308 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aprii, 15, 



some of us are getting three hundred, and a 

 few have averaged nearly four hundred pounds. 

 I tell you, ours is a great dairying State. We 

 have the purest water in the world, and our 

 high mountain pastures furnish the sweetest 

 feed this side of the Alps ; and with modern 

 conveniences we can beat the world making 

 butter, and " — 



But just here he was taken with a fit of 

 coughing, and I turned my attention to Will 

 Simpson, who had been sitting on a pile of 

 bran-sacks in mute astonishment. 



"You see," said I, "improvement is the 

 watchword with every profession nowadays ; 

 and if the bee-keepers don't improve their 

 stock they will get left." 



" Geewhittaker ! I should say ! " exclaimed 

 Simpson. " But what is the use of wasting 

 your time in trying to improve your bees when 

 you can just as well keep bees enough to get 

 all the honey there is, and they will board 

 themselves and work for nothing, as I have 

 heard folks say? " 



" Just this," said I. "The flowers within 

 range of my home yard give on an average 

 yearly, say, 10,000 lbs. of honey. Now, if I 

 keep the average run of bees it will take about 

 100 colonies to gather it, or 100 pounds of hon- 

 ey for each colony. Of this it will take about 

 70 pounds to keep each colony a year, leaving 

 me only 30 pounds of surplus to the colony, 

 or 3000 pounds from the whole yard. But if 

 I keep stronger and more industrious bees, so 

 that each colony would gather 140 pounds 

 while the other was gathering 100 pounds, it 

 would require but 71 colonies to gather the 

 whole 10,000 lbs.; and as it would not require 

 any more to keep each colony than it does the 

 poorer stock, I should get 5000 lbs. of surplus 

 instead of 3000 lbs. when I had to keep 100 

 colonies, to say nothing of the smaller num- 

 ber of colonies to care for, or hives to keep in 

 repair. And what is true of my 1 ome yard is 

 true to a greater or less extent of any other 

 yards. See ? ' ' 



"Great granthers and his great horned 

 spoon ! What ingenious fellows you bee folks 

 are ! I wouldn't o' thought on it," said Simp- 

 son. 



" Oh ! " said I ; " this isn't all, by a long 

 way. Our supply of flowers is getting shorter 

 as our forests are cut down ; and unless we 

 are able to gather the annual crop of honey 

 more economically it will hardly pay to carry 

 on the business in many sections ; besides, we 

 have got to improve our bees so they will gath- 

 er the honey from red clover." 



" Lawful sakes alive ! you will make me go 

 crazy talking about all them queer things. I 

 didn't know there was so much to learn about 

 bees." 



A. S. H., Ark. — There is no trouble about 

 keeping bees and chickens together ; in fact, 

 it is a common practice. Very small chick- 

 ens, if the hencoop is placed near a hive of 

 bees, may sometimes be attacked ; but there is 

 no use of putting such little chicks so near the 

 hives. Large chickens the bees do not attack 

 — at least it is very seldom that they do. 



W^^ 



EARI^Y POI,I,EN AND HONEY. 



" Good morning, Mr. Doolittle. It was such 

 a nice morning, this last day of March, I 

 thought I would call over and have a little 

 chat about early bee-forage with you, for our 

 pets will soon be out at work." 



" Indeed, Bro. Jones, this is a nice morning, 

 and I hope it may soon warm up enough for 

 bees to have a good flight, at least, for, with 

 the exception of the flight they had about the 

 10th of February, my bees, which are out- 

 doors, have not had a chance to fly since No- 

 vember 10, 1899. I have often wondered how 

 it is that our bees can stand four to five months 

 of cold weather with only one flight, and 

 sometimes none at all, much of which is from 

 zero to twenty degrees below, while, if they 

 have a few days of zero weather further south, 

 we hear of a great loss of bees. But what 

 was it you had on your mind regarding early 

 forage for the bees? " 



" Picking up a paper lately I saw an article 

 regarding early pollen and honey, the writer 

 claiming that such was that which laid the 

 foundation for the bee-keeper's success during 

 the season. This set me to wishing for knowl- 

 edge regarding the plants and trees which 

 gave this early pollen and honey. So I came 

 over to see you. Can you tell the source from 

 which bees gather pollen first? " 



" The first plant producing pollen in this lo- 

 cality is what is known as skunk cabbage. 

 The buds are all formed the season previous 

 in a purple-colored sheath, about the size of 

 a hen's egg ; and upon the approach of spring 

 this pushes through the ground, and a small 

 opening is made by the sheath parting on one 

 side so that the bee can crawl in." 



" What ! You don't mean those red- pointed 

 things that we see standing up two or three 

 inches high, sometimes four or five near each 

 other, down in Smith's lot? " 



"Yes, that is just what I mean. Those are 

 the shells, as it were, and inside is a tiny ball 

 about the size of a small marble, with little 

 spikes covered with pollen standing out from 

 it in all directions." 



" But how do the bees gather the pollen ? I 

 thought they took wing in packing pollen in 

 their pollen-baskets." 



" The bees roll around in this shell and run 

 over the ball, collecting the pollen in their 

 baskets without taking wing, in much the 

 same way they manipulate propolis from an 

 old bee-hive which stands in the sun, till they 

 secure a load, when out they crawl, often hay- 

 ing more pollen on their backs than in their 

 pollen-baskets, and away they go for home." 



"That explains why my bees are covered all 

 over with yellow dust in early spring, with 

 very little pollen in their pollen-baskets, when 

 they enter the hives. I had thought that they 

 were so covered because they were ' novices ' 

 at the business on the start, while later on. 



