598 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



are solid full of sealed honey, claiming, for 

 this plan, yields in excess of others who do 

 not so feed, arguing that, by such a plan, 



DOOUTTLE S WIDE FRAME WITH SECTION'^ 



up and looking through them toward the 

 light) are preferred to any of those which 

 are filled with only clover or bass wood hon- 

 ey, and coming off later, they 

 often selling for a cent or two 

 more a pound than the white, 

 to those knowing about them. 



Having every thing now in 

 readiness, the hive is closed by 

 putting on the cover, when the 

 queen excluder is taken off the 

 hive of brood, and I at once pro- 

 ceed to shake and brush the 

 bees off their combs of brood in 

 front of this prepared hive. 

 To he continued. 



all of the clover honey is put into the sec- 

 tions. I believe they make a mistake. The 

 greater yield ccmes from this fed honey or 

 sugar going up into the sections, together 

 with that gathered at this time from the 

 clover bloom; for I have repeatedly seen 

 such combs of sealed stores all emptied or 

 nearly so, two weeks after the clover be- 

 gan to yield honey, eggs, larvse, and sealed 

 brood taking its place. And another thing 

 which proves to me that very much if not 

 all of the honey which is now in this pre- 

 pared hive goes into the sections, is the 

 color of that stored therein during the time 

 the queen is filling the hive below with 

 brood. Quite a little of the honey left over 

 from the year before, which is given to the 

 bees for stimulative purposes, so ttiat they 

 may think there are "millions of honey at 

 our house," was gathered from buckwheat. 

 Of course, the most of this goes into brood; 

 but often there is enough left, so that, when 

 mixed with the other honey which has been 

 accumulating since these combs were put in 

 the hives during the spring, together with 



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doolittle's queen- excluder with drone- 

 hole. 



that coming in from clover at this time, it 

 will give the honey in the sections from the 

 .first super filled a very delicate pink hue, 

 and a taste not quite like clover in its puri- 

 ty. I thought at first that this part would 

 be against my worked-out plan, but I find 

 that these pinkish- colored sections (ihe 

 :Same being detected only by holding them 



OUR TRIP HOME FROM THE ROBINSON CRUSOE 

 ISLAND. 



At seven o'clock on Monday morning, 

 April 9, Mrs. Root and I stepped into a sail- 

 boat belonging to one of the Shumard boys, 

 to start on our trip for the North, At Sar- 

 asota we checked our baggage home, and 

 then took a trip among ihe bee-keepers and 

 orange- growers in that vicmity. 



Our first stop was at Reasoner Brothers', 

 whom I have mentioned before. This cele- 

 brated tropical nursery had things in extra 

 nice shape for the spring trade, and pack- 

 ages of rare and valuable trees and plants 

 were being shipped, not only all over the 

 United States, but to foreign countries. On 

 my previous visit I mentioned the Reasoner 

 Brothers' plan of shipping potted trees as 

 well as potted plants. On this visit I got 

 hold of another wrinkle that was new to me. 

 There are some rare and valuable tropical 

 fruits that are very hard to bud or graft. 

 The avocado pear (generally called ' ' alliga- 

 tor pear" for short) is one of these. Some 

 of the new and rare varieties are valued so 

 highly that fruits have sold in cities at half 

 a dollar each. Well, in order to propagate 

 these valuable varieties they practice a 

 method that I think is called " in- arching. " 

 They sow the seeds of the avocado, of some 

 good and thrifty variety, and grow little 

 trees in pots. When they are a foot or two 

 high these little pots are placed on a shelf 

 up in the branches of a pear-tree. The lit- 

 tle tree is put against a thrifty branch so 

 the two cross, X fashion. Then they are 

 tied firmly together and wet moss is kept 

 over the junction. After they are united, 

 the top of the liti le tree is cut off just above 

 the juncture. A little later, the limb of the 

 pear-tree is cue off just below where they 



