112 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



sides at least 6 inches dow n below the cov- 

 er. A second grafting the next morning 

 being similarly removed, I dumped the 

 bees, that evening, before their hive, dis- 

 gusted with attempting Alexander's in- 

 structions for raising early queens. Imagine 

 my surprise, then, at finding 11 nice queen- 

 cells started on the lower edge of that old 

 dry comb close to the wire-cloth-covered 

 opening — exactly the number of larvae that 

 I had transferred at the first grafting. All 

 these were too well advanced to include any 

 of the second grafting of that same morning. 



Now, I wonder if the bees moved those 

 larvae for the purpose of giving them fresh- 

 er air. It certainly loots like it, for the top 

 and sides covering the other boxes must 

 have excluded any chance ventilation from 

 cracks; anyway, the bees moved them. 



Kihikihi, Waikato, N. Z. 



daj s once they have been interfered with. I 

 shall have to Italianize the whole lot this 

 summer. 

 Broussard, La. 



BEE-KEEPING IN THE SUGAR-CANE RE- 

 GIONS OF LOUISIANA, 



BY ARTHUE DROSSAERTS. 



I have been an amateur bee-keeper for 

 three years here in Southwest Lruisiana. 

 South Louisiana, with its mild winters and 

 wooded hills, and abundance of white clo- 

 ver, should be a paradise for the bee-keeper. 

 Yet we have many drawbacks. First, the 

 white-clover season (end of February, 

 March, April, and beginning of May) is 

 generally a season of drouth, dust, and 

 daily high winds. Second, in the summer 

 months we used to rely upon the cotton 

 flowers; but the boll-weeivl has played hav- 

 oc with the cotton, and a cotton-field is get- 

 ting to be rarer and rarer. Third, I am liv- 

 ing in a sugar-cane county, with intense 

 cultivation. Nothing is finer than our su- 

 gar-cane fields; but the miles and miles of 

 waving and gracious foliage mean absolute- 

 ly nothing to the foraging bees. 



My best hive gave me three supers of fine 

 white honey; but I must say that most 

 probably a professional would go me a few 

 supers better. I am satisfied with one or 

 two supers per hive. 



Fourth, in summer (June and July) we 

 have showers daily, almost incessantly, and 

 you know what this means to the bee. 



I have a friend here who has gone into 

 the bee business for dollars and cents. He 

 has home-made hives (far from up to date) . 

 He goes around selling chunks of honey, 

 and he does very well. But this sugar-cane 

 country will never be a real honey-eating 

 country. The fine cane syrup, home-made, 

 is a real rival of honey. 



I am not in the bee business at all for 

 profit — only for pleasure; and I give away 

 or consume at home whatever the bees pro- 

 duce. By the way, our Louisiana hybrids 

 are about the meanest fellows one wishes to 

 meet. Nothing can subdue them. Smoke 

 seems to have no effect on them, and no one 

 can venture safely around the stand for two 



THE CLIMATE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND 

 UNITED STATES COMPARED, 



BY FREDERICK MARTIN. 



Under the above heading in the January 

 number of Gleanings Mr. D, M. MacDon- 

 ald would lead Americans to infer that the 

 British method of wintering is superior to 

 the American. The superstructure of his 

 argument may be right enough, but it ap- 

 pears to me to be built upon a false founda- 

 tion; and before any one on this side the 

 Atlantic tries to put the plan into practice 

 he should think out the case clearly, and be 

 careful of any kind of jump at favorable 

 conclusions. 



Mr. M. says, "But from several interest- 

 ing causes which I need not dwell upon, we 

 really differ little in climatic conditions 

 from you." This is the foundation of the 

 case as applied to America, and this state- 

 ment, as far as it affects wintering of bees, 

 is seriously in error. Mr. M. writes from 

 Banff, and, taking it as a cold sample of 

 the British climate, it is well to note that 

 even there the winter is nothing like as se- 

 vere as the winter at, say, Philadelphia, and 

 is simply nowhere compared with winter in 

 the Middle West. To attempt a British 

 wintering plan under these conditions is a 

 very risky venture indeed. 



In Britain, and everywhere from London 

 northward, the climate is pretty much the 

 same — zero temperatures are unknown. If 

 the thermometer gets down to 8 or 12 F. the 

 whole country looks blue; whole columns in 

 the newspapers are filled with stories of the 

 "very severe weather," and people feel 

 worse than they do over here when the mer- 

 cury drops to five or ten below zero. The 

 grass is green all winter in some places. 

 Cabbage remains in the gardens all winter; 

 turnips flourish in the fields, and sheep re- 

 main outside feeding on them. Borecole or 

 kale (a plant not half enough known in 

 America) is really at its best after standing 

 outside all winter. Even broccoli, a kind 

 of cauliflower, will grow outside all winter. 

 Contrast all this with the winters of the 

 eastern part of the United States, and it 

 must be manifest that a system which will 

 winter bees in Britain might, and likely 

 would be, ruinous, when applied to bees in 

 America. 



I do not write to discourage attempts at 

 testing Mr. MacDonald'splan; but that jilan 

 must not be followed on the assumption 

 that "Britain really differs little in climatic 

 conditions from America." The difference 

 may not look great in a list of mean tem- 

 peratures; but it is generally enough to re- 

 quire different management. 



Philadelphia, Pa. 



