922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



TONGUES, LONG AND SHORT. 



We often see the question asked in the bee- 

 papers, " Why will one colony of bees gather 

 more honey than another one standing beside 

 it, and equal in strength?" I should like to 

 make a suggestion, that all who have two col- 

 onies in normal condition, and apparently 

 equal in every way, and the bees of one prove 

 to be extra good honey-gatherers, and the oth- 

 er poor ones, should measure the length of the 

 tongues of both colonies, and see if the good 

 colony has extra long, and the poor colony 

 very short tongues. In this way we might 

 prove beyond any doubt the practicability of 

 breeding for longer tongues and shorter 5i??«^5. 

 A. E. WlLLCUTT. 



Swift River, Mass., Nov. 8, 



[Yes, send samples of the bees of each col- 

 ony, marking the cage of one No. 1 and the 

 other No. 2, but don't tell us which are the 

 good workers. If, after the report is received 

 from us, it appears that the long-tongued bees 

 are the good workers, then we shall have good 

 proof of what we already believe ; viz. , that 

 long tongues and good working qualities go 

 together. We shall also know that bias could 

 not have influenced or affected the report. 



So far the man who does the measuring 

 knows nothing of the bee-keepers who send 

 the bees, and, what is more, he is told to 

 measure without fear or favor. — Ed.] 



weaken a small colony. In fact, I lost one 

 hive from them. Any one who has frogs in 

 his locality at any time had better look to his 

 bees ; and any one who has had any experience 

 with them, I should be glad to hear from. 

 Nathan, Fla., Oct. 22. N. O. Penny. 



FROGS IN FLORIDA. 



Mr. Editor ; — I am not much of a bee-man 

 and that sort of thing, but I have a few bees, 

 and hope I shall be able to keep them, and 

 perhaps, by persevering, get a few more. 

 Some time ago I began to hear of the frogs 

 eating bees near here, but gave the matter lit- 

 tle attention. We have had frogs here in 

 countless numbers for the last year, and thick- 

 er than that when they can get at bees. I at 

 first began to notice that the bees in some of 

 my hives that I was building up were not in- 

 creasing as they should, and couldn't see any 

 thing the matter with them. One night, go- 

 ing out among them with a lantern I readily 

 discovered where my bees were going. The 

 alighting-board had a row of frogs all the way 

 across the hive, and every bee that came near 

 the entrance committed suicide. When a frog 

 got all it wanted it jumped off, and another 

 one was soon in its place. This disturbance 

 made the bees come out to see what the mat- 

 ter was, only to feed frogs. All the hives 

 were not so bad as this, but they each had one 

 or more frogs at work all the time. Well, I 

 studied how to fix them, for quite awhile, and 

 finally decided the only way was to fence them 

 out. I made a fence four feet high out of an 

 old sail, which works finely for a temporary 

 fence. I think the frogs could jump over it if 

 they tried. They can jump a long way on the 

 ground. I think a fence made out of com- 

 mon lath, % inch apart, would be the best 

 thing. 



Now, we don't have frogs like this all the 

 time. They have been bad for a year, and we 

 have not had any before for 1.5 years ; but any 

 one can see that, in a ^little while, they will 



DO BEES, AFTER SMOKING, REDEPOSIT THE 



HONEY THEY HAVE TAKEN DURING THE 



SMOKING ? 



In answer to the question asked by A. B. 

 Fish, page 810, if 'he will take a hive of dry 

 combs and place it over a colony and quickly 

 smoke the bees so that a good portion of them 

 will enter the hive of empty combs he will 

 find, on examining them a few moments later, 

 that a good many cells already contain honey, 

 showing that they redeposit the honey taken 

 during their scare. Their first impulse when 

 smoked seems to be to load up a supply for a 

 new start somewhere else, and when the scare 

 is over it is redeposited in the cells. 



Udell, Iowa, Oct. 23. G. B. Replogle. 



[This is good proof ; but here is more in 

 the same line. — Ed.] 



On page 810 A. B. Fish asks if the honey 

 with which bees fill themselves when smoked 

 is lost or returned to the combs. I will relate 

 one observation I made last summer of a some- 

 what similar condition. I have a small colony 

 in an observatory hive, which swarmed out, 

 except the queen, which was kept in by an 

 entrance-guard, and they took every drop of 

 honey they had with them. Certainly none 

 was visible in the comb they had deserted. 

 In a few hours after they had returned and 

 become quiet there was more honey in the 

 comb than I thought possible for so few bees 

 to carry. F. G. ANDERSON. 



Wabash, Va., Oct. 22. 



GIANT MIGNONNETTE AS A HONEY-PLANT. 



I have had a little experience with giant 

 mignonnette on sandy land, and find it an ex- 

 traordinary honey-plant, as it is in flower this 

 date, and grows large, shading the ground 

 densely. I believe it will pay to sow this plant 

 for honey, unless the seed is too expensive. 

 It would undoubtedly be a good green fertil- 

 izer to plow under at the end of the season.- 

 Bees are working on the plant at this date. 

 Will you tell us something about it in Glean- 

 ings, and the cost of the seed by the bushel ? 

 S. J. Youngman. 



Lakeview, Mich., Oct. 2.5. 



[We have grown giant mignonnette ; but, 

 so far as I know, it has no value except for 

 the honey, and I can not think it will pay you 

 or anybody else to grow it for honey alone. 

 It will cost as much to plant an acre as it will 

 to plant corn or potatoes. Of course, the bees 

 will do the harvesting ; but I can hardly be- 

 lieve that the amount of honey will pay for 

 the labor. Some very extensive experiments 

 were made at the Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Lansing, some years ago, with many of 

 the most promising honey-plants, and I be- 

 lieve the decision was, every time, that it did 

 not pay to grow any thing for the honey alone. 



