462 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



August, 1920 



honey are secured, and Texas is one of them; 

 but let me make it very plain that the man 

 who moves from liis old home where he is 

 accustomed to the climate and conditions, 

 as well as the people, is going to meet with 

 some disappointment, no matter where he 

 goes. Texas is a wonderful State — the larg- 

 est in the Union. In the line 'of agriculture 

 it stands nearly at the top of the list. For 

 bees and beekeeping it is one of the best in 

 the Union. But those awful drouths! They 

 hit the beekeeper pretty hard sometimes, 

 and only stayers — those who have grit and 

 cash enough to pull thru — succeed. 



There are very large areas in Texas that 

 are wild, and in good bee country, too. Mes- 



V thrifty tree of the mesquite — a fair sample 

 of what is .seen all over southern Texas. While 

 mesquite is not the main source of honey it is an 

 important one. 



quite is found all the way from Arizona to 

 the Mississippi Eiver, and this is,perhaps, 

 the most widely scattered. Then there is 

 the huajillo and the catclaw. All three are 

 called scrub desert trees. Where these three 

 seem to be at their best is in Uvalde County. 

 For the time being we will look about there. 



"That Paradise of Bees." 



Some 20 years ago, when I visited Uvalde, 

 I thought it was an ideal place for keeping 

 bees. In fact, I reported in Gleanings that 

 it was a ' ' veritable bee paradise, ' ' and so 



T. D. Purilom looking at a spoeimen of plant. 



it was, and so it continued for a few years. 

 Then came that series of bad years when 

 everything seemed to be parched dry. Many 

 of the old-time beekeepers left the territory 

 or went into something else. But now 

 Uvalde is beginning to look as it did in the 

 (lavs of old, aiul beekeejiing has taken a new 

 start. 



We will not take time to interview all the 

 prominent beekeepers there; but there are 

 some large ones having a thousand colonies 

 each. For instance, there is W. 0. Victor, 

 formerly of Wharton, but now of T'f^valde. 

 He is one of the oldest queen-breeders in the 

 United States. He has had his ups and 

 downs, as have nearly all the rest of them. 

 But he is still sticking to it and making 

 good. He has apiaries scattered around in 

 different sections in the semiarid desert. 

 His right-hand man — one who seems to un- 

 derstand the business and conditions in 

 Texas — is T. D. Purdoni. In fact, he gave 

 me quite a history of the honey plants of 

 Texas. He is shown in Fig. 4. 



While mesquite, catclaw, huajillo, and 

 broomweed are the principal honey plants of 

 southern Texas, cotton is the main source 

 on the cultivated areas further north. But 

 cotton does not yield honey on all soils. 



When we speak of cotton we should bear 

 in mind that the honey comes from the 

 leaves and floral bracts or nectar-glands as 

 well as from the blossoms themselves. This 

 naturally raises the question whether cotton 

 honey, a large part of which does not come 

 from the flowers, should be classed as pure. 

 I submitted samples to the United States 

 Bureau of Chemistry, and received a report 

 saying that the honey was practically nor- 

 mal, and would be accepted as a pure honey. 



By the way, cotton honey varies — some- 

 times a little on the amber or reddish color, 

 and at other times it is pure and white. The 

 best cotton honey is almost a neutral sweet, 

 tasting very much like cane-sugar syrup. In 

 fact, it can be used for sweetening coffee 

 and canning fruit about the same as com- 

 mon sugar. It ought to be fine for soften- 

 ing down a strong-flavored honey for bot- 

 tling purposes. 



Besides the cotton there is a very large 

 list of honey plants in Texas, such as the 

 broomweed, hackberry, arnica weed, soap- 

 hrush, whitebrush, persimmon, mountain 

 laurel, and a long list of minor plants that 

 are but little better than brood-boosters; l)ut 

 they are in pctrtant because they come at a 

 time wluMi they enable the colonies to build 

 uj) to catch the main honey flow later on. 



Mountain laurel — is it i)oisonous? Sonic 

 say it is, and others say that it is not. 1 

 am reliably informed that it sometimes kills 

 bees, anil in the case of human beings it 

 causes an awful nausea. My advice is to 

 ])lay safe and not eat it. If it kills bees, 

 move the colonies to another location.. 



