1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



335 



yielder if the weather is dry , as it 

 usually is during July and August. 



The Honey 



What kind of honey is produced 

 from Gonolobus?- In color it is al- 

 most clover white, of fairly good body 

 and very aromatic in flavor. It does 

 not granulate readily, even in cold 

 weather, but it has one peculiarity 

 that marks rather than mars the 

 prod_uct. When thrown from the ex- 

 tractor, or even while being uncapped 

 in the comb, tiny bubbles appear all 

 through the honey in a way very sug- 

 gestive of fermentation. In this re- 

 spect it resembles the honey from the 

 Cabbage palmetto. In neither honey 

 is the characteristic bubbling due to 

 real fermenting. The reason has 

 never been satisfactorily given. This 

 peculiarity is noticeable in the honey 

 from the vining milkweed, even after 

 bottling. At first it takes on a milky 

 or cloudy appearance; a cloudiness 

 that reappears whenever the honey 

 is shaken up, but which disappears 

 when the honey is allowed to stand. 

 Slight heating quickly drives off the 

 bubbles and restores transparency. 



The taste would probably rank it 

 with the best of table honey any- 

 where. Most of those who taste it for 

 the first time are enthusiastic over it, 

 and pronounce it "the finest ever," 

 but, of course, superlatives are easy. 

 In point of time throughout the corn- 

 fields mentioned above Gonoiobus is 

 followed by the one-seeded burr cu- 

 cumber (Sicyos Angulatus), which 

 also yields a white honey and blends 

 easily with that of the earlier vine. 



The vine seems to have given com- 

 mercial importance to beekeeping in 

 the entire area wherein it grows only 

 along the confluence of the Wabash 

 and Ohio Rivers near the point 

 where Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois 

 meet. That region is indeed a land 

 flowing with milk (weed) and honey. 

 In the region last named it offers 

 great possibilities for migratory bee- 

 keeping from the higher clover levels 

 to the bottom lands. The moving of 

 the bees there, is not over long dis- 

 tances; it can almost all be done in 

 auto trucks a dozen or twenty miles 

 at most. Good returns await the man 

 who knows how. No other States or 

 sections in other States, so far as 

 known, have given any commercial 

 value to Gonolobus as a honey pro- 

 ducer. 



A Warning 



Some beemen are writing to secure 

 the seed of the vining milkweed and 

 some beekeepers have sent it on re- 

 quest. It should be noted that from 

 an agricultural viewpoint the vine is 

 a pest of the worst sort. When once 

 it gets a foothold in the proper soils 

 it seems ineradicable. Good weed 

 laws would put a ban on the distribu- 

 tion of the seed altogether, but, un- 

 fortunately, most State weed laws 

 cover only Canada thistles and occa- 

 sionally wild carrot and white daisy. 

 However, the great fears sometimes 

 expressed regarding the weed as a 

 pest, while no doubt well founded in 

 southwestern Indiana, are no doubt 

 exaggerated in regard to the most of 

 the area from which it has been re- 

 ported. For in all the area of its dis- 



tribution it has become a real men- 

 ace to the farmers in only the one 

 area named, and conditions for its 

 best growth are rarely found. 



TWO QUEENS WITH A SWARM 



By Rob't A. Greene 



A few days ago a good-sized swarm 

 issued from one of my colonies and 

 clustered on a low apple limb. As soon 

 as I discovered them I shook the clus- 

 ter into a bushel basket and dumped 

 them into my "swarm hive," which I 

 always keep ready. I saw the queen, 

 a three-banded Italian virgin of good 

 shape and color, as she passed in. 

 About half the bees stayed in the hive 

 and half went back to the tree. I re- 

 peated the process of shaking into the 

 basket and pouring into or in front oi 

 the hive five times at intervals of 

 about an hour before the majority of 

 those bees would remain in the nive 

 and not return to the tree. 



I didn't understand it, but the next 

 day, when I cautiously went through 

 the hived colony, I found a solution. 

 The large Italian queen was found on 

 the bottom very much excited over 

 something the bees were balling. A 

 puff of smoke revealed a second 

 queen, somewhat smaller and darker, 

 lying on her back in a dazed condi- 

 tion, but kicking and piping faintly. 

 Her body swelled slightly and she 

 died a few hours later. 



I suspect that two queens, hatched 

 at about the same time and having, 

 of course, the same hive odor, took 

 flight with the same swarm. One was 

 hived at the first shaking; the; other 

 eluded me for several shakings, and 

 each time regathered her followers. 

 The next day the queens met, prob- 

 ably for the first time, in the hive 

 which each believed to be her own 

 domain. Had I peeped in half an hour 

 sooner presumably I would have wit- 

 nessed the royal duel. 



It was, to me, a remarkable in- 

 stance of the automatic working of 

 the natural law of the survival of the 

 fittest. 



New York. 



(It frequently happens that two or 

 more queens will be found with a 

 swarm, although it is more likely to 

 occur with afterswarms than virgins 

 emerging about the time the swarm 

 is leaving the hive to fly out with the 

 bees.— ^Ed.) 



ANOTHER KINK 



In a recent article in one of the bee 

 magazines I saw an account of how 

 one beekeeper protected the wood of 

 his frames from the cutting of the 

 wire which tended to make the wire 

 sag, using shoe eyelets. 



This was efficacious, but having no 

 eyelets, and not being able to get 

 them immediately, I cast about for a 

 substitute, and found one, as follows: 



Drive slender brads into the sides 

 of the end pieces, letting them go 

 through the holes. If, now, the wire 

 is passed through the holes so that 

 (he pressure will come on the brads 

 the wood is protected, and there will 

 be no sagging of the wire. 



A. F. BONNEY. 



REMEDY FOR STINGS 



I have read of using hot water for 

 bee stings, as well as some other 

 remedies. I tried a number of reme- 

 dies and finally decided that the only 

 cure was in prevention, until I tried 

 blowing hot smoke directly on the 

 point where the sting entered the 

 flesh. Hot smoke relieves the pain, 

 and for many years I have not tried 

 any other means of relief. The hotter 

 the smoke the better. 



O. K. Rice, 



Gray's River, Wash. 



(The associate editor has used the 

 same means with good results for 

 several years.) 



SUMMER MEETING 



The annual meeting of the North- 

 ern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin 

 Beekeepers' Association will be held 

 in the court house in Freeport, 111., on 

 Tuesday, October 19, 1920. .A.11 inter- 

 ested in bees are invited to attend. 

 B. KENNEDY, Sec. 



Map showing regional limits of bluevine or climbing milkweed. 



