GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



CONVERSATIONS with DOOLITTLE 



At Borodino, New York. 



I ARE DROUTHS INCREASING? 



" I note that you and Dr. Miller 

 have been in the bee and honey 

 business for nearly half a century, 

 so I am led to ask, " What of the 



future?' It has been very dry 



here for the past five years, and 

 the secretion of nectar has been so poor 

 that the average for those five years has not 

 been one-fourth what it was during the five 

 years preceding, when we had opportune 

 rains and fair skies intermixed. Do you 

 believe the earth is drying up?" 



Profit in any productive industry centers 

 quite largely on the cost of production ; and 

 if the crop is cut down by excessive drouth 

 to one-fourth of the average, then the out- 

 look would be dubious provided any gi^eat 

 extent of the country were to suffer in that 

 way. From my experience I have found 

 that good honey crops come in connection 

 with abundant rainfalls, interspersed with 

 clear skias and high temperature, and that 

 nectar depends on vigorous plant growth, 

 and successful plant life on abundant mois- 

 ture and heat. 



Prior to 1903 we had six years with 

 scanty preciiDitation, which gave poor hon- 

 ey yields during all of those years, as well 

 as a scanty growth of crops, and the theme 

 of conversation among the farmers about 

 here Avas that we had cut off our forests, 

 and ditched our land to such an extent that, 

 whenever it rained, instead of the forests 

 and swamps holding the water, the water 

 entered the drains, ran off in the streams to 

 the lakes, and from the lakes to the ocean. 

 Thus we had killed the goose which laid the 

 golden egg. I must confess that such the- 

 orizing sounded so good that nearly every 

 one here in central New York believed it, 

 even when the papers told of floods in other 

 parts of the United States. 



Up to June 12 of that year there was not 

 an inch of rainfall in these parts. For 

 days the sun rose and set, looking like a 

 ball of fire, even in mid-day, on account of 

 the haze or smoke in the atmosphere. On 

 June 6 I had occasion to go from Syracuse 

 to Buffalo, and saw fires, set from sparks 

 from the railroad trains, running right out 

 in the standing grasj in the meadows, the 

 farmers fighting these fires, trying to save 

 the little grass that had grown. When I saw 

 these fires burning down the alsike and 

 white clover's stunted growth, I had any- 

 thing bnt an optimistic view of beekeeping 

 for the future. 



But at 1 :30 a. m., June 12, 1903, I Avas 

 awakened by a clap of thunder, and soon 

 the water was pouring in torrents on the 

 roof above me. It rained from then on till 

 noon, when the rainfall measured SVo 

 inches. To make the story short, the rest 

 of the season was more than usually wet; 

 and as the rain came in time for both bass- 

 wood and the sowing of buckwheat, we got 

 a very fair crop of honey, even after losing 

 everything from clover. 



Tlae next four seasons were wetter than 

 usual in these parts, and so all talk about 

 scant rainfall from cutting oft' the timber 

 and draining the land ceased. 



That the drouth, not only in the time of 

 bloom, but perhaps months pi-evious, has 

 played havoc with our honey-yield is, in all 

 probability, true ; but there is water enough 

 still, if it had an equal distribution. The 

 cutting-away of the forests and the con- 

 struction of drains may have something to 

 do with this unequal distribution, but I 

 doubt if any one knows just why drouth 

 comes to a certain locality one season and 

 not the next. Irrigation would be a reme- 

 dy, but is too expensive to consider for 

 raising honey alone. During the past sum- 

 mer I found that a drouth for a year or 

 two ia not always so detrimental to a good 

 honey-yield as I had formerly supposed. 

 Farmers about here seeded their ground as 

 usual with alsike clover during the springs 

 of 1912, '13, '14. During the springs of 

 these years, in this immediate vicinity there 

 was a drouth just at the time this seed 

 should have sprung up, and there was great 

 wondering why there was little or no alsike 

 clover to grow and bloom during the sum- 

 mers of 1913, '14, and hence veiy little was 

 sown during 1915. We beekeepers about 

 here knew little what was in store for us 

 until about June 15, 1915. At that time 

 fields began to be pink with alsike bloom, 

 and from June 20 to July 15, hundreds and 

 hundreds of acres were just one sheet of 

 pink alsike, so they could be seen in all 

 directions for miles around. This, with a 

 fair yield from basswood, gave us the larg- 

 est yield of white honey known in this 

 section since 1877. Nature is wonderful in 

 her ways, and capable of holding seed dor- 

 mant for years ; and when a favorable time 

 comes, she starts all these seeds into life. 

 As to the question, " Do you believe the 

 earth is drying up? " I will leave that to 

 Dr. Miller, as he has lived ami kept bees 

 many years longer than I. 



