104 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



prove it. What plants furnish pois- 

 onous honey ? The British Encyclo- 

 pedia gives a list of such plants. If 

 honey will poison a man, will it poi- 

 son a bee ? I should be glad to see 

 an answer to this question from a man 

 who knows, but would care nothing 

 for guess-work. I have some evi- 

 dence but it does not yet amount to 

 a demonstration. I have sold poison 

 honey to neighbors to feed bees ; they 

 claim to know that it will not hurt the 

 bees. They know positively by 

 years of experience and observation 

 that it will poison every man, woman 

 and child that eats it and still feed it 

 to the bees. That a thing will poison 

 insects which is not hurtful to man is 

 a well known fact and there is noth- 

 ing absurd in supposing the converse 

 to be true. As to the idea that a 

 person may get sick on good honey 

 and think it poisoned, this in individ- 

 ual cases may be true. Here in our 

 neighborhood is a plant I have seen 

 nowhere else ; its existence seems 

 to be limited to a few square miles. 

 I suppose as good honey is raised on 

 Long Island as anywhere, but in our 

 section we can only expect to eat the 

 honey that is gathered after the kill- 

 calf is out of blossom. I still have 

 hopes of raising my own honey, al- 

 though last fall in disgust I sold every 

 bee. It is more than forty years 

 since I commenced beekeeping. 

 Kill-calf honey will make any person 

 sick that eats it. It is said that it is 

 not poison because it don't kill. It 

 is in only a small portion of cases a 

 person dies by poison, too much or 

 too litde is not liable to be fatal. 

 Syracuse, N. Y. 



AN INTERESTING RECORD. 



By R. M. Stkvhnson. 



I HAVE been keeping a record of 

 floral bloom for the last five years, 

 and I find that the blooms mentioned 

 below appear about the dates named. 



Those producing pollen and no 

 honey are : 



Water rushes, Feb. i8; Kilmo- 

 nock willows, Feb. 20 ; maples, 

 March 17. 



Pollen and honey : 



Peaches, April i ; pears, April 14 ; 

 plums, April 20; apples, April 22; 

 quinces. May i ; white clover, May 

 18. 



I winter on summer stands, and 

 never have lost a colony. Some win- 

 ters are mild compared with others 

 of the same latitude. The past was 

 the coldest known since 1857, which 

 was 12° or 15° above zero. I see by 

 the papers that at times it has been 

 colder in Georgia and Florida than 

 it has here. 



One word for the "Api." It 

 grows and improves all the time. 

 Notwithstanding its age, it ranks as 

 the best practical bee-paper. 



PocomoJze City, Md. 



INTERESTING FACTS RE- 

 GARDING THE WINTER 

 PROBLEM. 



By O. F. Winter. 



I PRESENT a few facts concerning 

 the amount of hone}'' good strong 

 colonies of bees will use during 

 the first four months of winter. I 

 weighed ray hives the first of Oc- 

 tober and marked the weight of 

 each on the hive. In February I 

 weighed several of them again and 

 they had lost from eight to thir- 

 teen pounds, an average of ten 

 pounds each. These were strong 

 stocks on Langstroth frames, in 

 single-walled hives, six brood- 

 frames and a frame of sections on 

 each side. 



How much will an average col- 

 ony in a chafT-hivc or one in the 

 cellar consume in the same time? 

 Wliat time in winter does a good 

 colony begin to rear brood ? I had 

 a colony robbed of their stores 



