412 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



December 



stored it. And Pliny included api- 

 culture in his studies of nature. 



Thus for ages honey had been the 

 satisfying sweet. During the latter 

 centuries it was a luxury and the con- 

 suming public had demanded only a 

 limited amount. With the last few 

 years, as the price of sugar has ad- 

 vanced, the world has come to look 

 upon honey increasingly as a nece- 

 sity, committees have impressed upon 

 us the need of utilizing to the fullest 

 extent this undeveloped resource, and 

 those who have been in best position 

 to do so have increased their efforts 

 to accomplish this end. 



And how undeveloped the resource! 

 One hundred million people as indus- 

 trious and intelligent as any others 

 that walk the earth; over 3,600,000 

 square miles of as rich soil as ever 

 grew a shrub, blessed throughout the 

 greater part of its extent with a wide 

 variety of trees and plants that give 

 in their proper season an abundance 

 of nectar. And yet, only enough 

 honey is produced to allow a bare 

 two pounds annually to each of its 

 inhabitants; colonies sufficient in 

 number to harvest but a small part 

 of the nectar secreted by the flowej-s. 

 Probably less than one million of 

 our inhabitants, only one per cent, 

 are engaged in beekeeping, and but 

 a small per cent of these own colo- 

 nies that produce commercial quan- 

 tities. Fifty to eighty per cent of the 

 nectar of the United States is prob- 

 ably lost because of an insufficient 

 number of bees, and in cur own State 

 of Texas, it is said that twenty times 

 the present harvest of honey could 

 be gathered if there were sufficient 

 colonies rightly placed. In the face 

 of the extreme shortage of sugar in 

 the past, it is little short of criminal 

 on the part of the American people 

 that a larger amount of honey is not 

 produced, and their responsibility is 

 heightened by the fact that compara- 

 tively little trouble or expense is 

 necessary to put it on the market. 

 Nectar is a natural product. 

 Comparisons 

 There is an increasing tendency, in 

 these days of high cost of living, to 

 draw comparisons between different 



articles of food, taking into consid- 

 eration their prices and their relative 

 nutritive value. Merely as a carbo- 

 hydrate, the value of honey is one- 

 fifth less than that of sugar, the dif- 

 ference being due to approximately 

 twenty per cent of water in the 

 honey. But its energy-producing 

 value is 1485 calories per pound, be- 

 ing ahead of all other foods in this 

 respect, except dates, and far ex- 

 ceeding that of meat, eggs, bread, 

 milk or vegetables. Taking average 

 prices into consideration, honey is a 

 more economical food than pears, or- 

 anges, figs, bananas, strawberries, 

 and grapes, which are in the same 

 class of energy-producers. It is also 

 more economical as an energy pro- 

 ducer, than celery, tomatoes, canned 

 corn, and all the meats, with the pos- 

 sible exception of pork chops. On 

 the other hand, it is less economical 

 than bread, cereals, potatoes, baked 

 beans and apples. 



There remains yet one phase of the 

 subject to be touched upon — namely, 

 methods and equipment, and a refer- 

 ence to bee diseases. To properly 

 solve the problems implied will ne- 

 cessitate an educational campaign 

 that will reach to all sections and 

 that will make the individual realize 

 that it is to his advantage, as well as 

 to that of others, that he should prac- 

 tice the latest and most improved 

 methods, to secure for himself the 

 greatest income and for others the 

 highest degree of safety, and reap in 

 the fullest measure the harvest boun- 

 tifully supplied by Nature. It is esti- 

 mated that previous to last season, 

 year in and year out, the gum or box- 

 hive, which does not allow bee or 

 comb manipulation, produced annu- 

 ally, in Texas, an average surplus of 

 three pounds, while hives with mov- 

 able frames, properly handled, pro- 

 duced an average surplus of forty- 

 five pounds, and last year the latter 

 class produced an average of fifty- 

 seven pounds. Is it any wonder that 

 in east Texas, in which are perhaps 

 some of the richest nectar-producing 

 sections of the whole State, but 

 where gums or box-hives are the 

 rule, beekeeping has not progressed 



and become the industry that it 

 should? Is it any wonder that, with 

 bee disease and moths rampant, en- 

 couraged as they are by these condi- 

 tions, the beekeeper with modern 

 methods has shunned this rich field, 

 and left it undeveloped, and worse, 

 as a menace to the surrounding 

 territory and the State at large? 

 These are matters that must be 

 considered and made subjects of 

 education and publicity campaigns, 

 that beekeeping shall come into its 

 own and this source of wealth de- 

 velop to its fullest extent. 

 Texas. 



Front view of the Leudke sweet clover harvester 



HARVESTING SWEET CLOVER 

 SEED 



Sweet clover is the subject of ani- 

 mated discussion among the farmers, 

 on the street, at institutes, at fairs 

 and wherever the tillers of the soil 

 chance to congregate. It is no longer 

 feared as a weed, but more and more 

 its value as a soil Guilder is being re- 

 alized. This augurs well for the bee- 

 keepers, and everything which can 

 be done to extend the popularity of 

 the plant among the farmers will 

 improve the pasture of the beekeep- 

 ers who live within reach of their 

 fields. 



Sweet clover is a vigorous plant, 

 and produces seed,' in abundance. 

 However, it is a hard job to harvest 

 the seed crop after it is grown, and 

 more than one farmer has been dis- 

 gusted with the whole proposition 

 when he came t'o gather his crop. 

 The writer has had experience in a 

 limited way with sweet clover and 

 appreciates the difficulty. If cut with 

 a mower and raked into windrows, a 

 large part of the seed will be scat- 

 tered. The binder is not well suited 

 to the work, nor is the ordinary 

 threshing machine suited to thresh- 

 ing the seed after the plants have 

 been cut. The progress of sweet clo- 

 ver has been greatly handicapped by 

 the lack of suitable machinery for 

 handling it. There have been num- 

 erous makeshifts recommended, but 

 none of them are entirely satisfac- 

 tory. The writer and his boys 

 threshed about a thousand pounds of 

 seed by beating it out by hand on a 

 large canvas. It is needless to say 

 that one could not expect to grow a 

 hundred acres of the crop to be han- 

 dled in this way. 



For several months we have been 

 hearing about a harvester made es- 

 pecially to gather the sweet clover 

 seed from the standing stalks. The 

 machine was said to thresh the seed 

 as it went, thus avoiding the neces- 

 sity of another operation. Instead of 

 having to cut the crop with a mower, 

 haul it to the yard and stack it, and 

 then bring in a threshing machine to 

 finish the job, one trip through the 

 field was said to be sufficient to finish 

 the whole operation, the seed being 

 sacked from the machine. 



So interesting did this sound that, 

 when word reached the office that a 

 machine was at work within thirty- 

 five miles, three members of the staff 

 got into an auto and away we went 



