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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



derstood, too, that the first new honey, like 

 the first strawberries on the market, usually 

 brings the highest price, even if it be not 

 ripened down to the fine point described by 

 our correspondent. 



Mr. White's method of manipulating his 

 combs to let them ripen is one that he is 

 compelled to follow by reason of the fact 

 that he uses the old chaff" hives, which can 

 not be tiered up. When a colony is supplied 

 with thirteen or fourteen combs, instead of 

 extracting, as many would do to get more 

 room, returning the combs, he takes those 

 same combs and puts them on another colo- 

 ny which he has made up as he describes, 

 where they will continue the process of rip- 

 ening. If he were using hives such as we 

 are using, tiering up three or four high, he 

 would be spared this trouble. 



Mr. White speaks of the fact that, when 

 an article is really first-class, purchasers of 

 it will be inclined to tell their friends about 

 it. There is such a thing as getting so much 

 goodness or value into a thing that it sells 

 itself. As an illustration, I think that at 

 least a dozen people have recommended to 

 me the Gillette razor that does not need to 

 be sharpened. I was urged to take one on 

 thirty days' trial. I did so, and now I am 

 recommending it to my friends — not because 

 I am interested in the sale of it, nor because 

 I get a commission, but because I like to 

 help my friends by telling them about a real- 

 ly good thing. The Gillette people do not 

 advertise in our columns, so there is no ax 

 to grind in making this statement. 



To illustrate again, we have a few cus- 

 tomers who send here for maple syrup of a 

 certain brand. There is a certain farmer 

 near here who never has to find customers 

 for any of his maple syrup. The scramble 

 is to see who will be able to get some of his 

 fine goods, for everybody tells about this 

 man's syrup. 



Well, to come back to our subject, our 

 friend Dan White is one of those men who 

 produce a strictly fancy extracted honey 

 that is in a class by itself. «.Why is it fancy? 

 Because he lets it ripen on the hive. He 

 has never complained about having trouble 

 in selling honey. The fact is, he can never 

 pr-^duce enough to take care of his trade. 



For years Mr. White made his boast that 

 the uncapping-knife goes over every inch of 

 his combs before he extracts. I have been 

 in some extracting-yards where not all the 

 combs were capped over; and I have heard 

 complaints concerning the honey coming 

 from those same yards, that it was adulter- 

 ated because it tasted queer, when, as a 

 matter of fact, it was pure honey, but not 

 ripened as it should have been. — Ed.] 



A FEW OF THE HONEY-PLANTS OF CUBA. 



BY LESLIE BURR. 



Pamarosa. — The greatest honey-produc- 

 ing plant, if you count the individual blos- 

 soms, is the pamarosa. It is a tree that is 

 found quite generally along our mountain 



streams, and has a heavy dark-green foli- 

 age. The blossom is a fuzzy-looking ball 

 about the size of a woman's fist. The cen- 

 ter of it is a cup, half to three-quarters of 

 an inch in diameter. You look into one of 

 those blossoms (a bee has just left it). All 

 you see is the smooth shiny cup; but look 

 again in a minute and there are two or three 

 drops of nectar at diff'erent points inside the 

 cup. This the blossom continues to do all 

 through the day. As one bee leaves with a 

 load another takes its place. Each blossom is 

 continually worked from morning till night. 



Mango. —This is a tree that has a habit of 

 blooming at all seasons of the year. Some 

 trees bloom every month in the year. But 

 it matters little to the bee-keeper how many 

 general periods of bloom the mango has, he 

 can count on getting honey from but one of 

 them. That is generally in February or 

 March, at which time the bulk of the fruit 

 is set. 



Algaroba. — Besides being a honey-plant 

 this is one of the grandest shade-trees in the 

 world. The trunks of those trees, ' ' fifteen 

 or twenty feet above the ground," branch 

 out into several large limbs which form a 

 giant umbrella, giving a dense shade all 

 through the summer. 



Black Mangrove. —This grows on swampy 

 land near the sea, ' ' which is also the home 

 of the hungriest mosquitoes in the world." 

 which is one reason why I know but very 

 little about it. But I can say this much: I 

 have seen it in bloom, and a bee-yard but a 

 short distance away, and not a bee to be 

 found on the blossoms. 



Royal Palm.— This is one of the most 

 valuable plants to the bee-keeper. Plenty 

 of royal palms, and the problem of summer 

 pasturage is solved— that is, if they are of the 

 right kind, for there are two. The Cubans 

 call them "palma real" and "palma cre- 

 oUa. " The first grows very tall, with a 

 spindling trunk, "which, as it grows taller, 

 shrinks in diameter." It seldom blossoms, 

 and when it does the clusters are small and 

 bear but very little fruit. 



The "palma creolla" grows but about 

 half or two-thirds the height of the first 

 kind, and the trunks average about twice 

 the diameter. It blossoms regularly, there 

 generally being two bunches of berries that 

 can be cut at the same time. The buds are 

 great green pods four to five feet long, and 

 six to nine inches in diameter. I have seen 

 bunches of these palm berries that, when 

 cut from the tree, were all that a man cared 

 to lift off the ground. 



Then, again, the royal palms do not grow 

 to a great extent all over the island. There 

 are plenty of them in the provinces of Pinar 

 del Rio and Havana; but by the time you 

 get to Santa Clara they are few and far be- 

 tween—so much so, in fact, that the natives 

 thatch their houses with grass. 



Puerto Principe is a land of woods and 

 jungle, just one solid mass of vegetation, 

 but lacks the royal palm for summer and the 

 bellflower for midwinter. If it had those it 

 would be a bee-keeper's paradise. 



