126 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Mak. 1 



Bee-keeping Among The 

 Rockies 



Py Wesley Foster, Boulder, Colo. 



AXFAIiFA FOB STOCK, INSTEAD OF HAY. 



The protection and care man gives to his 

 plants and flowers cause them to lose some 

 of their native resistant qualities. And so 

 we find the apple-trees in our orchards much 

 more subject to injury from pests and dis- 

 ease than their prototype the crab. The 

 same thing is true of alfalfa. I suppose the 

 original stock from which the alfalfa sprang, 

 as we now know it, was not subject to in- 

 jury from disease and pests. Any plant 

 seems to have only about so much energy; 

 and when, through the care given by man, 

 it becomes unnecessary to resist unfavora- 

 ble conditions, the plant then has this un- 

 used vitality to put into greater growth in 

 plant and more succulence. This gain in 

 succulence makes the alfalfa more appetiz- 

 ing to the grasshoppers, and the lowered re- 

 sisting power gives the alfalfa rust a chance. 

 Now comes the alfalfa-leaf weevil in Utah, 

 and it is doing much damage in the dis- 

 tricts where alfalfa most abounds; and the 

 damage is greatest in the old fields where it 

 has been grown for years. This is another 

 fact to substantiate the belief that alfalfa is 

 dimished in vitality by frequent cutting, 

 and, further, that it does not build up the 

 soil in any thing but nitrogen. If one cuts 

 his alfalfa, and continues to haul the hay 

 off and sell it, he will, in a few years, have 

 a very much impoverished farm. Keep 

 stock on the farm, and sell your hay in the 

 form of beef or mutton. 



There is no doubt that some of the older 

 farms in the West need lime where alfalfa 

 has been raised continually on one piece of 

 ground. 



Bees were bringing in pollen on "ground- 

 hog's day;" maples were in bloom; the bees 

 were about the willows, and I was told that 

 a few dandelions were out. My ! what a win- 

 ter season! The bees were getting pollen on 

 the 19th of December; then early in Janu- 

 ary it was 18° below zero, and the bees were 

 unable to get to their stores two inches 

 inches away, and a good many colonies per- 

 ished. Then they were again gathering 

 pollen, and perhaps a little nectar, around 

 the first of February, with snow flying, and 

 a regular blizzard on the range but twenty 

 miles to the west. We certainly have cli- 

 mate in all her moods out this way. It's 

 not strange the queens don't know when to 

 start laying. 



BEET SUGAR AGAIN. 



On page 33, Jan. 15, I am taken to task 

 as to the accuracy of my statement in re- 

 gard to cane and beet sugar. Here we have 

 two kinds of sugar — one the beet sugar 

 made in the numerous factories in North- 

 ern Colorado, owned by The Great Western 

 Sugar Co. This sugar is demonstrated at 



pure-food shows as beet sugar, and it is fair 

 to assume that the thousands of sacks piled 

 up in the storage-rooms of the factory, and 

 the thousands of tons of beets being ground 

 up every day, is evidence that this sugar 

 comes from the beet. Then we have a 

 sugar here with the marking of The Amer- 

 ican Sugar Refining Co., San Francisco, 

 and called cane sugar. The latter is two to 

 three times as fine as our local beet sugar, 

 and tastes sweeter — that is, the taste comes 

 sooner when placed in the mouth, caused 

 by the granules melting more readily. The 

 difference is noticeable when mixing bee- 

 feed. The cane or finer sugar dissolves 

 more readily, and there is less liability of 

 undissolved granules being found in the 

 bottom. My mother tells me beet sugar is 

 better for cake frosting than cane because 

 it makes better frosting, and is made quick- 

 er. I should think this would prove that 

 the beet sugar goes back to crystals sooner 

 than the finer cane sugar. 



Then from a mere theoretical standpoint 

 would not a coarse-grained sugar return to 

 granules sooner than a finer grain? This 

 is certainly true of honey. A bee-keeper 

 who fed a hundred sacks of sugar the past 

 fall said his observation had been that cane 

 sugar could be mixed with water cold with- 

 out its granulating in the cells, while beet 

 sugar, to get the same results, had to be 

 mixed with hot water. He bought cane 

 sugar, although it cost him 20 cents a hun- 

 dred more than the local beet sugar. This 

 I know, that the housewives here in Colo- 

 rado declare that the local beet sugar is not 

 so good for fruit or cakes, except frosting or 

 other use, as the finer-grained sugar called 

 "cane" which- is shipped here from San 

 Francisco. The bee-keepers are influenced 

 by their wuves; and when they are told that 

 the cane sugar is the best, that is the kind 

 they are going to buy for their bees; for the 

 best sugar has been proven to give the best 

 results in feeding. The cane sugar on the 

 market here tastes sweeter, looks nicer, and 

 is finer-grained than our local beet product. 

 The sugar company is making a great effort 

 to popularize the beet sugar with the house- 

 wives; they are continually conducting cook- 

 ing and demonstration classes in fruit-can- 

 ning with beet sugar. 



COLORADO BEE CONVENTION. 



In spite of the failure of the honey crop 

 throughout Northern Colorado a good num- 

 ber of bee-keepers from this part of the State 

 were at the convention. The southern part 

 of the State was represented by several bee- 

 men, and also several came from the western 

 slope. The meeting was a success in every 

 way; and the work outlined, if carried out, 

 will certainly aid the bee industry of Col- 

 orado very materially. 



There are two lines of discussion that 

 come up at every convention. They are: 

 " How to get a better price for the product, 

 or a larger share of the consumer's do'liir." 

 and "The methods of handling bees to get 

 a larger return from each hive in honey." 



