1888 



GLEANINGS IK BEE CULTURE. 



673 



be of value to many of your readers who make 

 their own foundation. 



AMERICAN BASSWOOD HONEY. 



T have to thank you for the samples of basswood 

 honey. It is (luite different from any thing- we 

 have in this country. My crop is entirely from 

 clover and thistles. 



FODI^ BROOD. 



Foul brood has made sad havoc among- our bees. 

 I lost 50 per cent last winter, and had only 70 weak 

 hives to begin the season with. Fortunately it was 

 a very good one, and I had a yield of 9000 lbs., be- 

 sides doubling- my stock of bees. During summer, 

 foul brood does not make headway, but spreads 

 rapidly in late autumn and winter. I expect to 

 lose a great number again before spring. 



George Stevenson. 



Gisborne, New Zealand, June 1.5, 1888. 



Many thanks for your kind report, friend 

 S. It is the more interesting, as it comes 

 from your far-away land. When the mat- 

 ter was first suggested to me, of making 

 foundation ri^ht in the wired frames, on 

 the wires, I fell in love with it ; and it has 

 always seemed to me that the nicest way in 

 the world to do would be to have the thin 

 sheet of wax on each side of the wires. 

 Your idea of using a couple of strips on one 

 side, instead of two full sheets, is very in- 

 genious, and I should think it might be 

 very valuable with the Given press. Your 

 inquiry in regard to 14 sheets to the pound 

 strikes directly on the one objection to the 

 Given press. With a foundation-mill, the 

 rollers will press the surplus wax out of the 

 way so as to make the sheet of foundation 

 nearly twice as long as the sheet of wax be- 

 fore it was rolled ; while with the Given 

 press you can not have less wax in your 

 frames' than what you had when it was dip- 

 ped. I should think very thin wax might be 

 dipped, but it would doubtless be trouble- 

 some and expensive, especially if you want- 

 ed as many as 14 square feet of surface for a 

 pound of wax. 



DOES ODOR OK COLOR ATTRACT BEES? 



DO BEES PREFER CERTAIN KINDS OF HONEY? 



"T^DITOR Gleanings:— I wish to comment upon 

 '^g) the answers to the query in July 11th Canadi- 

 ipV an Bee Journal: "Do bees show a preference 

 ■^™ for certain kinds of honey? If so, why?" 

 Let me say, that I prize these queries and an- 

 swers. If they seem " hashy," it is a very palatable 

 kind of hash. You will notice that I give the an- 

 swer, that odor and color of the flowers explains the 

 preference. Without doubt I am correct. It is 

 probable that odor is the chief attraction. Several 

 say that it is quantity, and instance the linden. 

 Few flowers secrete so abundantly as our grand 

 lindens, hence the volatile element which gives the 

 fragrance is very abundant, and we readily see why 

 the bees are so eager to get to the bloom when it 

 secretes. Mr. Doolittle's answer is interesting and 

 suggestive. He says the teasel attracts the bees 

 awaj- from the linden, and adds that this is unfor- 

 tunate, as the teasel furnishes thinner, and so less 

 desirable nectar. This, again, explains why the 

 linden has less odor. The thicker nectar would vol- 

 atilize less rapidly, hence the bees would be drawn 



to the thinner and more fragrant teasel nectar. 

 Has any one ever known the linden to be very fra- 

 grant and yet not be visited by bees, unless, for- 

 sooth, a more fragrant plant took the precedence? 

 Our lindens are just out; but as yet they are void 

 of fragrance, and unvisited by the bees. 

 Ag'l College, Mich., July 15. A. J. Cook. 



THE SOURCES OF PALL HONEY. 



THE DEARTH OF HONEY IN ILLINOIS. 



T|p UGUST 1.5th I had a visit from a bee-keeper 

 gflk who lives about twenty miles north of here, 

 jPP^ in the Illinois River bottom. I was very 

 "^^ much interested in him and his visit, for 

 this reason: His apiary has secured all the 

 surplus honey that I've heard of in the State. He 

 said that he had about 1500 lbs. of white honey in 

 sections, from ,50 colonies, spring count. I've no 

 doubt that this apiary is well managed; but good 

 management will not fill sections when there is no 

 honey to be had. He said that there was no honey 

 in his hives when the basswood bloomed, and this 

 yielded well for several days, when the bees work- 

 ed on a white flower, growing very plentifully in 

 the woods and waste places near his apiary. I had 

 considerable curiosity about this flower, and 

 brought out Prof. Cook's book. Together we look- 

 ed at the illustrations; and when we came to flg- 

 wort he exclaimed, " That's it! that's it!" (only our 

 old friend the Simpson honey-plant). 



About the middle of July the buckbush bloomed, 

 which we found illustrated by Prof. Cook as button- 

 bush. This grows in water and in marshes, and 

 blooms for one month, and from these three 

 sources his honey came principally. 



This man devotes his whole time to his bees- 

 lives with them, and in the woods; and, though not 

 a scientiflc botanist, he is a very close observer of 

 nature, and I predict that he will be for Illinois 

 what your neighbor Shane is to Ohio— get a crop of 

 honey " whether the season is good or poor." 



AQUATIC PLANTS. 



We talk a great deal about improving waste 

 places. Why not include marshes? And if this 

 button-bush yields honey from the middle of July 

 until the middle of August, it is certainly invalua- 

 ble, and should be introduced wherever it is possi- 

 ble. Will some of your readers tell us more about It, 

 and whether it has off years, like basswood? 



In Gleanings for Aug. 15th, page 617, in foot- 

 notes to an Illinois correspondent, you say, "The 

 season is now entirely over for honey." My visitor 

 of Aug. 15th said there was a great crop of golden- 

 rod, boneset, and wild touch-me-not, which was 

 just opening, and Spanish needle, which blooms in 

 September. And there will be acres upon acres of 

 asters. The largest crop of honey ever gathered 

 here was during the fall. The grasshopper year, 

 the bees filled their hives almost solid with honey 

 the last ten days preceding frost. On the same 

 page you also say, " Swarming hardly ever occurs 

 to any extent unless honey is coming In from some 

 source pretty freely." August 17th I put back two 

 large swarms which had neither queen-cells nor 

 unsealed honey. There was a little sealed honey 

 over the brood, but the outside frames were empty. 

 We use an 8-f rame L. hive, and nearly all the sea- 

 son every frame is filled with brood; and although 

 plenty of storage room is griven, swarming is going 



