1074 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15 



I have no data to give, but have come to be- 

 lieve that there is much lees danger of 

 greening combs when the atmosphere is dry 

 than when more fully saturated with moist- 

 ure. In other words, you can use a much 

 larger amount of smoke in a dry atmos- 

 phere than in a damp one. 



For destroying the larv:« of the wax-moth 

 on new combs i should treat them as soon 

 as they come off the hives, or within a day 

 or two, assured that a much smaller amount 

 of smoke will be effective at this stage than 

 later. A neighbor bee-keeper treats all his 

 surplus honey in this way, and says he nev- 

 er is troubled with worms on his combs. 



I have I'ecently built a small room for this 

 very purpose, containing about 200 cubic 

 feet of space I shall begin by burning half 

 an ounce of sulphur, and keep close for fif- 

 teen minutes If this does not do, I pro- 

 pose to use more sulphur or keep the room 

 closed longer. 



I was much interested in the two articles 

 by A. I. and E. R. Root on the dandelion. 

 It has seemed to me for some years that this 

 lowly plant was not sufficiently appreciated 

 by people in general and bee-keepers in 

 particular. My heart is always gladdened 

 in spring time when they throw up their 

 great honest faces to the sun and wind and 

 cold of May. We may not tread the streets 

 of the New Jerusalem in this life, but we 

 can enjoy seeing the roadsides paved with 

 gold; and this gold does not demoralize, for 

 most of us would just as soon see these 

 liowers on our neighbors' lawn as on our own. 

 Besides, they play an important part in bee- 

 keeping. I suppose our own bees have gath- 

 ered as much as two tons of honey from 

 this source the past spring, perhaps more. 

 Our bees were rather short of stores, and 

 the dandelious have supplied the lack of 

 stoi'cs, and saved us the labor of feeding, 

 and helped build them up into vigorous col- 

 onies before clover time, all at the same 

 time, notwithstanding the cold spring. 



Have our young friends, the bee-keepers 

 of the future, given the dandelion much 

 thought? Have jj^ou noticed the tlovvei'-head 

 is not one but many tlowers? To support 

 such a head there must be a strong stalk, so 

 the stalk is cylindrical, like a goose-quill, 

 thus giving the greatest strength for matei'i- 

 al. Have you nt)ticed how, as one head 

 after another blossoms, they bend down to 

 the earth to give others a chance to lift their 

 head so the bees can see them as they liy 

 over the fields'.' As the seeds mature, the 

 stalk lengthens until it is three times as long 

 as when the blossoms appeai'ed. Again, the 

 stalk straightens up, assuming an upright 

 position so the spring breezes may carry the 

 seeds away to form new colonies. 



If you count the stalks on each plant you 

 will find them al)out twenty; and if you 

 (•ount the seeds on each one you will find 

 them to number about 260. Thus each plant 

 can furnish not far from 5000 seeds; and such 

 seeds ! If we look at them through a glass 

 we shall find them beautifully grooved 



lengthwise, and almost covered with little 

 barbs pointing upward so that, when the 

 seed takes its flight from the bosom of the 

 mother-plant, the small end of the seed will 

 point downward, and, alighting, it is able to 

 work its way down through the grass or 

 into the soft earth, there to produce a new 

 plant to bless the world. Surely the Lord 

 knew he was making a good thing when he 

 made the dandelions; and if he has so care- 

 fully provided for all their wants, will he 

 not provide for us who are so much higher 

 in the scale of life? 



WORKING FOR SECTION HONEY. 



"Are the bees at work on basswood now? 

 I see it is nearly in full bloom on some of 

 the trees." 



"Yes, Mr. Brown, they have been doing 

 pretty well for the past tnree days." 



"Isn't the bloom late this year?" 



"Yes, our season is fully two weeks late 

 with all vegetation. It is now the 23d of 

 July, with only a few of the earliest trees in 

 full bloom." 



' ' Did you get much surplus honey from 

 clover?" 



"No. There are very few sections com- 

 pleted as yet; but if this good weather con- 

 tinues for a week or ten days we may secure 

 quite a crop of section honey, though it will 

 be impossible to have a large yield of white 

 honey in sections for 1907." 



" ^ou say there are a very few sections 

 completed." 



"Yes. Some hives may have a dozen fin- 

 ished sections on them. I do not think that 

 more than that can be found on any one 

 hive." 



"Well, that is about as my bees are, and 

 what I wished to ask you was whether I had 

 better take off these completed sections now 

 or wait till all that are in one super are fin- 

 ished." 



"That will depend somewhat on how much 

 time you have to work with the bees." 



"Well, that may be so. But will it pay 

 me to spend time to take out the filled sec- 

 tions from among those partly filled and put 

 those that have only starters in them in the 

 place where the filled ones are taken out?" 



"And, again, I must answer by saying it 

 all depends upon how much time you have, 

 or, perhaps better expressed, by saying it 

 depends upon how valuable your time is dur- 

 ing the flow of nectar from basswood. If 

 not very valuable, then it loill pay you to 

 take out the completed sections from each 



