepping on them. I have noticed 

 this with the flowers from the cala- 

 bash, the marango and the pampaya. 



Costa Rica. 



Southern Beekeepers Affected_by 

 Wisconsin Apiary Law 



The attention of the beekeepers of 

 Alabama and several other Southern 

 States which do not provide for api- 

 ary inspection is called to the new 

 Wisconsin law which went into effect 

 last July. 



Under this statute beekeepers and 

 transportation companies are prohib- 

 ited from accepting for delivery in 

 Wisconsin any bees, comb, or used 

 beekeeping appliances without a per- 

 mit from the Wisconsin Inspector of 

 Apiaries, or an inspection certificate 

 from an official Inspector of the State 

 of origin attached to each package, 



crate or bundle containing the same. 



It appears to be customary for the 

 Alabama dealers, at least, to attach 

 affidavits to their pound packages, 

 stating that the honey used in mak- 

 ing the candy has been diluted and 

 boiled. Our experience has been that 

 the ordinary boiling is insufficient to 

 sterilize honey, and that foulbrood 

 sometimes develops as a result of the 

 introduction of bees in pound pack- 

 ages, unless they come from an apiary 

 free from disease. 



It is now too late, of course, to pro- 

 vide for inspection in a State in which 

 no arrangements of that kind have 

 been made. Consequently, it will be 

 necessary for all dealers who are un- 

 able to furnish an inspection certifi- 

 cate to secure a permit from the State 

 Entomologist of Wisconsin for this 

 purpose. A copy of this permit may 

 then be attached to each pound pack- 

 age, and a list of all the customers of 

 the permittee filed with the State En- 

 tomologist. It is understood that 

 where bee diseases are apparently in- 

 troduced in pound packages, permits 

 will probably be refused in future 

 years to the apiaries from which the 

 bees were received. 



All shipments should also be accom- 

 panied by the affidavit form now used. 

 Applications for the needed permits 

 are to be made to S. B. Fracker, Act- 

 ing State Entomologist, Madison, 

 Wis. 



Jumbo Hives in Dadant Style 



By F. Dundas Todd 



TALKING to Mr. C. P. Dadant at 

 the meeting of the Chicago 

 and Northwestern Beekeepers 

 Association in the year 1908, I re- 

 marked that some day I was going to 

 try out a Dadant or Quinby hive. 

 Very earnestly Mr. Dadant remarked: 

 "Mr. Todd, we never urge anybody to 

 use our style of hive, but I will assure 

 you of one thing, that if you ever do 

 try it, you will never regret so do- 

 ing. 



At that time I had on hand a com- 

 plete equipment for about SO shallow 

 divisible hives, and no inducement to 

 add to the number, nor did I have any 

 further need for nine years, so my in- 

 tention was for a long time unfilled. 

 As I had so many shallow frames 

 on hand, and a four-frame extractor 

 with twelve-inch baskets, I felt I 

 could not afford to follow exactly 

 the dimensions of the Dadant hive, so 

 I began by compromising on the ten- 

 frame Jumbo, but following closely 

 the general design of the Dadant. 

 Instead of starting with one, I made 

 five, getting them all filled the first 

 season. In one of my letters to Mr. 

 Dadant I happened to mention what 

 I was doing, and he urged me to let 

 him know my results. 



The first season's wintering of these 

 hives was just average with my oth- 

 ers, but I considered I had better say 

 nothing until I had further experi- 

 ence. One thing however that I did 

 appreciate very much was the greater 

 ease in handling the colony. With 

 our 'ong building up season, four 

 months , we get the kind of colonies 

 most beekeepers dream about, but 



very seldom see. At the beginning 

 of May a good beekeeper frequently 

 has a ten-frame Langstroth packed 

 with bees, so a second story is in or- 

 der, when a good queen will do a 

 land office business. In 1919 we had 

 a rather cool, wet April, yet, before 

 the end of the month, several men 

 stopped me on the street to tell me 

 how well their bees were doing. One 

 man with six colonies said his best 

 hive had fourteen solid combs of 

 brood, his poorest, six. Nine frames 

 of brood are not uncommon. Our 

 honey flow is not due until July, so 

 think of the backbreaking labor in- 

 volved in examining regularly these 

 double deckers for two months. As 

 a bee inspector I know what it means. 

 With a Dadant hive big enough, the 

 brood chamber is all in one story, 

 so the cover is the heaviest thing to 

 lift until the honey flow is on. By 

 the way thirteen frame Langstroths 

 have been tried by several beekeepers 

 in British Columbia, and discarded. 

 So in 1918 I had ready a complete 

 equipment for 20 more Dadant style 

 hives with eleven Jumbo frames,, 

 spaced as were the previous five, one 

 and a half inches, I did not like the 

 Dadant cap, but I followed the idea 

 by using the "riser" so favored by 

 British Beekeepers to protect the su- 

 per. My cover is a telescope with a 

 two inch rim. In general appearance 

 my hives just look like a Dadant. 

 The season proved to be cold and dry 

 so that from the middle of May until 

 well on in July the bees lived from 

 hand to mouth. When the season 

 closed I had only eighteen Dadants 

 in all, many of them without the full 

 complement of combs and short of 

 stores. To remedy the latter trouble 

 I gave them shallow supers of honey, 

 and the net result was that only two 

 colonies were wintered in the brood 

 chamber alone. It was not a fair deal 

 for the new hive, but it was the best I 

 could do. 



The winter was mild but wet, typi- 

 cal Pacific Coast weather north of 

 San Francisco. Bees wintered well 

 where stores were plentiful. I left SO 

 pounds to the hive, but a rollicking 

 party of young porkers got access to 

 the orchard where my apiary is lo- 

 cated, found the most succulent mor- 

 sels right in front of the hives and 

 jarred these considerably, so in the 

 spring I found stores lower than us- 

 ual. April was cold and wet, and I 

 was therefore unable to make my us- 

 u.il spring inventory of brood area 

 and weight of l.oney, so my notebook 

 has merely such words as, strong, 

 medium, weak, plenty, short, no 

 stores, just such facts as one could 

 gain from a hurried examination 

 above the frames. 



Having completed the annual 

 spring tabular statement as to queens 

 from different breeders, also accord- 

 ing to their age, hives and systems of 

 packing, so as to find the value of 

 the whole series of experiments on 

 wintering, I have been conducting for 

 years to find the best system for a 

 region where damp is the most im- 

 portant factor, I v/orked out quite a 

 serie? of percentages, anc} feel I can 



