374 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Juisfii 



Italian bees have been found working' upon the sec- 

 ond crop of red clover, black bees, when in the vi- 

 cinity, have also g-enerally been found working- upon 

 the same. I appeal to brother bee-keepers, to know 

 if this is not a fair statement of the case. If so, is 

 it " unjust" or " unkind " to say that it is deceptive 

 to induce people to buy Italian bees, with the expec- 

 tation of getting' surplus honey from red clover? 1 

 am not discussing the superiority of the Italian bees 

 over the black, or any other kind: I am willing to 

 grant their superiority to all other kinds, but I dis- 

 pute this one point claimed for them. 



Great interest has been manifested of late in hon- 

 ey-producing plants. We have honey from white 

 clover, from alsike clover, from willow, from bass- 

 wood, from black-locust, from buckwheat, golden- 

 rod, corn, etc., all of which I have seen and tasted. 

 Then there is the California sage, the Te.vas horse- 

 mint, and the Canada thistle, and other kinds that I 

 have not seen. The most of these kinds of honey 

 have been upon the market — offered for sale, prop- 

 erly designated after the source from which it was 

 gathered. Red clover is grown over a greater area 

 of country, and in greater quantities, than any one 

 of these honey-producing plants, and there is now 

 no lack of Italian bees to gather the honey from it. 

 But there is no red-clover honey offered for sale; or 

 if so, it is but a rare instance. I should like to know 

 of friend Muth what proportion of honey he han- 

 dles is from red clover. Acres of alsike clover are 

 now being sown where red clover and Italian bees 

 abound. One of our most intelligent keepers of 

 Italian bees has been patiently trying to produce a 

 red clover that his bees could get honey from, by se- 

 lecting seeds from a short head of clover, and care- 

 fully planting them, year after year, virtually ad- 

 mitting that his Italians did not usually get honey 

 from the common red clover of the country. 



Not long since, a queen-breeder called one of his 

 queens the " red-clover queen," claiming that her 

 progeny got honey from red clover when other Ital- 

 ians did not. Was not this an admission, also, that 

 it is unusual for Italians to get honey from red clo- 

 ver? 



With these statements I am now prepared to ans- 

 wer friend Root's question. Yes, sir, from consci- 

 entious convictions I believe such a statement de- 

 ceptive; and I saj' it without the least " unkind- 

 ness " to any one who may differ with me; and with 

 my convictions it would he " unjust " in me to induce 

 any one to get Italian bees with the expectation of 

 getting surplus honey from red clover. 



Thaddeus Smith. 



Pelee Island, Canada, May 10, 1884. 



Our bees work on red clover here in Ohio 

 every season, in June and July, I have seen 

 it throughout different i)arts of our State ; 

 and bee-keepers with whom 1 have conversed 

 often, give it as their opiiuon that move 

 honey is gathered from red clover tlian white. 

 Of course, there are times when the clover- 

 helds are almost unnoticed in the fall of the 

 year ; but of late years such times are not 

 very frequent. Perhaps the different ob- 

 servHtions you have made may be owing to 

 the different kinds of clover. With us the 

 bees are always at work on the pea-vine 

 clover. I don't think I ever saw an excep- 

 tion. Of course, you have noticed what has 

 been said about it. It is so common a thing 

 to see blacks and hybrids working on buck- 

 w^heat, and storing dark honey while Italians 



are working on red clover, and storing white 

 honey, that it has been frequently report- 

 ed, and it is mentioned in the A 13 C book. 

 Of course, I do not mean to say that in our 

 locality we get enough honey in the fall to 

 have it stored in sections every season, but 

 that the bees are seen busy on the clover, 

 and the honey is found in the brood-apart- 

 ment, affording honey to keep up brood- 

 rearing, and often for winter stores. The 

 queen which I called the red-clover queen 

 had her hive full of solid sealed stores of 

 white honey, while almost every other col- 

 ony in an apiary of toward 300 had to be fed. 

 I called her the red-clover queen because her 

 bees seemed to mass more, while the seed 

 crop of red clover was in bloom, than any of 

 the rest of them. 



Some years ago we used to have visitors 

 who would announce themselves something 

 like this : '' Mr. Root, will you please show 

 me Italians working on red clover V" If 

 they came at a season when clover-flelds 

 were in bloom, I have never failed of con- 

 vincing them. During the months of June 

 and July they almost invariably admitted 

 there were more bees to be seen on red clover 

 than on white. It is on this account that I 

 have recently had our honey - labels read 

 '' clover honey," instead of " honey from 

 white-clover blossoms,'' as we used to have 

 it. The term clover honey covers white clo- 

 ver, red clover, and alsike. Some bee-keep- 

 ers claim to be able to distinguish red-clover 

 honey from the white ; and I have some- 

 times thought I could distinguish a little 

 difference. The difference is so small, how- 

 ever, that I l)elieve it has been mutually 

 agreed it is not worth mentioning. At our 

 cbnvenlions. sample jars of red-clover honey 

 have been exhibited quite frequently. Oil 

 asking how they decided it was red clover, 

 the reply has been, "■ It was gathered when 

 no white clover was in bloom." 



POLLEN, AND ITS RELATION TO DYS- 

 ENTERY. 



ANOTHER PROOF THAT BEES DO NOT NEED POLLEN 

 IN WINTER. 



AST fall I pi-epared 2.5 stocks of bees for winter 

 in chaff' hives, and 30 more in single-wall two- 

 story hives— bees in lower story, and chaff 

 cushions in upper one. These4.5 stocks graded 

 all the waj' from very light to very good, both 

 in quantity of bees and stores. All had the same 

 combs left in that had been there during the season, 

 so without doubt all had more or less pollen. Then 

 I put up 7 small queen-rearing nuclei the same as I 

 did a year before (see Gleanings for June, 1883); 

 that is, in a long hive that would take an L. frame 

 crosswise, generally using three combs, then a thin 

 wooden division-board. One comb would be empty, 

 and two well filled with honey ; but I took special 

 pains to see that they contained no pollen. Over 

 this hive I put a rough box, giving about 4 inches 

 of space all around said space; filled with chaff, 

 with passage-ways for each lot of bees to fiy out, 

 then I put up 7 more about the same, only these 

 combs were about 11 inches square, and about en- 

 tirely empty. I do not think there was 3 lbs. of honey 

 for the whole 7 nuclei. 



