1S02 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



IH7 



swarms wIumi tlu^y I'oino out. Ht> occasionallv 

 writt's to asl< mo wIkmi to put mi ttio sii[)i'is. and 

 invariably i-cci'ivcs the aiiswcr, " NVlit'ti tii(> bees 

 liav(> tilled the liivi' and want inoic foom." 



A stfoll abont ( ai'mcl sbowcd me a wondci'fiil 

 val'it'ty of thirUly sirown liont'y-plants. miles 

 and miles in extent — saae. majoiam, lavender; 

 we also found a " Wad-el-Nahel."" tlio Hco Val- 

 ley, where, in times past, bees aboiindtni in the 

 roi'ks. bni they are not now to lie fonnd. This 

 plaee. the whoh- Carmel raiifie. is more oi" less 

 covered with uncultivated honey-plants, and 

 would [five honey to thousands and thousands 

 of colonies of bees, now all ffoins to waste. A 

 few \illafjes only are now to lie found; and the 

 '• vineyard of (rod." as Carm-El means, is terri- 

 bly neglected. A dense thicket affords shelter 

 to birds of all classes, as well as to the wild 

 beasts. .*>oine panthers among them are still 

 reigning as feline kings. 



>Ir. Keller, the (German vice-consul for Hai- 

 fa, lias built some houses on the top of Mount 

 L'armel. and I succeeded in showing him the 

 many honoy-plants going to waste right before 

 his house, while, with a small sum invested in 

 bees, he could have ample returns. I offered to 

 teach his son. and have had him for the past 

 few months, instructing him in the '• mysteries 

 of bee-keeping." I managed to give him an 

 apiary, our Langstroth system, with American 

 utensils from the Home of the Honey-bees, and 

 hope he's going to thrive, though'he depends 

 very much on the I ees and his workmen to do 

 thework for him. I have sown the seed, and it 

 will in time spi'ing up. 



At the point of Carmel. on the seashore, is a 

 new cloister of veiled French nuns who came 

 here si.v months ago. The •'father confessor " 

 brought with him from France a bee-hive. The 

 father was no good bee-father, for, after hav- 

 ing brought them from France, by way of Jaf- 

 fa, being about thirty days shut in. he put them 

 temporarily in the garden of the Carmelite 

 monks, two miles away, without opening, for 

 fear of losing his bees if he should wish to move 

 them again, thus leaving them another ten days 

 cloistei'ed up. Happily this was in Deceiiiiier; 

 but still, when he finally placed them in the 

 cloister garden, and opened them, he found 

 two-thirds dead. The wax-moth had eaten a 

 good deal of the comb: but the queen was still 

 living. It is now a four-frame nucleus of brown 

 bees. 



An Italian bee-keeper, with <jO clay-cylinder 

 hives, lives in the town of Haifa, and has a fair 

 revenue, comparatively, on his " let-'em-alone '' 

 system. The hornets trouble Mr. Gabrielli's 

 bees most. He showed me the finest specimen 

 of wax I had seen, selling at about :.'0 cents a 

 pound. An Arab bee-keeper of the country one 

 day brought him an enormous cake of yellow 

 beeswax weighing about 6() lbs., which he pur- 

 cha.sed at 10 cents per lb., bringing it home. 

 The cake turned out to be a spring. How the 

 man managed to put about 3.t lbs. of water into 

 the cake is what made me wonder. " Si noii e 

 vero. e bene trovato!" The wax here in our lo- 

 cality has risen from about l.'do 30 cents pov lb., 

 accounted for by the numbers of pilgrims to .Je- 

 rusalem, wlio all buy genuine wax candles fi-om 

 the many merchants about the holy city. Hav- 

 ing had a good deal of foundation comb to make 

 this year, the pilgrims visiting Palestine were 

 not very interesting to me. 



Ph. J. Bai-densperger. 



Jafifa, Syria, July '.). 



[Many thanks, friend B.. for the beautiful 

 view and description of the real, genuine Mount 

 Carmel. But you don't tell us whether or not 

 they are able to find at this date the spot where 

 Elijah performed the wonderful miracle of call- 



ing fire down from heaven. Very likely, how- 

 ever, you can liiid tin- peak where his servant 

 ascended and lookeil off toward the sea ; and 

 then iierhajis one might guess at the path where 

 Fli.jali ran dow n the mountain before tln^ char- 

 iot of Aliab. And is it really true that our bee- 

 hives and uttuisils have made their way to old 

 Mount Carmel. so celebrated in Bible history? 

 May success attend our young friend who is 

 working for you. J A. I. R. 



THE 



DIFFERENCE IN BEE - KEEPING 

 TWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. 



I'ROPOLIS IN THE SOUTH, ETC. 



BE- 



I often hear the wish expressed by bee-keep- 

 ers, that we had some distinctively Southern 

 bee-literature — a book or a journal devoted 

 mainly to our warm climate. The bee is the 

 same "ill all lands; but the environment, the 

 temperature, the seasons, and the flora here, 

 demand an entirely different system of treat- 

 ment from that prevailing in the latitude of 

 (iLEANiXGS and the lesser lights of apiculture. 

 The great question of w'interiiig, with its train 

 of appurtenances and methqds, does not touch 

 us: It is more a (luestion of summering. The 

 times, too, are out of joint. While you, in Feb- 

 ruary and March, are resting from your labors, 

 and your bees are down cellar, or chaffed, 

 cushioned, sealed, ventilated, frozen, or starved, 

 as the case may be. we are hustling around 

 with swarming fever and surplus cases; and 

 when you and your bees are out of winter lim- 

 bo, and at work in leafy fiowery June, we are 

 at the beginning of a three months' term of en- 

 forced idleness. So the little we do get that is 

 practical comes six months after date, and is 

 useless, and beginners have to depend mainly 

 on that somewhat stern and expensive but 

 thorough teacher— experience. 



The great obstacle in the way of a successful 

 bee-journal adapted to Florida, Southern Cali- 

 fornia, and Southern Texas, is the limited area 

 over which it would be useful; and even Florida 

 and California methods and seasons differ wide- 

 ly. But a book or manual might pay; and I 

 hope we have somewhere on our peninsula a 

 dormant " Root" or "Cook" who will wake up 

 and do the deed. Perhaps it is early yet for 

 any one to write a thorough work on bee-keep- 

 ing in Florida. 



Is it not one of the strange things in our his- 

 tory, that this State, wherein was located the 

 first colony from the old world: and Southern 

 California, visited by Cortez, both garden-spots 

 in our vast territory, should be the last to have 

 their wonderful resources developed? Florida, 

 the oldest Stale in our history, is to-day the 

 newest, the youngest. Another want felt by 

 bee-keepers as well as other students of nature 

 is a botany. I have made careful inquiry for 

 one; but, so far as I have been able to learn, 

 there is no work in which the flora peculiar to 

 this State is included with any degree of thor- 

 oughness, though the most of the plants the 

 bees work on are classilied. 



In this part of Florida there is nothing for 

 the bees to work on during June. July, and 

 August; and if they had to gather their daily- 

 food they would stand about as good a chance 

 of surviving the stimmer as yours would the 

 winter months under like conditions. Mine 

 have gathered no hoiuiv for five cr six weeks; 

 yet each colony has two or more frames of 

 brood in all stage.s, and their stores are dimin- 

 ishing so rapidly that it will not be long until 

 they will have to be fed. They fly out every 

 morning after propolis and pollen. The first, 

 they stick over every thing; and some of the 



