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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



July 18, 



would hatch. True, an egg laid to-day will not be a crawling 

 bee for 21 days, and will not be a field-bee for 16 days more, 

 but I suspect that at the end of 21 days, or as soon as it 

 emerges from its cell, that it makes a difference in the field 

 force. That will leave his reasoning good for 21 days, but 

 the white honey harvest sometimes lasts more than twice that, 

 and at the last end there will be a falling off of field-workers 

 due to the removal of the queen. 



Young Bees fob ■Wintering.— If B. Taylor is correct in 

 placing the blame for his losses last winter (see page 407), it 

 may be well for us to stick a pin there, and feed when forage 

 is so scarce as to stop brood-rearing in September. We know, 

 I think, that there is a difference as to the length of time 

 bees gather in different years, and we know that queens stop 

 laying some years sooner than others. It seems reasonable 

 that the two things should go together. Bro. Taylor's view 

 seems reasonable, and it's worth while to watch the matter in 

 the future. 



Wintering on Langstroth Frames on End. — On page 

 407, Thos. Thurlow reports success in wintering bees on 

 Langstroth frames stood on end, and the same thing has been 

 reported before, but subsequent silence makes it uncertain 

 whether any one has continued the plan for many years. I 

 think it was first mentioned as much as 10 or 15 years ago, 

 perhaps much longer. Will those who tried the plan years 

 ago tell us what they think of it now ? Certainly there are 

 some points about the plan that have a good look, but actual 

 practice is what really tells. 



Have others found to be a fact what Mr. Thurlow empha- 

 sizes, that bees will go through capped honey In winter to get 

 to the top of the combs '? If so, what will be the use of his 

 alternating the frames as he proposes, " to try to keep the 

 bees from going to the top and leaving honey below them ?"' 



Bees and Strawberries. — Bro. Abbott gets aid and com- 

 fort on page 408, and If enough more such testimony comes 

 in it will have to be admitted that In some places bees work 

 well on strawberries. But what kind of strawberries has Wm. 

 C. Ashby, that working on them made the bees drive him out 

 of the patch ? If there is no mistake in that case, there may 

 be a possibility of a re-trial in the first case of the Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Union, In which Freeborn's bees were charged with driv- 

 ing sheep out of a field. 



Ed Jolley thinks some have failed to take Mr. Abbott as 

 he meant, and I think they will also fail to take Bro. Jolley 

 as he means, for he can hardly mean what he says, at least 

 unless I am away behind the times as to the manners and cus- 

 toms of strawberry plants. He gives It as a "fact " that all 

 varieties of strawberries produce both staminate and pistillate 

 plants, and then he teaches that you can have a bed of either 

 staminate or pistillate plants by properly selecting the run- 

 ners, no matter what the variety. If Bro. Jolley means what 

 I understand him to say, then it i-j possible to have a bed of 

 Wilson or Jessie that shall produce nothing but pistillate 

 blossoms. Did Bro. Jolley, or did any one else, ever see such 

 abed? And If what I understand him to say Is true, then 

 there is no variety for which it will be necessary to furnish 

 staminate blossoms of another variety, and the universal 

 teaching of fruit-growers in this respect is all wrong. ' 



Bro. Jolley questions the use of staminate plants for the 

 production of strawberries. Bro. J., can you raise a crop of 

 Crescent strawberries with no staminate blossoms within a 

 mile? 



Sweet Clover. — Wm. C. Ashby will either change his 

 views about sweet clover If he observes more closely, or else 

 it does not act the same In Utah as In Illinois. He says on 

 page 408 that it must be cut for hay before It blooms, "hence 

 it would do your bees no good." from the window where I 



sit I look upon sweet clover that was cut when a good heiglit, 

 and now it is high enough to cut again, and is just coming in 

 bloom, perhaps a week later than if it had never been cut. It 

 cut now it will bloom still later. So far as the bees are con- 

 cerned, I would always prefer to have it cut when at the best 

 stage for hay, for then It will do the bees more good after 

 white clover is gone. 



Breeding Out the Swarming Habit. — On page 419 is 

 asked the question whether it is possible, and whether it Is 

 desirable, to breed out the swarming habit. The man who 

 tries to base an opinion upon the answers there given will find 

 himself In a very mixed state of mind. The answers are 

 necessarily short, and I should like very much if the writers 

 would give us some reasons for believing the swarming habit 

 can or cannot be bred out ; also the reasons for thinking it 

 desirable or undesirable. A good-natured discussion tbereon 

 might be interesting and profitable. 



That Michigan Law. — Walter Harmer writes me that he 

 has it from a member of the legislature that a law was passed 

 as I formerly stated (page 390), and adds, "There must have 

 been gross carelessness somehow, mixed with ignorance, I 

 guess." I suspect the intelligence of Michigan will not allow 

 that law to be unrepealed very long. Marengo, III. 



An Experience with the So-Called Honey-Dew. 



BY J. A. NASH. 



A few years ago several of the Western States, Including 

 Iowa, were favored (?) with a heavy flow of honey-dew — (I 

 believe "flow" to be, in this case, at least, the proper term.) 

 I had seen the so-called honey-dew before this, but it was 

 clearer, or else mixed with honey, as it was not so rank in 

 flavor or dark in color. Never in a long experience with bees 

 did I see anything to compare with this in point of quantity 

 or lack of (luality, other than very poor quality. A basswood 

 flow never stirred my apiary up as early In the morning, or 

 kept bees out as late as did this alleged honey-dew. Hives 

 were soon filled from top to bottom ; there was little lost time 

 except In the heat of the day, when the "dew" dried up a 

 little. I say but little lost time— the time spent ingathering 

 this "bug-juice," as someone facetiously termed it, was, how- 

 ever, much worse than lost, as it was not fit to eat, and the 

 bees did not winter well on It. I lost at least % of my apiary, 

 after feeding quite a number of colonies from which the 

 honey-dew had been extracted. 



Now I had always supposed that honey-dew was secreted 

 by plant or bark lice. This could not nave been the case with 

 the kind that came under my own observation. I do not think 

 there were lice enough of any kind in Jasper county to have 

 furnished the exudations that came on the leaves of the hick- 

 ory trees in our own bee-range; nor did it fall from the skies, 

 as I took the trouble to cut off a hickory branch, wiped the 

 honey-dew carefully from the leaves, examined it closely for 

 lice (that I did not find), and put it away in the shop. This 

 was done in the evening. The next morning the tops of the 

 leaves were again covered with spots of dew. I had previous 

 to this climbed a tree that was at some distance from other 

 timber on which the dew was very thick, and cut off the top 

 of it ; the dew was just as thick on the leaves that were upper- 

 most as before, showing that it could not have been spurted 

 from the bodies of lice — It was always on the tops of the 

 leaves, never on the stems, as far as I could see, and often 

 stood In drops. While riding through the woods in the early 

 morning my coat was so daubed with this secretion that it 

 was soiled, and my horse's mane was quite sticky. Bee-hives 

 that stood under hickory trees at the home apiary had the 



