GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



August, 192S 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



iii.'ike nuclei during tlie lioney How and give 

 them cells that were grafted from larvae of 

 our best colonies. When these young queens 

 are laying we introduce them with cages to 

 such colonies as most need the replacing of 

 old and poor queens. We do no more of 

 this than we can and get away with it with- 

 out starting robbing. 



Our policy now is, "Never kill a queen, 

 when there is no honey flow, unless you can 

 replace her with a laying queen at once. ' ' 

 The robbing spirit may be kept down with 

 the policy that an ounce of prevention is 

 worth a pound of cure. We think American 

 foul brood is spread more in this way than 

 in any other way. With us the month of 

 August is mostly occupied with extracting 

 honey and a little requeening. 



Greenville, Wis. Edw. Hassinger, Jr. 



In Georcia This season has been rather 



o * peculiar in that local con- 

 ditions in this immediate region varied so 

 greatly in localities not far apart and simi- 

 lar in general conditions. The honey croji 

 seems to have been pretty good over a large 

 part of the Coastal Plain region, but in 

 some places it was too dry and in others 

 too wet at a critical time in the honey flow. 

 In some localities of this nature, a too 

 rapid change from dry to very wet, and 

 again to dry weather, was not conducive to 

 a very good yield of honey. In this local- 

 ity, the earliest honey plants did not yield 

 the bees quite enough for breeding purposes; 

 but, as they generally had abundant stores 

 from last year, they were ready for the 

 main honej^ flow from tupelo gum and gall- 

 berry, which came into bloom at nearly the 

 same time and yielded fairly well for about 

 a month. Those were followed by the bloom 

 of summer titi and saw palmetto and large 

 fields of cantaloupes, which were yielding a 

 moderate surplus until a very wet spell of 

 weather suddenly set in when, for some 

 weeks, the bees drew heavily on their stores 

 until the weather became settled again. 

 They are now doing fairly well on cotton 

 and a weed, lately introduced, called "Mex- 

 ican clover," or "Florida Purslane," which 

 resembles neither a clover nor purslane but 

 is botanically known as Richardia scahra. 

 This plant is spreading rapidly in this region 

 and yields a light colored honey of good 

 quality, ratlier superior to cotton or velvet- 

 brown honey. The nectar from the latter 

 is due to be coming in soon, and more of it 

 than that from any other late summer plant. 

 Tf weather conditions were always favor- 

 al)le there would be practically a continu- 

 ous flow of honey in this region from about 

 March 15 until November. Tf the people 

 could see the folly of so much burning of 

 veget.nble matter in woods and fields, tlnis 

 imjioverishing the soil as well as destroying 

 much valiiablo bee pasturage, both the agri- 



cultural and apicultural interests uf this 

 section would be enhanced. 



The honey produced in this immediate 

 section is generally sold in a retail and job- 

 bing way and, being of good quality, sells 

 rapidly enough so that the crop is disposed 

 of some time before the new crop comes in. 

 Consequently the market is never badly 

 glutted and prices remain quite firm in nor- 

 mal times. T. W. Livingston. 



Norman Park, Ga. 



In Porto Rico. "^he coffee plant or 



shrub plays a very im- 

 portant part in the honey yields of Porto 

 Eico. Not that coffee in itself yields heav- 

 ily; but, being a rather delicate shrub, it 

 cannot withstand the direct rays of the 

 sun, which are broken by the large trees 

 grown for shade. These trees are all le 

 guminous, and are heavy yielders of nec- 

 tar, given the blossoms and proper weather 

 conditions. 



The northern beekeeper located here fre- 

 quently runs into the old canard of bees in- 

 juring fruit or, to localize it, coffee. I have 

 talked with natives who make the claim 

 that the bees are destroying the coffee in- 

 dustry of the Island. One would think the 

 educated classes would know better, but 

 they do not appear to. Coffee-growers them- 

 selves, as a class, claim that the bee in 

 gathering the nectar from the blossoms in- 

 jures the flower so that no fruit is produced. 



An article two columns long published 

 lately in one of the leading papers of the 

 Island, the "El Mundo, " has a vicious at- 

 tack on the honeybee along these^ lines. The 

 writer claims that not only the blossoms are 

 ruined by the bees but that all pollen is 

 stolen by them. This prevents the blossoms 

 from being fertilized, and further that in 

 stealing tlie nectar from the blossoms the 

 setting seed is robbed of this nectar (food) 

 which it needs for the first few days of its 

 existence. 



I am sure the scientific world would take 

 note of the unusual ideas of the writer of 

 this article, who is too modest to put his 

 name to the end of it. No doubt we should 

 all like to have some idea of the foundation 

 he has for his rather original view-point on 

 the needs of the coffee berry. 



From all I can glean in reading on fer- 

 tilization, the flowers which need the in- 

 sects for pollenization are those which yield 

 nectar, wliose pollen is sticky or viscid and 

 whose blossoms are more or less brilliant. 

 All this applies to the coffee blossom, which 

 is a pretty star-like flower, white in color 

 and an inch or more across. 



The Island has been receiving a fair rain- 

 fall, which should stimulate the production 

 of blossoms in the near future. Also it has 

 been uinisually warm for this time of year. 



