n LEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE M.w, 1022 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



Beekeepers further iiortli in Louisiana 

 should e-vamine their hives at once, and as- 

 certain if there is room iu the supers to hold 

 this big crop, which is sure to come. Order 

 a full supply of fixtures at once from your 

 nearest dealer. Pay a little more attention 

 to your bees at this season, and you will 

 find there is nothing else on the farm which 

 will pay greater dividends for the small 

 outlay of money invested than your bees. 



Don't forget that the "penny wise and 

 pound foolish" idea cuts deeper in the bee- 

 keeper's pocketbook than almost anything 

 else. If you try to crowd your bees in one 

 or two supers, you force them to swarm; 

 while, on the other hand, if you give them 

 ample room, the bees will pay you over and 

 over again for your expense and trouble. 

 Here in Louisiana in some localities a brood- 

 chamber should have five supers over it, 

 rather than only one, which is usually fur- 

 nished. Try it out this season and find out 

 how fast bees can make money for you. 



Baton Rouge, La. E. C. Davis. 



In Mississippi.- 



.Extemely favorable 

 weather during March 

 and early April has enabled colonies to 

 build up to swarming strength from the Gulf 

 Coast to the Tennessee line. The early 

 blooming honey plants, wild plum, redbud 

 and fruit trees have secreted nectar abund- 

 antly, and the later-blooming plants are in 

 such excellent condition that nothing short 

 of a hard freeze or excessive rains will pre- 

 vent beekeepers in this state from making a 

 bumper crop. A red-letter warning, reading 

 "Beware of Swarming," should be handed 

 each beekeeper down here, for such weather 

 is extremely conducive to swarming and 

 swarming is ruinous to early honey crops. 



Young queens and a hive-body of honey 

 above the brood-chamber are cheap winter 

 insurance in Mississippi. The package bee- 

 men know this and practice it. Their colo- 

 nies are so heavily populated now that I'm 

 sure packages will be cheerfully put up with 

 gospel measure. And remember, Mr. North- 

 ern Beekeeper, our thorough inspection ser- 

 vice assures you that bees from Mississippi 

 are free from foul brood. R. B. Willson. 



Agricultural College, Miss. 



In Florida— The last two weeks in April 

 to the first week in May :s 

 the best period for requeening in this part 

 of Florida. At tliis time the palmetto is 

 trailing out to the end of its bloom, the 

 coral sumac and sea grape are through for 

 the year, and the black mangrove is just 

 beginning to open its first buds here but 

 will not be at its best until around the iM-^^t 

 of June. There is a period just at this 

 time, that varies from year to year, of three 

 to six weeks, during \vliii-]i there is v(»ry lit- 

 tle nectar coming in. 



The old queens slacken in their egg-laying, 

 and many ;snuw signs of failing. Tlus slack- 

 ening in the brood-rearing just at this time 

 means that many colonies will go into the 

 best jpart of the mangrove flow weak in field 

 bees, and the best days of the crop will be 

 past before the field force is back to full 

 strength again. A young laying queen in- 

 troduced at this time will speed up egg-lay- 

 ing and bring the colony up to the mangrove 

 flow in good strength of bees of jusc the 

 right age. 



If the beekeeper is prepared to take ad- 

 vantage of these six weeks preceding the 

 mangrove bloom, he can have two colonies 

 ready to gather the crop from mangrove 

 where he liad one for the palmetto. The 

 colonies have all reached the swarming con- 

 dition on the spring flow, and, if the bee- 

 keeper is provided with young laying queens, 

 he can divide his colonies, and the young 

 queens will boom them along, during this 

 period of little flow, into better colonies 

 than the old colonies would have been with 

 old queens. 



Queens wear out much faster in this cli- 

 mate than in the North and many develop 

 into drone-layers before the end of their 

 first year. Occasionally a queen will de- 

 velop into a drone-layer in a few months, 

 but this is due to poor mating, possibly 

 with a drone reared in a worker-cell from 

 some drone-layer. 



We enjoyed a visit recently from the 

 State Apiary Inspector and his assistant, J. 

 C. Goodwin and Chas. A. Reese, who were on 

 an inspection tour of this section of the 

 state. They said that they had found no 

 disease in this part of the state. Florida 

 enjoys an almost complete freedom from in- 

 fectious bee disease, and, with the few cen- 

 ters of infection being rapidly cleaned up. 

 it will not be long until this state will be 

 entirely free from American foul brood. 

 C. E. Bartliolomew. 

 Key Biscayne, Fla. 



In Southern Indiana.— ^'^ "'=)!'>' ^'^ 



spects tlie com- 

 ing season holds great promise, but in some 

 respects it does not. The winter has been 

 a fair average of our southern Indiana win- 

 ters. There was considera1)le weather when 

 the thermometer registered 10 or 15 above 

 zero, the coldest being 3 above. This con- 

 dition kept the bees contented and they re- 

 mained in their hives most of the time, al- 

 though there were plenty of warm days for 

 them to take cleansing fliglits. The weather 

 gradually warmed up about the first of 

 March so that brood-rearing began a little 

 later in a normal manner. In my own colo- 

 nies, brood-rearing began the latest in the 

 season that I have ever observed it. most 

 colonies containing eggs only about March 

 15. I am not sure whether this was caused 



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