GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. L 



hence the yield of honey will be light. If bees 

 in Richland Co. get enough honey this year 

 from all sources, to winter on, the bee-keepers 

 will be thankful. 



ALSIKE CLOVER. 



There is a tine crop of white clover growing, 

 but it is mainly from the seed, and may not 

 bloom much; and, in case it does, it may not 

 secrete honey this season. The farmers here 

 are beginning to grow alsike quite extensively. 

 Those who have grown it speak well of it. 

 They think it makes the best of hay. both for 

 cows and sheep, and that it is very profitable 

 when grown for its seed. One farmer in this 

 county has sold §=300 worth of seed from 3 acres 

 of alsike clover in 3 years. Besides the seed, 

 his stock — cows and sheep — have eaten every 

 bit of the thrashed straw. He values the 

 thrashed alsike as highly, at least, as the un- 

 thrashed red clover. M. M. Bai-deidge. 



Richland Center, Wis., July 21. 



HOW FAB APART MUST TWO RACES OF BEES 

 BE KEPT TO BE PURE ? SOME INTER- 

 ESTING FACTS. 



I see some write as though they thought two 

 different races of bees could be kept within one 

 mile of each other and yet be no mixing from 

 one to the other. If such writers are practicing 

 what they teach they do not know what mixed 

 bees are. 



When the apiary of which I am part owner 

 was fii'St Italianized the Italian bees were un- 

 known about here. At that time there were 

 within five miles of our apiary about as many 

 hives of black or Germau bees as we had Ital- 

 ians; and by the second season about half of 

 the hives of black bees within that distance 

 showed trace of the Italian blood. A few colo- 

 nies mixed seven miles off. The bees in some 

 of these hives would be pretty fair hybiids. 

 while in others about a fourth of the bees would 

 show one and two bands, the others none at all. 

 Up to this time no swarms had left our yard; 

 and. according to the theoiy of nearly all the 

 best authorities on bees (in which they surely 

 aie wrong), there could not have been any hy- 

 brid drones in the hives of black bees by the 

 second season. 



Mr. Editor, you say, in your ABC, that you 

 have never noticed any particular difference in 

 the progeny of an Italian queen mated to a 

 black drone and that of a black queen mated to 

 an Italian drone. Tlwre's something wi'ong. 

 We have reared all of our queens from imported 

 mothers from the beginning, and I have yet to 

 see my first black bee from a daughter of an 

 imported queen, no matter what kind of drone 

 she mated with. Was it not drones from queens 

 that were producing hybrid bees (for of such 

 about half of our queens were at that time) 

 that gave the black bees the small taint of Ital- 

 ian blood '? George W. Cleveland. 



Decatur, Miss., July 28. 



[Friend C, you have struck a very important 

 point. Since you mention it. I do remember 

 that, when we first introduced Italians, every 

 queen we reared produced yellow bees, almost 

 without regard to what kind of a drone she met 

 in her flight ; and friend Doolittle has said the 

 same thing. Perhaps the third band was not 

 always very distinct, but the workers all seem- 

 ed to be Italians, before tln.'re was any chance 

 for hybrid queens in our apiary or neighbor- 

 hood. Very soon I noticed that same thing you 

 mention, among the bees in our neighbors" api- 

 aries, say all the way from one to five miles 

 away from our Italians. There were more or 

 less yellow bees among all the blacks. Some of 

 them were very finely marked. The greater 



part of them had only two bands, and some 

 even only one. I rather think my statement in 

 the A B C book was intended to apply to the 

 honey-gathering qualities of the bees rather 

 than to the color.] A. I. R. 



" ALL CENTERS ON A GOOD QUEEN.' 



Bees have done pretty well with me this sea- 

 son. A year ago this spring I had 1(3 colonies, 

 and 6 were queenless. I was discouraged. But 

 I went to work and built them up to .56 colonies, 

 raising my own queens and furnishing them 

 full sheets of foundation. I fed three barrels 

 of sugar in doing it. and wintered every colo- 

 ny. They came through in fine shape. I fed a 

 barrel of sugar this spring; and when every- 

 body was complaning of the bad weather, and 

 bees running down, mine were increasing in 

 numbers. They have swarmed and swarmed — 

 had a mania for it; but I tried to keep them 

 back. One reason why they have done so well, 

 and I want to emphasize it, is because all the 

 queens were raised from fl colony that came 

 through good and strong a year ago last spring, 

 and queens were fertilized by drones from a col- 

 ony that gave me the most honey iwo years 

 ago. The queens were all in vigorous condition, 

 being only one year old. You know Doolittle 

 says. ■' All centers on a good queen." and I be- 

 lieve it. All my colonies worked about alike in 

 the sections. I could see no difference. I had 

 nuclei, made the 10th of June, give me on an 

 average 30 lbs. of comb honey. I believe that, 

 if bee-keepers would give more attention to the 

 blood of their queens, they would get better 

 results. I shall get about 3000 lbs. from .55 col- 

 onies. 



I have just tried a Porter bee-escape. They 

 make it only fun to take off honey. 



Syracuse, N. Y., Aug. 2. F. A. Salisbury. 



WATER-WILLOW AS A HONEY-PLANT. 



I saw E. R. Root at the bee-keepers' conven- 

 tion at Toledo, O., in 1891. I was telling him 

 about a honey-plant that grew in the Raisin 

 River, and he wished me to send a sample to 

 you and have you tell what it was. I got .some 

 to send last year ; but it got destroyed, so I 

 have cut some more to-day. The blossoms fall 

 off so easily that I don't know whether you can 

 tell much about it. I send some of the seed- 

 pods also, and a root from another stalk that I 

 had trimmed before I noticed it. I first noticed 

 it by the great buzzing of the bees as I was go- 

 ing up the river in the summer of 1890. I did 

 not see many on it last summer, and have not 

 seen any on it this summer. It seems to me it 

 was in blossom in June last year. It grows 

 where bars form in the river, in quite large 

 patches. It came from up stream. It had not 

 got down as far as Monroe last year. I live six 

 and a half miles west of Monroe. 



Jonathan Atkinson. 



Raisinville, Mich., July 29. 



[Prof. Cook says of this:] 



The name of the above is D'umthera Ainerl- 

 ama — water-willow. I know of no other bee 

 or honey plant in this family, which is the 

 Acanthus family. A. J. Cook. 



Ag'l College, Mich. 



WORMWOOD smoke FOR ROBBERS. 



As there is now getting to be a dearth in the 

 honey- flow, so robbers are coming around, there 

 is a chance to play Chinaman on them. To do 

 that, just put a little dry wormwood into the 

 smoker; and when the wormwood smoke gets 

 well to going, go to work, and if you are trou- 

 bled with inquisitive bees you will see what I 

 have not known to happen in the 19 years that 



