386 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1917 



HEADS "OF^GMlN jgpROM^gpDIFFER ENT FIELDS 



than 3 ft. high, and did not bloom. Last 

 season was very cool and this may account 

 for it. I shall try another lot this year and 

 see if it will do as well as the first. 



Milbrae, Cal. W. O. Graeber. 



Dandelion Yields The statement made 



Considerable Honey in your interesting 

 After All article on the dande- 



lion in the April issue 

 of Gleanings, that it yields little or no 

 honey, does not apply to a large part of the 

 interior of Canada. On many farms in On- 

 tario and Quebec, dandelion produces more 

 honey in spring than any other plant. At 

 Ottawa it is usually in bloom during the last 

 two weeks in May; and if there is then a 

 period of fine warm weather a strong colony 

 will place 30 or 40 pounds of dandelion honey 

 in the super. On May 29, 1916, there was 

 a gain of 9 pounds 12 ounces for the 24 hours, 

 by a colony on scales at the Exiierimental 

 Farm, mainly from dandelion. This was the 

 warmest day of the month — temperature 7.5 

 degrees at noon — and it followed heavy rain 

 on the 16th, 17th, and 23d. 



Like many other honey-plants the dande- 

 lion seems to secrete most nectar on warm 

 sunny days while the plants are deriving 

 abundant moisture from the ground, and in 

 the dandelion the bees can reach the nectar 

 only when it is secreted in such abundance 

 that it wells up to near the mouth of the 

 tubular petals. Probably the reason why 

 dandelion produces more honey at Ottawa 

 than at Medina is that it cannot begin to 

 grow until our severe winter weather ceases, 

 about mid April; and by the time it is in 

 flower we often get summer heat, the sodden 

 ground from the melting snow and frequent 

 showers having meanwhile produced an ex- 

 traordinary growth. Our long days, too, 

 may be helpful, for the dandelion flower 

 closes about noon. 



Dandelion is also reported as a source of 

 surplus honey from near Fort William; and 

 on May 23, 1915, I found the vacant lots in 

 Calgary, Alberta, to be a golden glow of 

 dandelion bloom, the tubes filled to the brim 

 with glistening nectar, this being a warm 

 sunny day after a recent rainy period; but 

 no bees of any sort were on it, and honey- 

 bees could hardly be accused of spreading it 

 here. At White River, Out., a divisional 

 point on the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 

 heart of an unsettled country to the north of 

 Ijake Suj^erior, dandelions are already abun- 

 dant, but no bees are kept there. Indeed, 

 the only place in which no dandelions could 

 be found that spring between Ottawa and 

 the Pacific Ocean was Glacier, B. C, at an 

 altitude of 4095 feet in the Selkirk Range 

 of the Rocky Mountains. The manageress 

 of the C. P. R. hotel here is proud of the 



fact that its lawns contain not a single 

 dandelion. 



Dandelion honey is of a bright - yellow 

 color, and has a coarse granulation. It 

 possesses a strong aroma and flavor corres- 

 ponding to the somewhat pungent fragrance 

 of the dandelion flower, carrying a medicinal 

 value, real or fancied. F. W. L. Sladen, 



Ottawa, Can. Ajjiarist, 



Dominion Experinu^ntal Farms. 



The Amount of Up to about two years 



Water Taken Daily ago the bees during 

 in a 25-Colony Apiary the brooding season 

 came to an outdoor 

 kitchen pump for water. At that time they 

 became somewhat of a nuisance, so I got a 

 hand basin holding about a gallon of water, 

 filled it, and put j)ieces of half-inch pine 

 board floating on top for the bees to take the 

 water from. I sj^rayed the pump platform 

 with a disinfectant, and soon had the bees 

 trained to get water at the basin. Then I 

 gradually moved the basin nearer the bee- 

 yard until now it is about a rod distant from 

 the nearest hive, in the shade of a mulberry- 

 tree. 



In replenishing the water I noticed what 

 seemed to me an extraordinary amount used, 

 the bees constantly coming and going, so I 

 made a little observation and tried to make 

 a rough estimate of the water carried away. 

 I counted the bees that were drinking at 

 various times during different hours of sever- 

 al days, and found that there were an average 

 of about sixty bees there at all times, from 

 about six o 'clock in the morning until seven 

 at night — a few coming as early as four in 

 the morning, and some as late as eight 

 o 'clock at night. There was no difficulty in 

 timing them, as they came direct, loaded up, 

 and were gone; and a good many I timed 

 made an average of about one minute that 

 each bee spent at the basin. In twelve hours 

 there would be 40,200 bees visit the basin; 

 and by weighing the water I found that the 

 average amount that it took daily to keep 

 the basin filled was 56 ounces — that is, that 

 the bees carried away a pound of water in 

 approximately 12,000 loads. 



There were 25 hives in the yard at the 

 time the observation was made, July 1 to 8, 

 and the nearest dependable water is half a 

 mile distant at the shore of Black Lake. 

 There are three other pumps within a dis- 

 tance of ten to twenty rods from the bee- 

 yard, but the bees got very little water at 

 any place other than from this regular basin. 



I have some curiosity to know whether 

 the result of these observations agrees with 

 those made by others, both as to the amount 

 carried by the individual bee. as well as the 

 total amount used by the swarms, as the 

 latter seemed to me small — only about two 



