458 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Viper's-Bugloss.— Adam H. Wall- 

 bridge, Jr., Bellville,Out., on July 13, 

 1886, writes : 



Within the last four years there has 

 appeared here a plant or weed the 

 name of which I do not know, but it 

 is visited by bees constantly in pref- 

 erence even to white clover. It must 

 be an excellent honey-plant. Is it the 

 rag-weed V This is the onlv thing I 

 can liken it to, yet it does not exactly 

 answer the shape of the flowers on 

 that plant. Would you be kind 

 enough to favor me with the name of 

 the plant, and if convenient its value 

 as a bee-plant V 



[The plant sent by Mr. Wallbridge, 

 is viper's-biigloss, or Echium vidgare. 

 Gray says it is a troublesome weed in 

 Virginia, but rare in the North. I 

 think I have heard Mr. D. A. Jones 

 say that he considered this one of our 

 best honey-plants, and I well remem- 

 ber seeing it entirely covering the 

 waste places about one of his bee- 

 yards. It is a large plant with 

 dense blue flowers, and with its near 

 relative, borage, seems to secrete 

 in " rain or shine."— A. J. Cook.] 



Discouraging Prospects.— Ira Bar- 

 ber, De Kalb Junction, 6 iST. Y., on 

 July 12, 1886, writes : 



The prospect is that the crop in this 

 locality will be a perfect failure. 

 There has been quite a fair amount 

 of clover, but it has only secreted just 

 enough honey to give bees a living, 

 and a light start in the sections. 

 Basswood has been in bloom nearly a 

 week, but so far there has been no 

 honey in the flowers, and it must 

 secrete honey soon or we will not get 

 any of the sections tilled. Swarming 

 has been the lightest that I have ever 

 known, as only 8 colonies have cast 

 swarms in my yard of 140 colonies. 

 My opinion now is that the outlook 

 for surplus honey from this locality 

 this year will not lower the market 

 price of honey in the cities very 

 much. 



Bees in Florida.— John Y. Det- 

 wiler. New Smyrna,© Fla., on July 2, 

 1886, reports : 



Bees are comparatively idle, so far 

 as external appearance of the hives 

 are concerned. Prospects seem favor- 

 able for a heavy bloom of the cabbage 

 palmetto later. So far I have not 

 observed any mangrove bloom. For 

 several days I have been engaged in 

 clearing a piece of mangrove marsh 

 near my residence. I And nearly half 

 of the larger trees killed to the root, 

 and the balance throwing out sprouts 

 from the body several feet from the 

 ground. I have not the least doubt 

 but that in two years from now, our 

 supply of bloom from that source will 

 be more than sufficient for all the 

 colonies on the coast. 



Teasel Honey.— C. A.Camp,Paines- 

 ville,c$ O., on July 2, 1886, writes : 



It has recently come to light through 

 private sources, that Mr. Doolittle's 

 success of $1,000 per year from less 

 than 100 colonies of bees, comes from 

 teasel, which is cultivated. Now of 

 what worth is his experience to any 

 one who does not raise or have teasel? 

 And why has he not told the world 

 where his honey came from V I have 

 written to the other bee-papers about 

 the teasel matter. Probably there is 

 not 10 square miles of teasel in the 

 United States. 



[Mr. Camp must have been sleeping 

 while so much has been said about 

 " teasel for honey " in the bee-periodi- 

 cals. It has been well understood 

 that Mr. Doolittle's honey crop came 

 from " teasel " for several years ; but 

 lately it has been of but little value 

 because of its being killed in winter 

 so easily, and its consequent un- 

 reliability as a crop. In 1877 he was 

 awarded the " Thurber Gold Medal " 

 on honey from " teasel," and it was 

 so stated at the time in all the bee- 

 papers, and we here re- produce the 



engraving of teasel wliich we then 

 used in the Bee Journal in pub- 

 lishing the account of that medal 

 award. It is not, and never has been 

 a " secret," and we cannot imagine 

 where Mr. Camp has been during the 

 past decade, not to have known it. — 

 Ed.] 



My Experience with Bees.— A. B. 



Colquhoun, Blooming Prairie, 9Minn., 

 on July 5, 1886, writes : 



On July 4, 1885, 1 obtained a young 

 but tine colony of Italian bees. They 

 went to work immediately, and by 

 fall had 30 pounds of surplus honey 

 gathered, but I only took half of it 

 out until spring. I put them in the 

 cellar on Dec. 3. and took them out 

 on the 12th of last April. I cleaned 

 the dead bees out of the hive every 

 week or two during the winter, and I 

 think half of them died, but they were 



pretty strong in the spring. I have 

 obtained 20 pounds of nice honey, 

 gathered this spring from the willows, 

 dandelions and white clover. They 

 swarmed five times, but the last 

 swarm was so small that I caught the 

 queen and returned the swarm to the 

 old hive, so tliat I have tive good 

 colonies. Being afraid that the old 

 colony might swarm again, I looked 

 over the frames and found as many 

 as a dozen queen-cells, all of which I 

 cut out, as well as a lot of drone- 

 comb, and placed them so that I could 

 see whether the bees would build 

 drone-comb again or not, and I tind 

 that they are not; they are building it 

 up with worker-comb instead. My 

 first swarm came out on June 14 ; the 

 next on June 24; the next on June 26; 

 the next on June 27 ; but the old 

 colony is still pretty strong. In the 

 hive of the second swarm I had strips 

 of foundation about an inch wide 

 stuck all along the frames. I had a 

 glass in one side of the hive so that I 

 could see what they were doing. They 

 commenced to work on the other side 

 of the hive, and have some of the 

 combs built pretty nearly down, and 

 I have been watching, and they have 

 not built one bit of drone-comb yet. 



Abundant Yield..— Wilson Sherman 

 & Son, Chester Centre,? Iowa, on 

 July 12, 1886, write : 



Tliere has been an abundant yield 

 of honey through central Iowa this 

 season. Our bees have done the best 

 this season that we ever have had 

 bees do since we commenced keeping 

 bees. We commenced tlie spring 

 with 20 colonies, increased them to 

 28, and obtained 3,400 pounds of white 

 clover honey. I do not think we will 

 have a very large fall crop, as we 

 have not had a good rain ifor two 

 months. 



The Season in California.— S. M. 



W. Easley, Newbury Park,? Calif., 

 on July 3, 188(i, writes : 



The honey season for this part of 

 Southern California is now over. The 

 production was much less than was 

 expected. The early warm weather 

 in January and February, and the 

 cold in March and April, and then no 

 rain in May or June, has made the 

 honey yield one-half or two-thirds less 

 than in 1884. I moved my bees last 

 year when they were full of brood 

 and honey, and lost nearly one-half ; 

 and what I had left was in poor con- 

 dition. I started with 280 colonies 

 and increased them to 624, which I 

 expect to reduce to 500 by uniting, as 

 the season has turned outso dry. My 

 yield per colony has been 98 pounds 

 of extracted honey. The average 

 yield of 2,000 colonies in tliis part of 

 Ventura county, has been 124 pounds. 

 My yield per colony was 317 pounds 

 for 1884. Last year I took no honey, 

 except four tons that I left in the 

 supers in 1884. As you can see by 

 the market report, honey is very low 

 in San Francisco, though I think 

 prices are likely to come up soon. 



