990 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 1 



cy of recombing and subjecting the hive to 

 hot steam every so often, merely as a pre- 

 caution. 



THE HONEY CROP THIS SEASON, AND PRICES, 

 AGAIN. 



There is very little to add to what has 

 already been given, except to say that there 

 will be some shrmkage from early esti- 

 mates as to the amount of honey there 

 would be from the Eastern States. It now 

 begins to look as if the aggregate of comb 

 and extracted honey for table purposes 

 would be light. I see no reason why prices 

 should not be as firm as last year at least. 



A KINK WORTH KNOWING ABOUT ROBBING. 



If the apiary has been comparatively qui- 

 et, and no robbing, and the bees suddenly 

 get into the honey-house, so that the room 

 is fairly swarming with them, you will prob- 

 ably find it better and cheaper in the end to 

 shut the door and brimstone all the bees in 

 the room Every one of these bees, if let 

 out, will bring dozens and dozens more. It 

 seems a pity to kill good bees; but the num- 

 ber will not begin to compensate for the de- 

 moraUzation of the whole yard, as these 

 bees would do if let loose. If, however, 

 robbing has been going on day after day, 

 more or less, so that the whole apiary has 

 been in an uproar, there will be no use in 

 killing off bees in this way inside of a build- 

 ing When robbers first start in the sea- 

 son is the time to kill them before they get 

 away, if possible; and see that no further 

 chance for other bees to get in to sip the 

 stolen sweets is offered. , ■, , 



The principle in this case is a good deal 

 like that of quelling a riot. The officers of 

 the law know that the way to cure a not is 

 to stop it at the very inception-not to kill 

 off the leaders, but to lock them up before 

 they inflame the general populace. 



ROBBING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES; PREVEN- 

 TION BETTER THAN CURE. 



About this time in most localities bees 

 will be inchned to rob. Look out for ex- 

 nosed combs or sections of honey, ihey 

 may be stored away in a honey-house pro- 

 vided it is absolutely bee- proof; but because 

 of the fact that some one may leave the 

 honey- house door open, and cheap labor is 

 apt to do it sooner or later, I advise storing 

 all combs of sealed stores, whether for the 

 purpose of giving bees winter feed or for 

 late extracting in hive-bodies or supers. If 

 the bottom-board be removed, and the hive 

 lies flat on the floor or on a flat board, it 

 will be tight at the bottom. Several hives 

 of supers may now be piled on top, each till- 

 ed with combs. An ordinary cover may sur- 

 mount the whole, but it would be better to 

 shut it in with a wire screen, such as is used 

 for moving bees. If the combs of honey 

 are thus stored away, and the honey-house 

 door should accidentally be left open, or the 

 bees should perchance find a hole througn 



the walls of the building, no harm will be 

 done. 



In the same way, all open cans of feed or 

 of honey should be protected by a cheese- 

 cloth covering that has an elastic band or 

 rubber cord inserted in its edges so as to fit 

 tight when stretched over the can. 



RED CLOVER AS A HONEY-PLANT; A FEW IN- 

 TERESTING FACTS. 



The article by Mr. Doolittle in his regular 

 department, on this subject, is correct in 

 every detail, from my experience and obser- 

 vation. He is exactly right when he says 

 nearly all Italians will gather more honey 

 from red clover some seasons than others; 

 and he is equally correct, too, when he says 

 the corolla tubes are shorter dry seasons 

 (when the bees can work on them) and long- 

 er wet seasons. But our bees here at Me- 

 dina (it may be the locality) , while they will 

 work on the plant better some seasons than 

 others, work on it every season more or less. 



RED CLOVER YIELDS MORE HONEY IN SOME 

 LOCALITIES THAN IN OTHERS. 



Another thing not mentioned by Mr. Doo- 

 little' is that red clover will yield more hon- 

 ey in some localities than others. In fact, 

 in some places it doesn't yield at all. This 

 is true of nearly all honey-plants, and espe- 

 cially of buckwheat. The soil in our locality 

 has little or no sand in it. It makes the 

 worst kind of mud and the most abominable 

 roads in winter that can be found anywhere 

 in the Un-ted States. While I do not claim 

 that this soil is especially adapted to a rank 

 growth of red clover (for I think the con- 

 trary is true), the corolla tubes, as Doolittle 

 explains, are not so rank in growth, and con- 

 sequently shorter. 



Some years ago, when our bees were doing 

 their beat on red clover, I reported that the 

 outer fringe of honey-tubes of these clover 

 heads was shorter than those nearer the 

 center. I was quite nonplused two or three 

 years afterward to find that all the tubes 

 were about the same length all over the 

 heads. I had told our readers that the rea- 

 son why Italians could gather honey from 

 red clover was because there were some 

 short corolla tubes on each head near the 

 outer edges. Along about that time Prof. 

 Gillette, of the Colorado Experiment Sta- 

 tion, at Fort Collins, called my attention to 

 the fact that it was not always true. 1 in- 

 tended to make my acknowledgments at 

 the time, and now do so with pleasure, since 

 Mr. Doolittle has called the matter up. 



A CASE IN POINT. 



A little incident right here will serve to 

 emphasize one or two facts that I have given. 

 Our north yard, where we rear most of our 

 red clover queens, has several fields of red 

 clover adjoining it, for we furnished the 

 farmers the seed of both red clover and al- 

 sike free of charge. Well, when one of 

 those farmers began to cut his red clover 

 this season we came near having a bad sting- 



