1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



17 



secured in the State, Texas had something 

 like 400,000 colonies of bees within her bor- 

 ders, and produced something like 5,000,000 

 lbs. of honey, or an average of only about 12 

 lbs. per colony, as there are so many small bee- 

 keepers in the State. But even at that low 

 average he thought that Texas was in the 

 lead in the annual output of honey. But 

 in this I believe he was mistaken. This 

 5,000,000 lbs. of honey in cars would make 

 an aggregate of from 100 to 150 carloads. 

 California will equal that in any of its years, 

 and in a good year it will produce all of 500 

 carloads. But Texas, while it may not yet 

 be in the lead, is quite likely to step clear to 

 the forefront. Large in size, it has vast 

 areas of honey-producing plants— plants that 

 will never be used for any thing but forage 

 for cattle and forage for bees. He would 

 divide the State as follows: In Northern 

 Texas— north of Fort Worth— there would 

 be but very few bees, for cattle-raising was 

 the principal business. In the eastern part 

 there were very large pine forests and rice 

 lands, and a good deal of basswood. But 

 the trouble was, that that part of the State 

 was not yet settled, and there were but very 

 'few bees to gather the honey. Central Tex- 

 as was the great cotton belt where large 

 quantities of cotton honey were produced, 

 and some horsemint. Western Texas was a 

 somewhat mountainous portion, and only 

 some localities there produced honey like su- 

 mac. Southern Texas, below Houston, was 

 a low swampy plain where grows the ratan 

 that yields a large lot of honey but of poor 

 quahty. 



THE BEE PARADISE OF TEXAS. 



But Southwest Texas was a land of milk 

 and honey— a locality that could not be sur- 

 passed anywhere in the world— where there 

 was an almost unlimited amount of bee pas- 

 turage such as mesquite, guajilla, catclaw, 

 and many other plants too numerous to men- 

 tion. In this part of the country there 

 were many good available bee locations, but 

 they were too remote from railroads and 

 civilization. One would have to push out in 

 the woods and draw his crop to the railroads 

 some fifty miles. 



It is this country I visited myself some 

 three or four years ago, and which I thought 

 was the bee paradise of all America. 



Regarding his experimental work at the 

 college, Mr. Scholl stated that at College 

 Station, Texas, there was an apiary of forty 

 colonies with a bee-house, and a full equip- 

 ment kept there for show and for the use of 

 students, and to carry on experimental 

 work. He thought it was the best experi- 

 ment apiary in the United States. It was 

 established in 1902, with an appropriation of 

 $750 to start with. Later on the appropria- 

 tion was increased, so that the station has 

 been able to improve its facilities and use- 

 fulness. Many different kinds of plants for 

 honey had been tested— as many as forty; 

 but there were found only a few adapted to 

 the conditions in Texas. 



Mr. Scholl also said they had tested sev- 

 eral races of bees; and when the results 



were fully collected they would be publish- 

 ed. He outlined a number of experiments 

 that he had in mind, and hoped to give the 

 bee-keepers the result of them later on. 



Following the address of Mr. Scholl was. 

 an exhaustive paper by Frank Benton, Api- 

 cultural Investigator of the Department of 

 Agriculture, Washington, D. C, on the sub- 

 ject of— 



WORK IN APICULTURE AT THE UNITED STATES 

 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



He paid a glowing tribute to the late Dr. 

 C. V. Riley, his old chief, who, although not 

 a bee-keeper himself, was very much inter- 

 ested in the general subject of bees; and if 

 some of his plans could have been carried 

 into effect, apiculture at the Department 

 might have been put forward several years. 

 He quoted from the doctor's address made 

 at the North American Bee-keepers' con- 

 vention at Washington in 1892, in which Dr. 

 Riley had said that some of the most benefi- 

 cent and far-reaching work of the Depart- 

 ment was done during its early history, when 

 its means were limited, and when the field 

 was fresh. Beginning about the f^rst edi- 

 tion of Langstroth's celebrated work, or 

 nearly a decade before a bee periodical had 

 been printed in the English language, the 

 Department reports from year to year gave 

 some notice of progress in bee culture by 

 publishing statistics of honey, and on sever- 

 al occasions excellent little treatises on bees 

 and bee management. Probably but very 

 few knew that the Department of Agricul- 

 ture had any thing to do with the introduc- 

 tion of Italian bees into the United States. 

 The fact was, the first successful importa- 

 tion of Italian bees from their native land to 

 America was made by the Department, and 

 it was almost wholly from this importation 

 that such successful apiarists as Langstroth, 

 Carey, and Quinby bred and disseminated 

 the race during the early 60 's. Dr. Riley, 

 while not a successful bee-keeper, nor, in 

 fact, could ever be classed as a bee-keeper, 

 was very much interested in having apicul- 

 ture recognized by Congress. It is not sur- 

 prising that he was disposed to view favor- 

 ably the establishing of an apicultural sta- 

 tion in 1885 in connection with his entomo- 

 logical work in the Department. In this he 

 was ably supported by Mr. N. W. McLain, 

 an old-time friend and an enthusiastic bee- 

 keeper. This was at a time when there was 

 no special appropriation for apiculture, nor, 

 indeed, any thing during the whole of Dr. 

 Riley's administration; but in spite of this 

 he had been instrumental in getting the sta- 

 tion started, the funds being drawn from 

 the general appropriation for the Division of 

 Entomology, for he believed that he was 

 fulfilling both the spirit and the letter of 

 the law which authorized the expenditure of 

 certain sums for the promotion of economic 

 entomology. 



At this point Mr. Benton, lest those fa- 

 miliar with what had been printed on the 

 subject should call him to account for the 

 foregoing, digressed to correct a mistake 

 made by W. K. Morrison in Gleanings for 



