December, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



773 



HEAPS OF GRAIN I DMlCIi rDlFFERENT FI ELDS 



Seven Supers of This season has been a 

 Honey from very prosperous one in this 



Fall Flowers. locality except that the 



swarming was late, princi- 

 pally in the latter part of June and continu- 

 ing to the middle of July and even as late 

 as September. I had one colon}'- start 

 swarming on September 2nd. It filled its 

 10-frame hive by the 14th of September and 

 started in the super. We had an unusual 

 fall crop from smartweed and aster. Some 

 of the fields were white and blue with aster. 

 I never saw so much before and it seems to 

 be increasing every year. There was also 

 an abundance of goldenrod, but the bees of 

 this county don 't seem to work on it very 

 much. I had one colony that gave me over 

 seven supers of fall bloom honey which is 

 light colored and fine. My bees are all go- 

 ing into winter quarters heavy in stores. 

 Julian, Pa. W. "S. Williams. 



Q(= 



Beekeeping in the I find here among my 

 City of Rome. papers the address of a. 



prominent Eoman bee- 

 keeper, who has an apiary on top of a five- 

 story building in the center of Eome. Large 

 potted lemon and orange trees provide 

 shade and act as swarm-catchers. On the 

 floor below he has a large laboratory where 

 he makes experiments for the government. 

 The walls are hung with hundreds of med- 

 als and diplomas from all the prominent 

 cities in Europe. I spent a most pleasant 

 day with him, conversing in broken Italian 

 on my part and broken English on his. His 

 name is Cav. Prof. Antonia Costantini, Di- 

 rettore del R. Osservatorio di Apicultura, 

 Rome, Italy. 



I was directed to him thru the Italian 

 Minister of Agriculture on my return from 

 the Balkans in 1918. He lives on the fourth 

 floor of a mediaeval building on one of the 

 most busy and crowded streets of Eome. 



After I introduced myself, the good man 

 became intensely interested to learn the 

 latest developments in American beekeep- 

 ing. I had a most pleasant chat with him 

 in my broken Italian. Mr. Costantini is a 

 most remarkable man of about 55 years of 

 age. His modesty restrained him from talk- 

 ing about himself, but the walls of his oflSce 

 gave evidence of great bee activities in his 

 past years. All the available space on his 

 walls was taken up with diplomas, gold, sil- 

 ver, and bronze medals from all over the 

 world, including one from the Exposition in 

 Chicago, also ribbons and badges from bee- 

 keepers' societies, and several orders. 



A small staircase leads from his office to 

 the roof of the building where he kept an 

 apiary of about 70 colonies. The size of the 

 roof was about 75x150 feet, surrounded on 

 all sides by a wall about four feet high. The 

 apiary is divided by streets and avenues into 



several blocks. In the midst of each block 

 grows a fair-sized orange tree in a tub. 

 There is also an alley of orange trees and 

 lemon trees along the four walls, furnishing 

 abundant shade for the apiary. The bee- 

 hives are arranged symmetrically in each 

 block with a space between filled with pot- 

 ted plants, such as almonds, fig trees or 

 shrubs, bay trees, palms, etc. The hives are 

 placed on low stands just convenient to han- 

 dle. They are his own make, resembling 

 closely eight-frame Langstroth hives. 



His sj'stem is modern and up to date, 

 with frames all wired horizontally and ver- 

 tically. The bees are the dark leather-col- 

 ored variety, almost red. They were very 

 gentle, and at the time I was there (Octo- 

 ber) had a brood-chamber and one super 

 completely filled with brood and honey, al- 

 tho the honey had been extracted twice 

 during the summer. Mr. Costantini 's re- 

 search work in 1918 was principally along 

 the lines of increased production of honey 

 for the war. His bees have to travel from 

 two to three miles toward the Sabine Hills 

 where they have their principal pasture out- 

 side of the rather extensive parks and gar- 

 dens of the city of Rome. 



St. Paul, Minn. Francis Jager. 



Does Pollination There is a general be- 

 Stimulate Growth, lief that the develop- 

 of Fruit Body? ment of seed inside the 



fruit-body uncondition- 

 ally influences the development of the fruit- 

 body itself. That this is not so, can be 

 seen from the seedless orange, the seedless 

 tomato, and the banana. In none of these 

 instances are seeds desired, but the develop- 

 ment of the fruit-body takes place all the 

 same in consequence of the pollination. 

 St. Thomas, V. I. Alex Hoist. 



Bees as The term "pets," as applied to 

 Pets. bees, has always seemed to me in- 

 congruous— "pet" conveying to 

 my mind the idea of something to be fon- 

 dled and caressed. I have, however, been 

 converted to believe that bees may be pets. 



A friend of mine who recently acquired 

 a colony of bees is very enthusiastic over 

 her new acquisition. She is often heard to 

 remark: "I do love my bees." During the 

 very warm weather when the bees clustered 

 out evenings, she would go to the hive and 

 actually pet her bees, passing her hand over 

 the cluster as tho it were the back of a cat 

 (tho, of course, more lightly), and then re- 

 mark, "Oh, they are so nice and soft! " And 

 this despite the fact that when her bees 

 swarmed she was stung five times on one 

 foot. Magdalen Sproull. 



Freeport, N. Y. 



