790 



a L E A X I X G S IX BEE CULTURE 



December, 1922 



FROM NORTH, EAST, WEST AND SOUTH 



almost white honey unless it is allowed to 

 ferment on the liives before it is removed. 



A mistake that has crept into the litera- 

 ture of the honey flora of the Florida Keys, 

 and is often quoted, is the credit given to 

 manchineel as a source of surplus. Manehi- 

 neel {Eipi>omane Mancirwlla) is often men- 

 tioned as a valuable honey plant of the 

 Keys. A search for this tree, during the 

 past three years, among the Keys from Mi- 

 ami almost to Key West, has failed to dis- 

 close a single specimen. It is credited with 

 growing here but must be very rare, as it is 

 unknown to the natives living on the Keys. 



Coral-sumac or poisonwood (Metopium tax- 

 ifcrinu) is a common tree and a bountiful 

 honey-producer. While the sap is poison- 

 ous to some people, it is not nearly as much 

 so as the poison ivy. No doubt due to the 

 common name, this plant has been confused 

 with the manchineel, which is said to be the 

 most poisonous plant that grows, but which 

 is too rare to be classed among the honey 

 plants of the Florida Keys. 



Miami, Fla. C. E. Bartholomew. 



* * * 



In Louisiana "^'^^ bees have about 



"knocked off" doing 

 work in this locality for the honey season 

 of 1922. However, goldenrod, thorough- 

 wort, white heartsease and asters are still 

 at work producing nectar in the lower part 

 of the state and will be until December, as 

 there has been no frost as yet. The honey 

 season in Louisiana spreads over 10 or 11 

 months, beginning early in January with 

 the soft maple and ending with the above- 

 mentioned flowers. As a whole this has been 

 a good honey year. The producers who as- 

 sisted their bees when they needed assist- 

 ance have made large crops of honey, and 

 they wear the smile of contentment which 

 rightfully belongs to them. Quite a num- 

 ber of beekeepers measure this season's 

 work by counting the crop in hundreds of 

 barrels. 



The late fall honey flow has been good, 

 and the fine weather has enabled the bees 

 to store all the food they may need to 

 carry them through to spring. As a whole, 

 the bees are in better condition to winter 

 tlian they have been in for years, and this, 

 of course, insures a fine crop in the spring 

 from willow, tupelo gum and white clover, 

 provided weather conditions are good. 



The pound-package business has been 

 greater this past year than ever before, and 

 some record-producing queens have been 

 sliipped from Louisiana to our northern 

 brother beekeepers. The coming season will 

 be a fine one in this respect, and beekeep- 

 ing in Louisiana will, no doubt, be very 

 jirofitable to the man or woman who tries 

 to make it so. E. C. Davis. 



Baton Rouge, La. 



In North Carolina. — Beekeepers gen- 

 erally are get- 

 ting their apiaries settled for the winter in 

 a fairly satisfactory condition, but many are 

 finding it necessary to feed more than had 

 been anticipated. This is due particularly 

 to quite a disappointingly light flow of nec- 

 tar in the fall flora. This has been espeeial- 

 1.V true in the eastern section of the state. 

 However, taken all in all, conditions just 

 now in this state are fairly satisfactory 

 both as to the present status of the bees and 

 as to the outlook for a good honey season 

 next year. 



In the recent State Fair in Raleigh (Octo- 

 ber 16-23) there was, in the Bees and Honey 

 division, an exhibit of 278 pounds of honey, 

 all of No. 1 type, both extracted and comb 

 honey in glass, representing the production 

 of a single colony this season. This was in 

 the general apiary products dis^jlay of the 

 Lower Cape Fear Apiaries, W. J. Martin, 

 AVilmington. It took the blue ribbon and spe- 

 cial first cash premium award for the big- 

 gest single colony yield this season in the 

 state. However, in all the nine yards con- 

 stituting this chain of apiaries, there were 

 scarcely a dozen colonies that anywhere 

 near approached this yield. 



This display of high single-colony output 

 at the State Fair is having an especially im- 

 portant bearing on the campaign that has 

 been on for several years to induce bee- 

 keepers to transfer their bees from the old 

 gum and box hives to the improved hives 

 and give close and intelligent attention to 

 them. The fact was stressed in this exhibit 

 that three years ago this "big yield" hive, 

 along with 150 others, was transferred from 

 tlie gum liive into the Standard "Root Mod- 

 el" ten-frame hive and that this splendid 

 yield is the direct result of the improved 

 quarters and better attention the bees are 

 receiving. Three years ago C. L. Sams, 

 Government Bee Specialist, directed the 

 work of transferring these bees from the 

 gums. At the Fair he procured a splendid 

 ])hotograph of the display of the honey from 

 the single colony. This picture, together 

 witli pictures of the gum hive from which 

 the bees were transferred to the Standard 

 hi\'c, and tliis improved liive, as it stood 

 with its big stack of supers before the hon- 

 ey was taken off, will go to Dr. Pliillips, of 

 the Bureau of Entomology, Washington. D. 

 C. They are to be used in making lantern 

 slides to impress upon beekeepers who still 

 have bees in gums and boxes the advantage 

 that comes from transferring them into the 

 standard hives and giving them intelligent 

 attention. 



The students in the Bee Culture division 

 of tlie State College, directed by J. E. Eck- 

 ert, professor in charge, installed for the 

 State Beekeepers' Association an excellent 



