518 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



vigorouf? plant, growing about 3 feet 

 high, with a great profusion of flowers, 

 which are a little larger than those of 

 our indigenous ligwort. It blooms 

 from the 1st of July to the middle of 

 August. The bees work on it with 

 great relish, it being the first to be 

 visited in the morning, and the last to 

 be abandoned at night. I have counted 

 12 bees at work upon one plant at a 

 time, about seven being the average 

 number to a plant at work all day. 

 One could well imagine wliat a roar of 

 buzzing bees on an acre of this plant 

 would make. It may be difficult to 

 propagate, on account of the small- 

 nsss of the seed. I will carefully test 

 it and report again. 



The >S. vernaiis is a large, easily pro- 

 pagated plant, and jirornises to be a 

 decided acquisition. Its large green 

 pubescent leaves now spread out over 

 the ground a space of two feet for each 

 plant, with a prospect of many flower 

 stems. It is perennial, and will not 

 bloom until another year. 



The best method of propagating 

 these plants, which will include the 

 figwort or Simpson honey phuit, is to 

 prepare ridges in the fall of tlie year 

 about 3 inches above the level of tlie 

 soil, or high enough to shed water, 

 and four feet apart. The seed should 

 be sown in February or March, or be- 

 fore hard freezing weather ceases in 

 late winter. Taking advantage of a 

 thaw, when a drill a half incli deep 

 siiould he scratched on the ridges and 

 the seed thinly sown and covered. 

 The plants appear later than ordinary 

 weeds, are very small at first, and re- 

 quire care to cultivate, keeping all 

 weeds down. After they are two 

 inches high, they may be thinned out 

 to a foot apart, or they may be trans- 

 planted readily by taking the soil with 

 the roots. 



From a comparison of many kinds 

 of honey plants, I am led to believe 

 that the most reliable and valuable 

 have tubular flowers. The clovers, 

 golden honey plant, motherwort, cat- 

 nip, horsemint, teasel, sourwood, but- 

 ton-bush, boneset, goldenrod, the 

 asters, and tlie several varieties of the 

 scrnphularia, of which figwort is one, 

 have all tubular flowers, which pre- 

 vents speedy evaporation of nectar. 

 On tlie contrary, tliere are few really 

 good honey plants having open flowers. 

 Among these the basswood and tulip 

 tree stand first. In the former the 

 nectar is secreted in the cup-shaped 

 divisions of the calyx, which, with the 

 protection of the corolla and stamens, 

 liinders evaporation. The flowers of 

 the tulip tree secrete a large amount 

 of nectar, but, as it is greatly exposed, 

 there is reason to believe that much 

 of it is wasted. 



The most open flower that I have 

 seen is that of the spider plant, but 

 it does not secrete a particle of nectar 

 afterS o'clock a.m., or if it does, it is 

 all lost by evaporation. The flower 

 opens aboiit .5 p.m.. and secretes nec- 

 tar very rapidly. The bees then be- 

 gin work, but darkness soon overtakes 

 them. l'>y morrting a large drop can 

 be seen in every flower, whicli if not 

 taken by the bc'es soon disappears. 

 Onlv about 4 hours of the day are 

 available to the bees to work on this 



plant. Although the drop of nectar is 

 large, a very much larger quantity is 

 secreted in the capacious flowers of 

 the IScrophidariu clirysaniha and fig- 

 wort, which form nectar continually 

 night and day, but most freely when 

 the sun shines. 



The cleome, which is related to the 

 spider plant, is a fair honey plant, the 

 nectar being protected by a little bract 

 upon the upper side of the stamens ; 

 but it is available to flies, ants, bugs, 

 and bees almost withoutnnmber. No 

 other flower except the basswood is so 

 pestered by all kinds of insects. 



The mustards, including rape, the 

 milkweeds, mignonette and buckwiieat 

 have all open flowers, and it is indis- 

 putable that this class of plants most 

 often fails to supply nectar in any 

 great amount. The most reliable 

 honey plant, therefore, the one best 

 calculated by nature for the honey 

 bee is supplied with tubular flowers 

 or with a corolla the divisions of which 

 approximate in the form of a tube, as 

 in tlie flowers of the white and sweet 

 clover and locust, although the flower 

 of the red clover is a perfect tube 

 nearly one half inch long on the 

 average. 



The cultivation of annual honey 

 plants, unless for some purpose otlier 

 than their nectar, will scarcely pay the 

 cost of yearly cultivation. But a good 

 perennial can be made to pay a rea- 

 sonable percentage on the value of the 

 land to the bee-keeper. The perennial 

 plants of this class that can be espec- 

 ially commended, are the motherwort, 

 catnip, golden honey plant, and fig- 

 wort. TJie three former being readily 

 propagated, and able to contest the 

 ground with any kind of weeds. Tlie 

 figwort, however, if well cared for the 

 first season will hold its own after- 

 wards. The most vigorous of all is 

 the golden luiney plant, the only 

 trouble with it being that it takes a 

 strong team and a good plow to turn a 

 field of it under, wlien a crop of corn 

 will eradicate it. 



New Philadelphia, O. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



How I Extract Honey from Combs. 



EUGENE SECOK. 



I do not follow bee-keeping as a sole 

 business, and am not trying to run a 

 large apiary. I have only 19 colonies 

 at present. I keep bees for the pleas- 

 ure I find in pursuing the study, as 

 well as for the profit there is in it ; 

 though for several years past I have 

 made them pay a large interest on the 

 investment, i am running some for 

 comb honey, in .sections, and the re- 

 mainder for extracted honey, in two 

 story hives. I keep a comple'te record 

 of each colony, and by the method I 

 pursue it is very easy to do so. On 

 the top of each" hive I keep a card 

 with a memorandum of everything 

 which is of interest. 



When I wish to extract I take an 

 empty hive, remove tlie cap of the 

 hive from which I wish to extract 

 (which is flat on top), and put the 

 empty hive on it, raise the honey 

 board (which is the old-fashioned 



style, made of inch lumber), smoke 

 the bees to drive as many as possible 

 down into the brood-chamber, take 

 out the frames of honey one by one, 

 brushing off the bees with a buiicli of 

 asparagus tops, and place them in the 

 empty hive. When this is done, I 

 carry the honey into the cellar and 

 put the hive on the scales, which are 

 near the extractor, balance them, ex- 

 tract, and return the empty frames to 

 the hive, balance again, and I learn 

 the weight of the honey from that 

 colony with but little trouble. 



Ill a large apiary it might not be 

 practicable to carry the honey into a 

 building to extract, but I find it satis- 

 factory, as it never excites robbers, 

 and everything, except the honey I 

 am getting, is stationary. 



My extractor is a home-made affair, 

 of my own design and manufacture, 

 and although it has been in use for 

 five or six years, it still works like a 

 charm. I took the half of a molasses 

 barrel, made a reel large enough to 

 accommodate two frames, and got the 

 motion by two horizontal wheels, one 

 on. the standard of the reel and the 

 other fastened to the outside of the 

 tub and connected by a band of 

 twisted cord. Tiie wheels are made 

 of inch lumber slightly grooved, and 

 one twice the diameter of the other. 

 A peg in the large one answers for a 

 crank. To keep the band from slip- 

 ping, I wind it with smaller ciu-d. 

 The whole thing did not cost a dollar 

 beside the " head-work." 



Forest City, Iowa. 



For the American Beo JournaL 



Cultivation of Simpson Honey Plant. 



J. G. STEEK. 



I see in the last number of the Bee 

 Journal a call for information on 

 the cultivation of the Simpson honey 

 plant. I beg leave to give a few notes 

 through the columns of your excel- 

 lent paper on the subject. My expe- 

 rience with it extends only through 

 this season and last. I procured the 

 seed and sowed in a bed of wood- 

 earth very late— about the first of 

 June. They came u)) poorly, but I 

 got 200 set out, which blossomed in 

 September and October, until after 

 we had 2 or 3 severe frosts. Last 

 spring they were the first living green 

 to be seen. I took up the roots, some 

 of which would not go in a half 

 bushel, and divided them with a knife 

 into as many sections as there were 

 crowns started, sometimes as many 

 as eight or ten. These I planted singly 

 in rows 2 or 2^4 feet high. 



The idea is abroad that the Simpson 

 honey plant is hard to propagate ; I 

 have not found it so. They need 

 shade, and not too much water, as 

 they will rot if too thick in the bed. 

 The way I practice is this : If you 

 have a small corner of timber land 

 not too dense, clear it up and trim 

 tlie trees up quite high, dig and level 

 the ground and sow the seed thinly, 

 and cover very lightly ; reset them 

 wlien 2 or three inches high, in rows 

 2 feet apart, and one foot in the row. 

 If it is not seasonable, water and 



