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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



August, 1917 



c 



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J. takes are 

 frequent - 

 ly made by the 

 beginner in 

 s we e t - clover 

 growing. One 

 of them is to de- 

 lay cutting too 



long, and the other is to cut too low. The 

 first fault results in a coarse hay of poor 

 quality; the second results in killing the 

 plants and preventing a second crop. . 

 This second crop is the more valuable of 

 the two, as it is the one which is to pro- 

 duce seed." This is an interesting item, 

 not only because of its valuable information, 

 but because it appears, apparently as edi- 

 torial, in so valuable a farm paper as The 

 Country Gentleman, fully recognizing sweet 

 clover as a forage plant, with no reference 

 whatever to it as a honey-plant. 



R. F. HOLTERMANN, your explanation, 

 p. 526, how the bees, when left to clean up 

 foul-broody combs, carry the disease on 

 their bodies to all parts of the hive, shows 

 clearly the danger. But when those same 

 bees, after having the matter fully explain- 

 ed to them, go right on and clean up the 

 combs without bad results, what are you 

 going to do about it? Yes, you're right; 

 the dead larvae were all over my yard, and 

 after a rain you'd see them swollen up on 

 the entrance - boards, but somehow they 

 didn't seem to get into the cells. I don't 

 know how mild or how severe you'd call 

 the European foul brood I had; but I do 

 know that so long as it was left to its own 

 course it was a vigorous traveler, and I am 

 strong in the belief that no wide-awake bee- 

 keeper should ever let the disease get any 

 more of a start than it had Avith me. Now 

 look here; the Tommies are so nice to the 

 Sammies nowadays that I can't afford to 

 have any rumpus with a Canuck like you; 

 but *' when this cruel war is over " I make 

 no promise what I won't do to you. 



It is surprising, as said on p. 511, to note 

 what " pep " one or two frames of hatching 

 brood will give to a medium colony. And 

 yet not so very surprising when you do a 

 little figuring. Suppose there is brood in a 

 frame to the amount of 16 inches by 8. On 

 both sides there are 56 cells to the square 

 inch; 16 times 8 makes 128, and in 128 

 inches there are 7168 cells. So two frames 

 would give more than 14,000 bees, and 

 that's quite a colony. [The actual figures 

 of the number of cells to a comb show that 

 there would be at least three pounds of bees 

 added to the colony. If it had two pounds 

 already it would make about five pounds in 



STRAY STRAWS 



Dr. C. C. MiUer 



1 



TU 



all. Such a col- 

 ony we should 

 consider of fair 

 strength; but, of 

 course, for real 

 honey produc- 

 tion we ought to 

 have them much 

 stronger than 

 this. Eight or nine pounds would not 

 be too heavy; but in the production 

 of extracted honey the five-pound colony 

 will do very fair work, and a ten-pound 

 better; but a few pounds would hardly 

 amount to anything left by itself. The 

 giving of hatching brook works nicely 

 both ways. The colony that gave up the 

 hatching brood would have swarmed pre- 

 maturely, and the one to which the hatching 

 brood was given is that much of a boost. 

 In other words, it is put in a position 

 where it can be an earner rather than a 

 ing us how the thing came out. 



The Gleanings bunch has made a good 

 deal of to-do about getting queens fertiliz- 

 ed in a big gTeenhouse, and a good deal of 

 space has been occupied in telling of the 

 failure. Would it not be better to occupy 

 that space with successes instead of fail- 

 ures? Well, it may or it may not be wise 

 to make further experiments in the way of 

 fertilization in confinement, but I am most 

 emj^hatie in the belief that space is well 

 occupied in telling of failures. If mistakes 

 and failures were fully reported it would 

 save some of the rest of us from repeating 

 them. The truth is that we don't like to 

 'fess up when we've done some fool thing. 

 So, thanks to the Gleanings bunch for tell- 

 ing us how the thing same out. 



" All our honey is snow-white and of 

 exquisite flavor. The most of the honey is 

 from white sweet clover." — Br. E. A. Mor- 

 gan, p. 516. " The flavor of sweet-clover 

 honey is so strong that it is not very popu- 

 lar in our markets." — /. M. Buchanan, p. 

 521. Now, what do you know about that? 

 Is it the difference between South Dakota 

 and Tennessee, or what? We don't have 

 pure sweet-clover honey here ; but we do 

 have white-clover honey with a vanilla 

 flavor, and I suppose that flavor comes from 

 sweet clover. It's delicious, but I've al- 

 ways had an idea that too much of that 

 flavor might not be so good. Let us have 

 more light from any who have the simon- 

 pure thing. [As a general rule the color of 

 honey grows lighter as we go further north. 

 For example, we find that wliite clover is a 

 little lighter color in Ontario, Canada, north- 

 ern Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin 

 than in the states directly south of the 



