236 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



UTILIZING STRONG HONEYS 



By L. H. COBB 



Several years ago I had my bees 

 gather a big crop of honey from hoar- 

 hound along the creek and roadways 

 around her, and while it looked as 

 nice as any honey we had, it was so 

 bitter that we could not eat it at all. 

 It had been stored in the same frames, 

 partially, that contained the last of 

 the main flow honey, and because of 

 this some of it was rather mild in fla- 

 vor, and this gave us an inspiration. 

 We had eaten some of this mildly 

 flavored honey anc^ it was very much 

 like hoarhound candy in flavor. We 

 sold some of it for cough syrup, and 

 then found that people liked it for a 

 change from the regular clover honey 

 for table use. In fact, we extracted 

 the whole late crop and by adding 

 some clover honey to it had a splen- 

 did new honey that was in ready de- 

 mand. 



One year we had a big crop of 

 heartsease honey. While some are 

 prejudiced against this honey, oth- 

 ers liked it, but we found that it 

 sold much better if we mixed it with 

 the clover honey. Goldenrod honey 

 is rather strong flavored, also, but 

 not objectionable to us, but probably 

 we get little goldenrod honey not well 

 mixed with other fall flowers. There 

 are many patehes of mint plants 

 along the roads in many parts of the 

 country, and where these occur I 

 imagine they will flavor the honey al- 

 most as strongly as did the hoarhound 

 I mentioned, although not so objec- 

 tionably. Yet I am sure mixing the 

 flavored honey, to tone down the 

 rankness, will make it more appreci- 

 ated by the consumers. 



A local honey trade will welcome a 

 change in flavor now and then, and it 

 is well worth while to give it to them 

 if we can. 



One year I was short of honey to 

 fill my orders and I sent to Michigan 

 for some raspberry honey, and bought 

 some California honey also, thus pro- 

 viding a change with the honey I 

 would have to secure from outside 

 sources anyway, and my patrons 

 showed their appreciation. One pa- 

 tron who had quit using clover 

 honey for the time, saying that they 

 were getting tired of it, began on 

 the raspberry honey and pronounced 

 it the finest honey they had ever had 

 at their house. A couple of months 

 later they were back on clover honey, 

 but they had enjoyed the change, even 

 though they soon tired of the new 

 • honey. 



Kansas. 



sack. Turn the sack inside out in 

 front of the hive and start the bees 

 in a little smoke. Joe R. Sterling. 

 Mississippi. 



great addition to any American re- 

 gion where they would grow. 



A SWARM SACK 



Take two pieces of lumber %x2 

 in. by 16 or 18 ft. long; put the flat 

 sides together and nail all but about 

 5 or 6 feet. Then take a sack (bur- 

 lap) and in its mouth fit a wire or 

 steel hoop. Fasten this hoop in se- 

 curely with thread or wire and staple 

 the hoop to the pole by spreading the 

 end where it is not nailed, and nailing 

 to the inside. 



To hive a swarm of bees, slip the 

 sack over it and give it a sharp jar. 

 Most of the bees will then be in the 



HONEY PLANTS OF FRANCE 



By Cannell 



Most of the native honey flora be- 

 longs to the labiatas, cousins of the 

 California sage; lavender of three 

 kinds, thyme, sage, mountain penny- 

 royal (Satureja montana), rosemary, 

 wild marjoram, horchound, mints. 



Among plants belonging to other 

 families are two kinds of heather 

 (spring and fall), borage (escaped?) 

 various thistles, absinthe, a kind of 

 goldenrod (Mula viscosa), and oth- 

 ers. I do not mention introduced 

 trees and plants such as locust, fruit 

 bloom, orange, alfalfa, sainfoin, car- 

 nation, clovers (five kinds), and I 

 might say that these last are rare 

 around me. 



1. Lavandula spica (probably 

 L. vera), limestone hills above 2,500 

 feet. Sometimes cultivated. (From 

 this plant is distilled the oil of lav- 

 ender from one drop of which, prob- 

 ably, is made the many gallons of 

 lavender extract so well and favor- 

 ably known to the American barber). 

 The plant blooms in July and August. 

 July 1-10, August 10-20). It_ yields 

 slowly, but steadily, from 25 to /5 

 pounds of rich, perfumed golden 

 honey, much prized over here, and 

 selling f'or about 60 per cent more 

 than white clover (8 to 15 francs at 

 present writing). 



2. Lavandula grandifolia (or big- 

 leaved) grows on same hills, but at 

 from 1,200 to 2,500 feet, as it blooms 

 later than spica the yield is light, ex- 

 cept in wet years. N. B. I never saw 

 this plant. 



3. Lavandula stoechas grows in 

 sandy soil near coast and seems to 

 prefer a granite residual of colluvial 

 soil devoid of lime. It is usually found 

 with heather, which likes an acid 

 soil. The yield is pretty fair, I be- 

 lieve, but in this region the L. stoech- 

 as or maritima, grows with heather, 

 which spoils the quality. I never 

 heard of this plant being distilled like 

 L. spica , 



4. Thyme (Thymus serpyllum and 

 another) neither important. 



5. Sage (several, not important). 



6. Mountain pennyroyal blooms after 

 L. spica in same region, and yields 

 heavily some years a honey of good 

 quality somewhat darker than lav- 

 ender honey (or so reputed) ; as the 

 pines yield in August a dark honey- 

 dew of vegetable origin, the pmes 

 may be responsible for the darker 

 color. 7. Rosemary blooms from 

 about October 1 to April 1 ; a very 

 slow but sure yielder of a very choice 

 honey. The famous Narbonne honey 

 is partly rosemary. I would not care 

 to keep bees in this region if rose- 

 mary were not fairly alnindant. 



8, 9, 10 and 11. Marjoram, hore- 

 hound and twio or three mints; all 

 useful, none exciting. 



But the two lavenders (Stoechas 

 and Spica) and rosemary would be a 



MANITOBA BEEKEEPING 



By H. W. Sanders 



In your April issue you make edi- 

 torial mention of the possibilities of 

 Manitoba beekeeping as outlined in 

 our reports of the Manitoba Beekeep- 

 ers' Association last month. The ar- 

 ticle is worded, however, in such a 

 way that it might be supposed that we 

 have here in Manitoba conditions sim- 

 ilar to those described by Mr. West 

 in his article called "Beekeeping in 

 Sunny Alberta," in which, as you 

 say, the winter problem caused by 

 the "Chinook" winds are very seri- 

 ous. 



As a matter of fact we hardly 

 ever get a "Chinook" as far east as 

 Manitoba. I have known them in 

 the Western part of Saskatchewan to 

 come along and thaw the snow in 

 winter, but we very seldom have a 

 thaw of any importance here in Mani- 

 toba. There is usually plenty of snow, 

 and the best wintering we have seen 

 here has been in specially constructed 

 outdoor bee cellars constructed along 

 the usual lines. I have been wintei'- 

 ing my bees in one of these and the 

 temperature has scarcely varied from 

 43 degrees all winter. 



Our problems have been along the 

 lines of those of Minnesota beekeep- 

 ers — the difficulty of getting bees to 

 full strength in time for the flow, the 

 occasional dry season that gives no 

 crop and that leaves the bees in poor 

 shape for winter, dysentery on ac- 

 count of poor food, and so on. 



Personally I am coming to favor 

 a hive consisting of 1 V2 stories, Lang- 

 stroth, with a telescopic cover 10 to 

 12 inches deep and lined with some 

 non-conducting material. This gives 

 us a capacity equal to all demands, 

 and which will contain any amount of 

 stores. It also allows the bees a 

 means to get across the hive in win- 

 ter (an important matter where they 

 are often in the cellar for six months) 

 and at the same time it employs 

 standard goods, and allows the bee- 

 keeper to change his combs around 

 into supers, or to extract them, etc., 

 as methods of swarm control are urg- 

 ently necessary here in some seasons, 

 and also because our honey will some- 

 times granulate solid in the comb. 



I am pleased to say that we have 

 as yet no disease problem. 



There are great possibilities for 

 honey production in the North here, 

 and any amount of market, as Mani- 

 toba still imports large quantities of 

 honey. 



Manitoba, Canada. 



RAPE 



In the December Journal yoi say 

 something of free seeds on page 411. 

 Now this Chinese rape must be the 

 same rape that they have in Europe. 

 I have seen large fields of it in the 

 Netherlands. Beekeepers there will 

 move their bees near fields of rape 

 and give sometimes a good rent for 

 a location. The seed is sowed prefer- 

 ably in August on sunmier fallow in 

 a very fine seedbed, in rows about 



