Febrvary, 1920 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



85 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



the woods is full of bees." My interest be- 

 ing then at boiling point, I lost no oppor- 

 tunity to investigate. The statement as to 

 all the woods being full, I found to be un- 

 true; but sure enough, many bee-trees were 

 there and of all sizes. Most of the beekeep- 

 ers of the Middle West never saw a real 

 Oregon tree in the thick timber, 8, 10, 12, 

 and even 16 feet thru at the butt, straight 

 as Hag poles and not a limb within 100 feet 

 of the ground. Some bee-trees, eh? But 

 generally the bee-trees were snags and cot- 

 tonwoods near the river. 



All domesticated bees found then were in 

 box hives about 12 x 12 x 14. Some honey of 

 inferior quality was sometimes secured in 

 "Caps." No one knew of a movable-comb 

 hive or seemed to care for better methods; 

 but finally I had made for me a movable- 

 comb hive. It was a success from the start, 

 and the bees in it wintered well and gave 

 some surplus in homemade sections. The 



April known in this section. Soft maple 

 and vine maple blossom in that month, and, 

 there being no rain to wash the nectar out, 

 those who were prepared with combs har- 

 vested a crop in a few days. Those with 

 none missed it and had to buy sugar (not 

 an easy task) to winter their bees. As 1918 

 will go down in history as one of the years 

 without surplus, virtually no white-clover 

 honey was secured. The mountain beekeeper 

 also had a short crop, but yours truly had 

 plenty of good sealed honey and needed no 

 sugar. 



Bees generally gather some pollen in 

 February and unless weather conditions are 

 very bad build up into fair colonies by the 

 end of March. Plenty of rain is the rule 

 in spring, and in some years but little or no 

 honey is secured, even when hundreds of 

 acres of fruit trees are in full bloom for 

 weeks; but, if weather conditions are at all 

 favorable, some early super honey from fruit 



A typical fniit-ranch lioine and fiiip Vjee location in the mountains near Portland, Ore. 



stumbling block at that time was the tre- 

 mendous winter losses. Those who had bees 

 seemed to expect such losses and reported 

 that the reason was mouldy comb. Upon 

 investigation I found mouldy was right, and 

 I attributeil it largely to the excessive moist- 

 ure of the winter. Later I discovered foul 

 brood was the cause of the death of the 

 small colonies, the combs moulding after- 

 wards. You couldn't make the "old timers" 

 see it then; but new methods proved it, and 

 today winter losses are comparatively nil, 

 and the industry is on a paying basis. If 

 weather conditions were good when we 

 wanted it, this would be a beekeepers' para- 

 dise and their Vjank-rolls fat. I shall give 

 one instance: 



The month of April, 1918, was the driest 



trees is secured from the strongest colonies 

 In April swarms are not uncommon, and 

 bees are generally booming by May. June 

 brings white clover and generally better 

 weather, assuring at least some first-class 

 honey; but many times rain has persisted 

 all thru June into July, and the hopes of 

 the beekeepers have gone a-glimmering, as 

 far as surplus is concerned. 



We can bank on settled, clear weather 

 after July 4, and then it rarely rains until 

 September. In the meantime clover dries 

 up, and the local bees have to depend on 

 bcr.ry and later blossoms. From ten days to 

 three weeks is the time we really get for 

 surplus here; so here as elsewhere, it is the 

 ready and alert beekeeper who succeeds. 

 Many ask what is the average crop secured. 



