586 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



well worthy of consideration by prac- 

 tical apiarists. Mustard blooms in 

 about six weeks after planting, but it 

 may be made .to blossom at any time 

 by judicious mowing. The same is 

 true of many other plants. 



Planting for honey has often beeii 

 recommended, but the idea of keep- 

 ing bees to aid in the successful pro- 

 duction of garden and Held crops is 

 much more recent. In a late Experi- 

 ment Station bulletin, Dr. E. Lewis 

 Sturtevant says : 



" Our bean crop is dependent in a 

 greater or less measure upon other 

 agencies than the fertility of the soil 

 or the character of the seed used. It 

 may seem curious at first that our 

 farm crops should depend upon sucli 

 small agencies as insects, and yet 

 without insects to carry the pollen 

 from flower to flower, in some species 

 of plant we would have no seed pro- 

 duced. A true list of insects bene- 

 ficial to vegetation should include in 

 addition to tliose which are destruc- 

 tive to injurious insects, those also 

 which are beneficial to the plant. The 

 scarlet runner bean is an excellent 

 illustration of our remarks. This 

 bean never seems to produce seed ex- 

 cept when the flowers are cross-ferti- 

 lized, and in Nicaraugua, where in- 

 sects of the proper kind do not exist, 

 this plant is said to be sterile. If 

 there were no insects to convey the 

 pollen from flower to flower, this 

 species might be as sterile in our 

 Northern localities. The bumble-bee, 

 bowever, frequents these flowers, and 

 in seeking the nectar brings its head 

 in contact with the pollen, which, ad- 

 hering to it, is conveyed to the next 

 flower visited, and is brought in con- 

 tact with tlie pistil." 



He also advises " the bean-grower 

 on a large scale, to keep a colony of 

 Italian bees in the vicinity of his 

 fields, for the purpose of effecting the 

 cross-fertilization of the flowers, and 

 thus adding increase to his crop, upon 

 the possibility that these bees might 

 be effective for this purpose." 



Michigan Agricultural College. 



For the American Bee Joumat 



Is it Lawful to Keep Bees? 



W. H. STEWART. 



Much has been written on the sub- 

 ject, " Who should keep bees V" but 

 now it appears that the question is, 

 whether any one shall be allowed to 

 make apiculture a business. One of 

 my neighbors, Mr. P., has for several 

 years kept quite a large apiary and a 

 fruit nursery, and has made a success 

 of them. Mr. F. now informs me 

 that a certain farmer near him is 

 about to commence a suit against 

 him, for damages done by the bees. 

 The farmer claims that the bees 

 trouble his sheep and other stock, and 

 prevents them from feeding on the 

 clover pastures. Also, that the clover 

 honey belongs to him (the farmer), 

 and not to Mr. F. ; that the bees are 

 trespassers on his farm ; and, further, 

 that bees injure his other farm crops. 



Mr. F. informs me that there is no 

 doubt but that he will have to defend 



himself against these charges, and 

 that he calculates to defend to the 

 bitter end. if necessary. All bee- 

 keepers will see at (mce, that if in 

 this suit it is decided that Mr. F. 

 must discontinue the bee -business, 

 that tlie decision affects all bee-keep- 

 ers in tlie land ; hence the importance 

 that each and all see to it at once ; 

 that every truth and fact evolved by 

 scientific research and experiment, be 

 published at once in the Bp;e Jour- 

 nal. Will Prof. Cook and other 

 scientists give us the full benefit of 

 their knowledge of the laws of co- 

 operation and inter-dependence of in- 

 sect and plant life. Let all practical 

 bee-keepers give what they have 

 learned by experience and observa- 

 tion on this subject, and what they 

 could state under oath in regard to 

 this matter. 



Must we all, just now, be compelled 

 to abandon our pursuit V Must ignor- 

 ance or malice annihilate all the capi- 

 tal invested in apiculture V Shall the 

 human family be thus deprived of the 

 only pure sweet now obtainable V 



Shall iKnorance of bygone days, 



Successtully dispute our ways? 

 Shall law Bubuiit at its command, 



And science blut-h to show her hand? 

 Shall evolution hobble back. 



And frightened gntwth retrace her track? 

 Shall reproduction hide her face, 



And wild confusion take her place? 

 Shall bloominK plants withold their sweet. 



And hence no more co-operate 

 With insect life— turn celibate. 



And fertilizing pollen hate? 

 Shall Order's climax be reversed, 



Truth be a lie. life be a farce? 

 Insulted Reason answers No! 



And swears these things shall not be bo. 



Orion, Wis., Sept. 1, 1884. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Holy-Land Bees. 



HENRY ALLEY. 



Mr. Daniel Howard, of Wisconsin, 

 paid me a visit, last fall, Vv^hile on his 

 way to Palestine to obtain some Holy 

 Land queens. Mr. Howard arrived 

 in Palestine some time in December 

 last, and reached Wenham, Mass., on 

 his return, on Aug. 8, with but 12 

 living queens out of the 175 which he 

 started with. This was a serious loss 

 and disappointment to Mr. Howard, 

 as he had hoped to preserve such a 

 number of queens as would have paid 

 the expenses of the long trip which 

 he had made to obtain them. How- 

 ever, Mr. Howard was not discour- 

 aged, and though he is a man (io years 

 of age, he is willing to go again, pro- 

 vided he can make arrangements for 

 the disposal of the queens on liis re- 

 turn home. He has no doubt about 

 safely bringing another lot through. 



The queens were packed in small 

 boxes, in which were four compart- 

 ments ; two for the food (Good's), and 

 two for the bees. He made a mistake 

 in not making holes in a solid block 

 of wood for the food, as the honey 

 ran through under the partitions 

 which separated the bees from the 

 food; consequently the bees were 

 badly daubed and drowned in their 

 own sweets. 



When the boxes were opened, there 

 were 12 queens alive, but not one live 

 worker-bee; and judging from the 

 appearance of the bees, they must 



have been dead several weeks. The 

 Queens were lively and quite active. 

 I immediately introduced them to 

 some queenless colonies, and in a 

 short time they did not appear to be 

 any the worse for the long journey 

 which they had made, and the con- 

 finement of 45 days, most of the time 

 unaccompanied by any bees. In the 

 course of a week nearly all the queens 

 commenced to lay. 



While in Palestine, Mr. Howard 

 wrote me several times concerning 

 the Holy Land bees. He found them 

 the gentlest bees that he ever saw. 

 ilr. Howard's experience with these 

 bees has been more extensive than 

 any bee-keeper in xVmerica. He has 

 seen and handled them in their na- 

 tive country. 



Of their honey-gathering qualities, 

 Mr. Howard says that while in Pales- 

 tine, he often visited the apiary of 

 the Baldensperger Brothers, from 

 whom he obtained the queens. With 

 only between 50 and GO colonies they 

 had taken 5,800 pounds of honey, 5,200 

 pounds of which were taken in 16 

 days. How many apiaries of this 

 same number of colonies in America 

 can make such a good report V 



Wenham, Mass. 



For the American Bee JonmaL 



Bee-Zeeping in Cuba. 



A. W. OSBUUN. 



We are in the " summer of our dis- 

 content," for we are having some- 

 thing more than a partial dearth of 

 honey when every colony in the apiary 

 is looking to its next-door neighbor to 

 see where the weakest point is, that a 

 successful attack can be made. For 

 several weeks there has been but 

 little honey secreted in the flowers, 

 and owing to the great increase of 

 colonies which we have made, many 

 of them are out of honey, and feeding 

 had to be resorted to, in order to save 

 those that bad not time to gather 

 stores for themselves before the honey 

 flow ceased. We expect this state of 

 affairs to last until Sept. 15, when the 

 fall flowers will begin to yield honey, 

 and then there will be an" end of the 

 dearth of nectar until the middle of 

 next April ; so if we do have, at the 

 longest, two months' dearth of honey, 

 it beats six months of zero weather 

 that the bees have to endure in the 

 North. 



Fertile Workers.— A fertile 

 worker never bothers me but a few 

 days, for as soon as I find that a col- 

 ony has fertile workers, I introduce a 

 full sheet of hatching brood, and just 

 as soon as those young bees are out, I 

 give them eggs and larvse, and they 

 never fail to rear a queen ; for the 

 young bees will not tolerate the pres- 

 ence of a laying worker when the 

 opportunity is given them to rear a 

 queen. That is something tliat bothers 

 us but very little ; and in this apiary 

 of 500 or 600 colonies, we seldom have 

 such a case. But we have our own 

 troubles, and to us they are of a more 

 serious nature than the presence of 

 laying workers ; i. e.. to keep the bees 

 from superseding their queens so 



