GLEANINGS IN BEE C U L T U R E 



S 



LJT 



THAT idea of 

 Wesley Fos- 

 ter, page 

 397, July Glean- 

 ings, of having a 

 hospital yard for 

 treating foul 

 brood is a decid- 

 edly good thing 

 and with us even 

 more important with Eurojiean than Ameri- 

 can foul brood, since the latter disease 

 moves slowly while the former spreads 

 rapidly. I have noticed that European foul 

 brood appears in a yard first in from one to 

 three or four hives. If these are removed 

 ]>ioiriptly three or four miles, the danger of 

 its spreading further is greatly reduced. 



* * * 



One of the most valuable articles in the 

 July number of Gleanings, it seems to me, 

 is that of Mr. Coverdale on page 403. He 

 has learned, he says, that with a little feed- 

 ing his location will support three times as 

 many colonies and give two and one-half 

 times as much surplus honey, or that 300 

 colonies would yield two and one-half times 

 more honey than 100 colonies would without 

 feeding. This is of immense importance 

 in those sections where there is abundance of 

 bloom that yields nectar freely. Two years 

 ago we had in one yard not far from 300 

 colonies during clover bloom and were sur- 

 prised to find that they stored honey nearly 

 as fast as in smaller yards. As a rule, large 

 yards will require more feeding in the fall, 

 but the net results are in favor of the larger 



ynid. 



* * * 



It is not always that we can arrange hives 

 in a yard to suit our fancy; but that idea of 

 A. A. Clark, page 405, of laying out a yard 

 diamond-shaped with one corner coming to 

 the bee-house, so the distance to travel from 

 any part of the yard will be as direct as 

 jiossitde, is well worth remembering. The 

 time spent by some beekeepers in traveling 

 back and forth, lugging supplies and honey, 

 can not be easily computed, but is in many 

 cases far greater than it should be. I am 

 pleased to notice that Mr. Clark speaks of 

 dandelion as a valuable source of nectar. 

 Also A. C. Ames, on page 424, says he will 

 have several hundred pounds of surplus 

 honey from this source. One of my neigh- 

 bors, two years ago, secured some 150 

 pounds of dandelion honey by extracting be- 

 fore clover bloom. If we take into consider- 

 ation the immense amount that is used in 

 rearing brood at its time of bloom, we must 

 conclude that this plant is one of our most 

 \aluable honey plants. 



* * » 



Ali.lia! Then that story about that won- 

 derful walnut tree growing on Mr. Bur- 

 bank's ground was a little overdrawn (see 

 page 410). We can quite readily overlook 

 the mistake, as Mrs. Puerden has given us 

 much that is of interest in the July number 

 of Gleanings. It was especially gratifying 



SIFTINGS 



J. E. Crane 



1 



%J 



August, 1920 



to read so many 

 nice things about 

 Mr. Burbank af- 

 ter hearing 

 many things dur- 

 ing the past few 

 years to discredit 

 him. How 

 strange it is that 

 wlien a man does 

 a good thing there is almost always some one 

 to discredit him oi' impute his success to 

 selfish motixes. 



* * ¥: 



.Toliu H. Lovell does not exaggerate the 

 value of tlie buttonbush as a honey plant, 

 page 421. It grows freely on the east shore 

 of Lake Champlain along sluggish streams 

 that empty into the lake. Beekeepers find 

 it a most excellent help at the close of the 

 clover and basswood season. 

 » * * 



The loss of bees here in Vermont was 

 heavy, but from the time of dandelion bloom 

 the weather has been unusually favorable. 

 Alsike clover began yielding nectar earlier 

 than usual; so there was only a short gap 

 between fruit bloom and dandelion and 

 clover. The last half of May and first half 

 of June has brought an abundance of mois- 

 ture, and the outlook for honey is very good. 



E. B. Wilson says, jiage 424, that there is 

 a law that forbids any one from shipping 

 honey, bees, queens, or any other apiarian 

 ])roduct either in or out of the State of Mis- 

 sissippi without a certificate of health. Now 

 this is certainly some foul-brood law. From 

 his statement it would seem that no bees- 

 wax can be shijaped in or out of the State 

 without a certificate. The same is true in 

 respect to honey. It seems to me that these 

 are rather unnecessary restrictions since, so 

 far as known, foul brood is rarely, if ever, 

 transmitted thru beeswax, and seldom thru 

 section honey designed for table use. 



-X- * * 



I was surprised to read A. I. Boot's esti- 

 mate, on i^age 430, that one-half of the sur- 

 ])lus honey in the United States might be 

 from sweet clover. And then to think of 

 one firm sending out an average of a car- 

 load of bottled honey a week. My mind 

 runs back 50 years when I read with inter- 

 est M, M. Baldridge's article in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal calling the attention of 

 beekeepers to the value of sweet clover as a 

 honey plant. I recall also that D. W. 

 Quinby of New York begged beekeepers not 

 to send any extracted honey to that market, 

 as there was very little demand for it. And 

 now a small town in Ohio is sending out a 

 carload of honey a week and more than lialf 

 of it sweet-clover honey. I feel like exclaim- 

 ing as a certain old lady did, "Did you 

 ever?" No, I never did expect to live to 

 see such an advance in our chosen pursuit. 

 If my farmer neighbors would only show 

 wove enthusiasm in sowing sweet clover as 

 a farm crop, I should be pleased. 



