20 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



honey-gatherers, quite cross, hut can be managed 

 with plenty of smnke. Herzegoviniau and Dalma- 

 tian boos 1 know by reputation, and am thus safe in 

 calling them superior to cnmraon bees and to Ital- 

 ians. Of Roumelian bees, I know nothing; but as I 

 have an opportunity to get some of them next 

 spring, and having reason to hope they may have 

 good qualities, I shall try them. I shall get only a 

 limited number of the four races last-mentioned, 

 but can supply any number of Palestines. I get Car- 

 niolans from Carniolan Austria, and Italians from 

 Northern Italy, being personally acquainted with 

 many of the prominent bee-keepers of each of these 

 two regions. To secure Cyprians and Syrians of 

 the very flnest grades, and in large quantities, it is 

 my intension to make a journey to Cyprus and 

 Syria this winter. Leaving here in January, via 

 Italy and Egypt,! expect to reach Cyprus by the 

 latter part of the same month; and go thence to 

 Syria. As drones fly in those lands in March and 

 April, I expect to raise a hundred or more queens 

 myself. Then I will also bring 75 or 100 full colo- 

 nies with me when I return, which will be in April, 

 by way of Greece and the Adriatic. 



You are now entitled to a seven-dollar Carniolan 

 or Italian. Should you wish any other sort of a 

 queen you can exchange by adding the difference, 

 if any. On an order for six queens I makeS.J dis- 

 count; for 10 queens, 10 rj discount; 20 queens, 13 r'. 

 discount; 40 queens, 15^. discount. Orders made 

 now, and accompanied by the cash, by postal order, 

 or by draft on Merck, Finck & Co., Munich, obtain a 

 still further reduction of lo:. Thus; an order for 

 ten fine Carnlolans in May, prepaid now, will bring 

 the cost of each one of the ten queens from SC.OO 

 each, down to $4.80 each, the price for ten queens of 

 this gradebeing $54.00 in April or Maj-, 1884, or lOr. 

 less now; that is, $48.60. 



When your bees came, Mrs. Benton remarked: 

 " Well, there's a dentist with some ingenuity. If I 

 were anywhere near him, I'd give him a job fixing 

 my teeth." You see, the fact is, dentists this side 

 the water are rather clumsy fellows, especially 

 those in the far East, and we've both been obliged to 

 let them "tinker" our teeth some; and in this, as 

 well as in most other things, we have found it best 

 to believe thoroughly in Americans, and in every 

 thing American. Frank Benton. 



Munich, Bavaria, Oct. 39, 1883. 



ItlARKETING EXTRACTED HONEY. 



SHAVE had a little experience in selling, or, 

 rather, trying to sell extracted honey this fall. 

 In September I went to the city of Columbus, 

 with a bottle of honey as sample, in my pocket, and 

 thought I would sell some; but on asking the gro- 

 cers if they handled it, a short "No, don't want to 

 sell any more at all," would be the answer. "We 

 have had some of it; but there has been or is so 

 much stuff sold as honey, that people won't buy it 

 at all." One man said that if the bees could not 

 take time to put it in combs he didn't want it. At a 

 few stores I found some put up in 1 and IV2 lb. bot- 

 tles, but they said it was slow sale, and several 

 times I was told, and with all candor, too, the old 

 tale of the markets being hurt by the "artificial 

 comb being filled with syrup, and sealed over with 

 a hot Iron, and selling it for hrney." About the 

 same time I sold a 10-gallon keg of pure clover 



honey to a prominent grocer in Uhrichsviile, and 

 left a tin can for them to retail it out with. To-day 

 I called to get the can, and was told that they could 

 not sell the honey: that if they had not, they would 

 not pay for it; that their customers said they did 

 not like the taste of it, and after a little while it all 

 turned to " sugar." Now, I told the dealer, when I 

 sold him the honey, that he might tell each custo- 

 mer who bought it, that I would give $25.00 to any 

 one who would find any adulteration in it, and he 

 did so, but it was no use. Now, how are we to edu- 

 cate such people, who can not tell sugar syrup from 

 honey? You might put both before them, and I 

 will guarantee they could not tell which was the 

 honey. I have tried to work up a mnrket right at 

 home, by selling the extracted at a low price, 10 lbs. 

 for a dollar, and the first cry was, "Adulteration I" 

 for I could not sell pure honey at so low a price. 

 Lord, help the ignorant people. 



A. A. Fr.\denburg. 

 Port Washington, Ohio, Dec, 1883. 



ANOTHER CI.OVER. 



PEA-VINE, OR MAMMOTH RED CLOVER, AS A HONKY- 

 PLANT. 



fjjHIS is a variety of clover that bee-keepers have 

 generally overlooked in their search for a 

 — ' honey-plant to fill up the vacancy after bass- 

 wood has gone, and before fall llowers commence. 

 As I have had several good crops of honey from pea- 

 vine clover, I will give my experience with it. 



It grows and looks just like the common, or June 

 red clover, only much larger and hardier, and it 

 produces only one crop of blossoms in one season, 

 and commences to bloom about the 15th of July, and 

 continues four or five weeks right through the hot- 

 test, dryest part of the year, when the bees have 

 very little to work on, and it hardly ever fails to 

 produce a fair crop of honey. 



The cultivation is the same as common red clover, 

 only the seed must be saved from the first crop; if 

 it is intended for seed, it is better not to mix any 

 other grass with it, as it will cover all the ground. 

 The poorest ground you have is the place to sow it, 

 as it will thrive on the poorest, dryest soil, and mel- 

 low it, and fit it for another crop. When it is cut for 

 seed about the 15th to the 20th of August, it leaves 

 the land in an excellent condition for fall wheat, or 

 a crop of potatoes the next season. I never had 

 cut-worms, wire-worms, or white grubs injure acorn 

 crop after clover. It is customary down east, where 

 they wish to save the seed, to pasture it till about 

 the first of June; but I have had better luck by cut- 

 ting it off with the mowing-machine in the latter 

 part of May, if it grew very rank. If the season is 

 backward, I do not cut it off at all. It must not be 

 cut or pastured after the stalk commences to joint 

 or the blossoms form, or the seed will blast. In buy- 

 ing seed, be sure to buy of some one you can rely 

 upon, as no one can tell by the looks the difference 

 between pea-vine and common red clover. 



I had 10 acres of pea-vine clover within 20 rods of 

 125 swarms of bees; they seemed to have about all 

 they wanted to do; worked on it all day long for five 

 weeks; bred up strong for winter, and filled their 

 hives up full of the very choicest, whitest honey, 

 and I got 40 bushels of nice seed. 



Medina, O., Dec. 26, '83. H. B. Harrington. 



I have for along time felt pretty sure that, 



