1)54 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. If 



butt end. Wliile it lasts it is perfection, taking 

 a whole side of a frame at one sweep. To be 

 good, a brush must be big. 



I HAVE KKCKiVED a Sample of the Punie bees. 

 They don't look as 1 expected. TJlack! I should 

 say they wei'e black. 1 never saw black bees 

 before. The common bee is brown beside them. 

 Of couise, one can judge nothing of their value 

 by their looks. Such great things are claimed 

 for them that tlie story looks a good bit tishy. 

 But we must not judge hastily. So far. I only 

 know that they are distinct in looks. 



HONEY-PLANTS. 



FlilEND IIEDDON GIVES US SOME SUGGESTIONS. 



By the above heading I have reference to 

 such honey-plants as we bee-keepers have from 

 time to time planted witli our own hands. I need 

 not tell you, Mr. Editor, that I am somewhat 

 outspoken, and quite apt to express bluntly any 

 honest opinion which is pressing hard; but one 

 of the times when I was astonished, but did not 

 say much — not a half nor a fourth what I felt 

 like saying — was when the commission of bee- 

 keepers trapsed off down to Bro. Chapman's, in 

 New York, to investigate a honey-plant which 

 had no reasonable backing; but, on the other 

 hand, all that had been written and said about 

 it indicated that it could never be a success, if 

 for no other reason, for the fact that it couldn't 

 stand alone after being started, but must be 

 watched and tinkered all the time to keep it 

 even with grass and weeds. For the average 

 bee-keeper I have no faith in the use of good 

 land specially for raising honey-plants; but for 

 the case of gathering seeds and scattering them 

 in waste places, I have great faith. If the 

 Chapman honey- plant is in no way noxious, 

 yet, when once started, will assert supremacy 

 over grasses and weeds, at the same time read- 

 ily yielding to the plow, and is a good honey- 

 yielder, bearing at a time when the general 

 yield is not on, then it would be worthy of the 

 inspection of a commission; but there were to 

 me no such evidences. Well, I see that you are 

 now satisfied that the Chapman honey-plant 

 was never in the race. 



I have tried many kinds of honey-plants, 

 among them the Simpson and spider: but from 

 two only have I received any profit; and those 

 are sweet clover and pleurisy. Both ai-e tena- 

 cious, good yielders, both yielding at a time 

 when we used to suffer a complete dearth; both 

 increasing about my apiaries so rapidly that, at 

 this moment, the colonies in each apiary are 

 gradually storing surplus, instead of robbing 

 and stinging. The result is profit and pleasure 

 combined. The sweet clover spreads and in- 

 creases faster than the pleurisy; but the latter 

 is tlie best honey-yielder— yes, the most copious 

 yielder of nectar of any blossom we have, bass- 

 wood not excepted. It is now yielding abun- 

 dantly; and I only wish that commission were 

 here to see the bees go for the nectar plainly to 

 be seen in every petal. So far as I can discover, 

 this plant has not a fault; and one point great- 

 ly in its favor is. that it is a perennial. 



No doubt yourself and many of your readers 

 remember about the splendid reports from the 

 epilobium, or great willow-herb (some called it 

 purple fireweed), which came in from northern 

 latitudes a few years ago. One brother near 

 Duluth, Minn., reported an enormous yield 

 from this plant alone— something like an aver- 

 age of 100 pounds of comb honey per colony. I 

 have made three trips to the nortliern part of 

 this State, and each time watched this splendid 

 honey-plant carefully. As stated in Gray's 



Botany, I saw no specimens south of 43 to 44" 

 north latitude. Now, what do you think? — a 

 clap of thunder from a clear sky. Some two 

 weeks ago. while riding witli a party of 

 friends to a summer resort ten miles noi'th of 

 this place, I saw, by the roadside, as many as a 

 dozen plants of the genuine epilobium. and no 

 mistake. 1 stopped the procession and went to 

 the spot and picked some heads to make sure, 

 and brought some home just in time to show 

 them to •• Rambler." whom I found in my office 

 at the time. A few days later I found another 

 and larger patch, six miles east of the former 

 one, and so I now believe we are to enjoy tlie 

 blessings from this plant, here in latitude 43°. 

 ^V(^ must not forget that our bees ai'e the main 

 factor in the sure increase of any new honey- 

 plant. It may be that these plants are a little 

 titter to survive this climate than their cousins 

 of the North. I shall gather a lot of the seeds 

 of these more southerly specimens of tlie epilo- 

 bium, and plant a lot in my garden. I shall 

 have to drive 21 miles several times to get the 

 seeds from both patches; for, while the lowest 

 pods are seeding, the middle is in blossom and 

 the top in bud yet. If I succeed in "running 

 in " this plant as I have the pleurisy and sweet 

 clover, I shall have a continuous surplus honey- 

 flow, all of nearly one magnitude, from the 

 opening of white clover to the closing of golden- 

 rod, the weather being equally favorable, and 

 that, too, without the use of a foot of land fit 

 for any other purpose, and without making any 

 noise about it to incite my neighbors to the un- 

 profitable attempt of raising honey in an al- 

 ready occupied field. James Heddon. 

 Dowagiac, Mich., Aug. 1. 



[Friend H., the only objection to what you 

 propose, that I know of, is the complaint that 

 has often been made, that we bee-keepers are 

 scattering weeds along the fences and road- 

 sides, that may incnsase so as to be a pest to 

 the farmers. In our locality there is not very 

 much waste ground. It is getting to be fenced 

 and occupied for something, if not more than 

 pasture; and our plowed and cultivated fields 

 are quite generally dispensing with fences, so 

 the crops come clear up to the road. The pur- 

 ple fireweed will grow here with very little en- 

 couragement; but I hardly think it wtmld make 

 its way by itself.] 



THE KEENEY METHOD OF -WIRING FRAMES. 



THE BULGING OF THE FOUNDATION, ETC. 



When this method of wiring frames was first 

 made public we were just wiring a lot of frames 

 for use the coming season, and I made haste to 

 try the new plan. It looked well, worked beau- 

 tifully, and 1 was delighted to think that the 

 wires on the outside of top and bottom bars 

 could at last be avoided. But by the time a 

 few sets of frames had been made up I began to 

 be doubtful; and the more I thought of it, the 

 less I liked the plan, so I told my helpers we 

 would wire frames the old way until we saw 

 how the new plan worked in practice. 



When I saw the first frame of comb built on 

 those wires I said, "Just as I thought. Another 

 of those things that look well but won't work 

 when you come to try them." The foundation 

 liad bulged out at every one of the large op(m- 

 ings, making a most unsatisfactory comb. The 

 top had not lopped down, because we had fas- 

 tened it with melted wax and rosin; but the 

 combs were so uneven that I did not want them 

 in the brood-chambers of my hives. I was per- 

 plexed and astonished, though, when it seemed 

 that others were making a success of it. You 



