710 



few of the outyards, and lunoli will be 

 served at noon of the first day. 



The operation of rearing queens from 

 start to finish will be demonstrated at the 

 queen-rearing yards among the ba?swoods. 



All are cordially invited to be present at 

 this field meet, whether they live in Ohio 

 or some other state. 



It is expected that Dr. E. F. Phillips, of 

 the Bureau of Entomology. Chief Inspector 

 N. E. Shaw, of Ohio, and other prominent 

 beekeepers, will be present. Possibly and 

 probably one of the Dadanis will be with 

 us. 



The Color of Pollen from White Clo- 

 ver 



On page 521, in his regular department. 

 Dr. Miller raises the question whether Mr. 

 Lovell, in his article on page 477, has prop- 

 erly indicated the color of pollen from white 

 clover. Mr. Lovell replies as follows: 



Mr. Root: — I have just read Dr. Miller's 

 remarks, page 521, on the color of the pollen 

 of wiiite clover. My article was written in 

 the winter, when there was no opportunity 

 to examine personally the color of white- 

 clover pollen, and I was confident that I had 

 seen it stated that it was greenish yellow. 

 This afternoon I have been studying the 

 color of the pollen, both in the field and 

 under the microscope, and my results lead 

 me to believe that Dr. Miller has considered 

 the matter chiefly from the hive end. 



The color of the pollen on fresh anthers 

 which have recently opened is not brown, as 

 Dr. Miller says, but yellow, as in the case 

 of many other flowers. Under a lens, with 

 the light falling on it, the pollen has a gold- 

 en sheen similar to gilt tinsel. In the field I 

 noticed that a number of bees had small 

 balls of brown pollen in the pollen-baskets. 

 If this was collected from the wliite clover 

 it must be remembered that it was moisten- 

 ed with saliva and perhaps other glandular 

 secretions, and manipulated by the fore and 

 middle legs before it was deposited in the 

 baskets, which might easily give it a color 

 difPerent from what it has in the anthers. 

 Did Dr. Miller examine the ])ollen in the 

 anthers of fresh flowers? 



If you will examine a head of white clover 

 you will notice that there are no anthers 

 exposed — they are all enclosed in tlie carina, 

 or keel. When a bee alights on a flower and 

 pushes down the carina and wings (alse) the 

 anthers and stigma protrude and strike 

 against the under side of the body of the 

 bee. When the bee flics away, the anthers 

 again return within the keel. It is, there- 

 fore, not an easy matter for a bee to collect 

 pollen directly from the anthers of white 

 clover. Of the bees sucking on white clover, 

 which I watched this afternoon, not a single 

 0]ie attempted to gather pollen. Many of 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURr 



them had no pollen on the thighs; but a few, 

 as stated above, had small balls of brown 

 pollen in the baskets. Whether this was 

 white-clover pollen I cannot yet say definite- 

 ly. I then watched the bees flying into the 

 hives, as they returned from the fielfl by 

 hundreds. The white-clover flow is here at 

 its height. Many, very many, of these bees 

 brought in no pollen; others had balls of 

 yellow iioUen which may or may not have 

 come from the blossoms of white clover. A 

 single floret of white clover yields only a 

 small amount of pollen. This may be rubbed 

 off on the ventral side of the bee, which is 

 then able to gather it. How far does it do 

 so? Has Dr. Miller examined the pollen in 

 his hives under a microscope? Is he certain 

 that white-clover pollen is as abundant as 

 he supposes? 



The yellow pollen which I noticed on 

 certain bees flying into the hive seemed to me 

 a different shadft from that of white clover. 

 John H. Lovell. 



Waldoboro, Me., .luly 5. 



Honey-crop Conditions and Prices ; the 

 Efiect of the Drouth 



Had it not been for a general drouth 

 which set in the last of July, there would 

 have been an enormous crop of clover honey. 

 As it is, there has been a large yield in 

 many localities in spite of the shutting off 

 of the nectar supply. In some others the 

 dry weather stopped the flow just when it 

 was getting ready to make a good showing 

 in the supers. In still others it cheeked 

 the flow just as it started. Taking every- 

 thing into consideration, in all probability 

 the clover crop will be much larger than 

 that of last year, but probably no larger 

 than it has been some other seasons. 



The best clover flow seems to center 

 around Michigan. From that state reports 

 are universally favorable. With some ex- 

 ceptions they are good in Wisconsin, Minne- 

 sota, Illinois. Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, 

 Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and all the 

 New England states. In all of the terri- 

 tory named (and that covers the largest 

 part of the clover area) there have been 

 some partial and comi^lete failures; but we 

 believe we never encountered a season when 

 the reports were more uniformly favorable 

 thruout the clover area than this vear of 

 191fi. 



Tlie di'outh is so severe in s^)me localities 

 that it may kill off tlie clovers this fall. 

 If so there may be a possible failure of 

 clover for next year. Tliis means that if 

 prices on clover honey gf) too low, and the 

 beekeeper can afford to do so, he will liold 

 his crop over for next season. 



Reports from the western territory com- 



