1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



375 



acquaintance and friend. He helped 

 me so much during all ihe 20 years 

 that I edited and published the 

 American Bee Journal. It would not 

 have been nearly so valuable as it 

 was, for so many years, before you 

 got it, had it not been for Dr. Mil- 

 ler's eagle eye and brilliant brain, as 

 well as extensive apiarian experience. 

 I am inclined to think that possibly 

 1 knew and understood Dr. Miller bet- 

 ter than did anyone else connected 

 with the beekeeping industry. We 

 traveled together thousands of miles, 

 day and night, attending beekeepers' 

 conventions, from Buffalo on the east 

 to Los Angeles on the west. He has 

 been in my home many times and I 

 have been in his home and with his 

 family often. I feel his loss very 

 deeply. It seems he filled a place 

 in my life and thought that no other 

 can ever take. 



"There was only one Dr. C. C. Mil- 

 ler, the great beekeeper, and the 

 greater man. And in bee literature no 

 one can equal him. He was unique 

 and so original. And as to the good 

 influence of his long life, in every way 

 you view it, who can measure it? 



"But, Friend Dadant, you knew him, 

 too, and I know you would lay a trib- 

 ute of love and respect upon his 

 grave, as would the thousands of bee- 

 keepers scattered all over this and 

 other lands throughout the wide 

 world. 



"I am glad I was permitted to know 

 Dr. Miller so intimately. He has 

 blessed my life beyond my ability to 

 express. He was as brave and cour- 

 ageous for the right as ever was a 

 bee in defending its hive; he was as 

 devoted and true and sweet in life as 

 ever was honey pure and sweet; and 

 for many years to come the benefi- 

 cent influence of his long and useful 

 life will be felt among the beekeepers 

 of America and the rest of the world 

 where bees ar; kept 



"GEORGE W. YORK, 

 "Spokane, Wash." 



odor to linen, and from this use came 

 the expression "to lay in lavender," 

 since linen is rendered sweet-smelling 

 by placing upon it, in the clothes 

 press, sprigs and blossoms of lav- 

 ender. 



LAVENDER 



We publish herewith an excellent 

 photograph of Lavender (Lavandula 

 officinalis), received from our good 

 friend, Engineer A. Capponi, of San 

 Remo, Italy. In an article written 

 for the "Apicoltura Italiana" the past 

 summer, Mr. Capponi praised highly 

 this plant as "eminently nectarifer- 

 ous." It grows in arid soils, is very 

 hardy, and could be easily acclimated 

 in this country. We have seen oc- 

 casional sprigs of it here. In the 

 Riviera, it grows spontaneously on 

 dry hillsides at an altitude of from 

 1,600 to 5,000 feet. 



Whether this Labiate would prove 

 as good for honey in this country as 

 in western Italy is yet to be learned. 

 But it has other uses. It is harvested 

 to produce an essential oil — oil of 

 lavender — used chiefly as a perfume, 

 and, according to our friend, pro- 

 duces more and better oil after the 

 flowers have passed their best period 

 of bloom, so that both honey and 

 perfume may be secured from it. ft 

 appears that the gathering of these 

 lavender blossoms is very profitable 

 in the mountains of Liguria. In many 

 countries it is used to give a sweet 



A NEW PEST 



By R. A. Bray. 



A new pest, a kind of thrips, has 

 invaded Montana and not only ruined 

 tlie seed crop of alfalfa and sweet 

 clover, but cut the honey crop in half 

 all over the State. 



Professor Cooley, State Entomolo- 

 gist, says that the thing is evidently 

 local, and that no data or information 

 is available which may throw any 

 light on the subject. This thing 

 should be thorouglily investigated, as 

 it is liable to spread, and as it injures 

 the seed, it will in time extinguish the 

 sweet clover, which re-seeds itself. 



You can pick up a handful of alfalfa 

 blossoms and shake them against a 

 light-colored object and hundreds of 

 tiny insects are at once dislodged, 

 and may be seen crawling around. 



This thing appeared without warn- 

 ing and stopped the honeyflow in a 

 single day. Since August 1, the usual 

 time for our big flow, the bees have 

 barefy fed themselves, although blos- 

 soms have never been more abundant 

 or weather conditions better. 



CLIMBING MILKWEED 



By L. H. Pammel 

 In your issue for October, Dr. Ed- 

 ward G. Baldwin has an article on a 

 milkweed that climbs, which interests 

 me very much. After a description of 

 the plant, based on correspondence 

 and published floras, the author gives 

 the distribution from southwestern 

 West Virginia and western Virginia 

 through southern Ohio, Indiana and 

 Illinois and south through central 

 Georgia, west to central Texas. A 

 few hours before reading the article 

 I identified a specimen of this milk- 

 w'eed from Logan, Iowa. This is in 

 Harrison County, due west of Ames, 

 about 20 miles from Nebraska. I have 

 received a good many specimens from 

 Iowa corespondents during the past 

 two years. We have one mounted 

 specimen in the herbarium from Ed- 



dyville, on the Des Moines River, in 

 southeastern Iowa. The other speci- 

 mens I am unable to get at at the 

 present, but as I recall, they came 

 from southwestern Iowa, chiefly. It 

 was reported as a troublesome weed 

 in southwestern Iowa as early as 1912. 

 I am unable to say whether the plant 

 is a native or introduced. The fact 

 that so many independent observers 

 report it to me as a bad weed makes 

 me hesitate about beekeepers intro- 

 ducing the plant. In my weed flora of 

 Iowa I described it as a bad weed, and 

 why increase our weeds when there 

 are other good honey plants that are 

 not injurious to the farmer? 



I am inclined to think it may have 

 been native in the extreme southern 

 part of the State and that it is mov- 

 ing northward. At any rate, I know 

 the plant was fairly common in parts 

 of Missouri (St. Louis) thirty years 

 ago. Drs. Robinson and Fernald, in 

 Gray's Manual, gave its distribution 

 as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas and 

 southward. Dr. Baldwin states that 

 it needs dry weather to secure the 

 maximum recreation. It is a rather 

 deep-rooted perennial and this ac- 

 accounts for the fact that dry weather 

 will not diminish the secretion of nec- 

 tar. Farmers have called it the "Dry 

 Weather Vine." 



Iowa. 



AN AID TO KEEPING BEES IN 

 WINTER 



By Geo. Kirkgasser 

 A Nebraska man who was engaged 

 last year in the bee and honey indus- 

 try, tells of how he kept 85 hives of 

 Italian bees (worth over $1,000) dur- 

 ing the entire winter in a concrete 

 underground bee house or cellar. The 

 heating of this cellar proved a great 

 problem, not because of the amount 

 of heat required, which is very small, 

 but on account of the fact that the 

 source of heat must not consume 

 any oxygen, or it soon smothers the 

 bees. 



After trying, without success, other 

 methods, he hit upon the idea of elec- 

 tric heat and made an electric stove 

 28 inches high by soldering two 

 square 5-gallon tin kerosene cans to- 

 gether, end to end. The cans had 



Bluoining sprigs of lavender 



