1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



223 



larvae, no fresh pollen (all suspicious signs) , 

 and no queen, but plenty of sealed stores 

 and lots of bees. Next day a more careful 

 hunt was made for the queen, but in vain. 



The conditions now stood, one hive with 

 a queen and very few bees; another with 

 bees and no queen. The proper thing to do 

 was to combine the forces, which was done. 



This simple example is given merely to 

 show the beginner why it is necessary to 

 open a hive. The average novice likes to 

 go through a colony just for the fun of it; 

 later on he will have a definite aim which 

 will be concerned with the food supply, the 

 queen, or her progeny. Broadly speaking, 

 the dates when the brood-chamber should 

 be examind are: In the spring, a week or 

 ten days after pollen is being carried in free- 

 ly, the purpose being to learn if there are 

 sufficient stores, and if a queen is present 

 with enough bees to keep the colony alive; 

 at the end of fruit-bloom, for practically the 

 same reasons; at the beginning of the hon- 

 ey-flow, to look for queen-cells, and at inter- 

 vals of a week for the same purpose; in Sep- 

 tember, to learn whether or not there is 

 enough hoB£y on hand to carry the colony 

 over the winter. Special conditions may 

 arise that will necessitate some one hive be- 

 ing overhauled more frequently; but let it 

 be understood that the less one meddles 

 with a hive in normal conditions before the 

 beginning of May the better, because while 

 it is weak the inmates have a tendency to 

 ball the queen — that is, form a cluster around 

 her when the frames are disturbed. So far 

 my experience is that a queen so treated is 

 apt to disappear in a few weeks at most. 



Victoria, British Columbia, 



SOMETHING MORE ABOUT BLUEBERRIES; 

 BLUEBERRY HONEY, ETC. 



BY A. B. WILLCUTT. 



I was much interested in what A. I. Root 

 had to say in regard to the blueberry, page 

 807, Dec. 15, 1910. Now, I have lived right 

 among the wild-blueberry (?) fields all my 

 life, and let me say right here that the blue- 

 berry bushes are trying to crowd us off from 

 some of our best land — land that will, with 

 proper tilling and fertilizer, produce as good 

 corn as can be grown in any of the New 

 England States; in fact, we have many 

 acres of "high and dry" land well covered 

 with blueberry-bushes, that might be made 

 to produce good crops of most kinds, and 

 right on such land is where we find our best 

 blueberries. See illustration on page 215. 

 Such bunches as this one are nothing un- 

 common. I took the picture of this bunch 

 so it shows the berries about natural size. 



During July and August of the past sum- 

 mer Mrs. W. and I picked and marketed 

 2000 qts. of these berries, and I would have 

 picked more if I hadn't been taken sick. It 

 does not seem to me as though the blue- 

 berry must have sour soil or mucky swamps 

 to live in. They do, of course, live and 



grow in wet sour soil in some places. I will 

 send you some small bushes some time, if 

 you care to try to grow them. 



Don't you think those berries in the pic- 

 ture look well? If they have produced bet- 

 ter ones in "captivity " I should like a few 

 just now to eat. I have on my farm 30 

 acres more or less thickly covered with blue- 

 berry-bushes, and we have picked as many 

 as 2b00 qts. in a season. I have put stable 

 manure around a few bushes, but could see 

 little improvement. 



The blueberry is a pretty good honey- 

 plant, coming just after fruit-bloom. In 

 fact, bees commence on the blueberry be- 

 fore the fruit-bloom is gone. 



Swift River, Mass. 



SWEET-CLOVER FOR HONEY-FORAGE AND 

 FOR A SOIL-RENOVATOR. 



BY HOMER E. BARTLETT. 



So much has been said of sweet clover 

 that perhaps another article is useless; nev- 

 ertheless, beginners may not have read 

 former articles who may read this and be 

 profited thereby. 



The yellow variety grows abundantly in 

 this State, and in the streets of the town in 

 which I live, and also along the roads in 

 the country. I have seen it growing in the 

 fields, but not long at a time, as it can not 

 thrive where plow or mowing-machine is 

 used, for, being a biennial, it must reseed 

 the ground every second year. It can not 

 do this when the land is plowed or mowed 

 regularly. 



As a honey-producing plant, the bee-keep- 

 er of South-Central Kansas can not well af- 

 ford to be without it, as it is absolutely sure, 

 according to my observation, and comes at 

 just the right time — the vital time when the 

 brood-nest is full of young — the time when 

 fruit-bloom has gone and the first bloom of 

 alfalfa has not yet come. I have even had 

 mv bees fill a super before there was a sign 

 of bloom on alfalfa. 



As a forage plant I have had considerable 

 experience too. In the summer of 1909 I 

 mowed all I could find along the streets and 

 highways, and stacked it, thrashing it the 

 next February. Although I had plenty of 

 alfalfa for my horses, they readily ate the 

 straw all up clean. 



That same year I did not have occasion to 

 turn my cow on pasture until the first of 

 June. There were large patches of sweet 

 clover in the pasture in full bloom; but in 

 a couple of weeks my cow had it all eaten 

 up, and there was plenty of grass there too. 



In the last days of February, 1910, I sow- 

 ed a small piece of ground to oats and sweet 

 clover (white variety), and I got a famous' 

 crop of oats. I harvested them with a 

 scythe so I would not cut the sweet clover 

 too shoit, and later found I also had a splen- 

 did stand of clover. In November my al- 

 falfa pasture frosted so badly that I had to 

 take my stock off from it and put_them on 

 dry feed. 



