.Tl'l,v^ 1920 



G li K A N I N G S IN B K E CULTURE 



found alouij the i-ieek or river beds tliat 

 are dry most of the time. Buckthorn is 

 another desert plant. 



The principal beekeeper, the one who is 

 credited with knowing most about beekeep- 

 ing conditions in the Salt 

 Lake Valley, is Mrs. M. G. 

 Lovett, of the Lovctt Honey 

 Co., Phoenix. Her husband is 

 a newspaper man; and slu\ 

 formerly a newspaper woman, 

 is the one who runs the bees; 

 and not only that, she works 

 them herself. She has a very 

 competent man as an assist- 

 ant, and he, together with 

 other help that they can hire 

 on occasions, manages about 

 1500 colonies. She has an api- 

 arv out on the Indian Reser- 



iili.iii wlu'iit 



vation; and at the time I was at the yard 

 the colonies were working on bottom wil- 

 low and were two, three and even four 

 stories high. In fact, the colonies were so 

 very strong that I quite agreed with her 

 that it would be an advantage 

 to sell three pounds of bees 

 from each colony, and suggest- 

 ed that she make a practice of 

 disposing of them in March to 

 beekeepers of California, 

 Utah, Colorado, and Idaho, in 

 order to get rid of the excess 

 of bees. With such strong 

 colonies as these it is not sur- 

 prising that Mrs. L o v e tt 

 makes such a success of bee- 

 keeping. 



AFTER sever- 

 ^ al seasons of 

 careful in- 

 vesti g a t i u I 

 hav e learned 

 that my location 

 will support 

 three times a s 

 many bees, and 

 at the same time 

 yield 2^2 times more surplus, or that 300 

 colonies will yield 2% times more honey 

 than 100 colonies would with the same treat- 

 ment, except that a little more feeding gen- 

 erally has to be done between fruit bloom 

 and white clover. 



Fifteen years ago there were 500 colonies 

 of bees, all in about one square mile. Upon 

 investigation I found that the colonies year 

 after year yielded but a trifle less than did 

 mine that were located six to eight miles 

 apart, and eighty to one hundred in a place. 

 The matter was hard for me to understand. 

 I undertook to estimate the number of acres 

 within three miles of all those colonics, and 

 there were, as nearly as I could count, about 

 500 acres of clover in each location; but now 

 that alsike has become generally sown for 

 hay all over this country, the acreage is 

 nearer 700 per location. 



At present, therefore, I believe that 400 

 colonies in each yard will pay better in 

 dollars than a smaller number, so far as the 

 clovers are concerned. However, for so 

 great a number the fall flow in some seasons 

 might fall a little short for winter supplies; 

 but I do not believe from what I have seen 

 that there would generally be any lack, even 

 with 400 in one yard; as the 500 spoken of 

 aboA'c, year in and year out, had suflScient 

 for winter stores from heartsease and the 

 sweet clover. The wonder is that, at a 

 jdace where only 30 colonies are kept, ten 

 miles from my 300-colony yard, little differ- 

 ence is noticed in the supers. I have watch- 



GET MORE HONEY 



A 'better Knowledge of Nectar Secre- 

 tion Would Secure Much More Honey 

 in Almost Everybody's Locality 



By Frank Coverdale 



ed the bees and 

 looked for nec- 

 tar, hoping t o 

 solve this prob- 

 lem. I have 

 found that 200 

 acres of sweet 

 clover at a time 

 when little else 

 is in bloom af- 

 fords but very scant surplus for 300 colo- 

 nies; but that when other bloom is out at 

 the same time, it counts for more. This 

 shows very clearly that if one has only 100 

 acres of sweet clover for 300 colonies, and if 

 the clover blooms for six months, the bees 

 would gather only enough to keep in good 

 condition, and would store no surplus to 

 speak of; but, if 500 acres of white clover 

 and 200 or 300 acres of alsike are added to 

 the pasturage, all the nectar from the white 

 and alsike will be available for the surplus 

 chamber. 



Some years ago it was thought by at 

 least one writer that the blossoms yielded 

 nectar only until fertilization took place. 

 This I have found to be not the case, and 

 that clovers as well as apple blossoms con- 

 tinue to secrete until flowers are very near 

 the ripened stage. In fact, I found the 

 nectar most abundant at the time when the 

 bloom was almost ready to drop — that is, 

 that a given blossom actually increases in 

 nectar secretion until nearly ready to fall. 

 The best opportunity for observation along 

 this line was afforded by a field of red clover 

 during a very dry season. This field was 

 allowed to stand until nearly ripe; and I 

 found that, the riper those heads became, 

 the thicker the nectar; and that when the 

 tubes began to ripen the bees actually 

 crushed or crinkled the tubes, which enabled 

 them to reach more deeply to the base of the 

 tubes. 



All this has led me to believe that each 



