1883 



GLEAKIKGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



15 



and it yields much more honey than any other of 

 the berry tribe. 



21. Kaspberry. Bees work considerably on both 

 the red and black varieties, but neither of them 

 yield anywhere near as much honey as the ever- 

 green-blackberry; the common blackberry does not 

 either. 



23. Mignonnette. Bees seem to be very fond of 

 mignonnette, but I do not know exactly how large 

 a quantity of honey it yields. I think the yellow 

 \'ariety is the best and prettiest. 



23. Dandelion. Bees almost always work on them; 

 they yield some honey and some pollen, but they do 

 not appear to yield a very large quantity of honey 

 to the acre, and I do not like the flavor of the honey 

 either. 



24. Alfalfa. Bees do not often wcrk much on it 

 here. 



25. Sage. The common sage is a pretty good hon- 

 ey-plant here, and yields quite a large quantity of 

 honey. 



1 am taking Gleanings. This is my tirst year, 

 which will expire with the December number. I 

 like it first rate, and the principles which it advo- 

 cates; for I believe in God and the Holy Bible, and 

 shall try to live according to its teachings. I do not 

 swear, neither do I use that filthy weed tobacco, nor 

 get drunk with intoxicating liquors, and I heartily 

 indorse your efforts to persuade people to live Chris- 

 tian lives, and leave off the disgusting habit of us- 

 ingtobacco, and deal squarely with their fellow-men. 

 I also admire your efforts to advance the bee-keep- 

 ing industry. I have not kept bees since I came to 

 Oregon, with the exception of one swarm, until this 

 season. 1 used to have some in Wisconsin, before I 

 was grown up. I now have 14 swarms. I hunted 

 wild bees a while this summer. 1 found 7 bee-trees, 

 and succeeded in saving 4 of the swarms. When 

 their nests are near the top of the tall fir-trees, they 

 generally smash up so as to kill most of the bees. 

 I cut one in which the nest was about 150 ft. from 

 the ground. 



I have bought SO acres of land, 20 miles from Port- 

 land, which I intend to convert into a honey-farm, 

 for I intend before long to make a business of keep- 

 ing bees, as it is my natural occupation. I do not 

 intend to raise bees and queens for sale, but only 

 for honey. The land that I have bought is pink 

 with elkweed when it is in blossom, but I shall burn 

 it over next season, and seed it with something that 

 will make better honey. Elkweed honey looks pret- 

 ty well, but the flavor is not very good. I want to 

 sow the kind that will yield the most good honey to 

 the acre, and make a handsome flower-garden too; 

 for I am very fond of flowers, so I have concluded to 

 sow and plant the following kinds, which I think 

 will repay cultivation for honey alone; 



FRIEND warren's CHOICE OUT OF 25 HONEY- 

 PLANTS. 



Borage, yellow mignonnette, blue thistle, ever- 

 green-blackberry, yellow sweet clover, red sage. I 

 shall also sow thyme and yellow sweet sultan in my 

 garden, but I do not know that they are of any 

 value as honey-plants, for I have not tested them. 



1 love the fragrant flowers, I love tlie humming bee; 

 I lore the pleasant summer, when birds and bees are Irco. 

 I love the pleasant sunshine. I love the shady wood; 

 I love the trtie and gentle, 1 love the kind and good. 



MORRELL E. Warren. 

 Portland, Mult. Co., Oregon, Nov. 27, 1883. 

 Friend W., when I first looked at your 

 letter I was tempted to think it too long ; 



but after getting into your reports of honey- 

 plants I thought it about right. I confess I 

 was a little disappointed when 1 found you 

 had but one hive, but I afterward reflected 

 that you could tell much better about the 

 quality of the honey from a limited area of 

 plants, with one hive, or only a few, than 

 you could with a whole apiary. If I had on- 

 ly one hive of bees, and no more within sev- 

 eral miles, I could tell you about the quality 

 of tigvvort and spider-plant honey, and the 

 amount of honey they would yield per acre, 

 and many other things, which I find 

 quite out of the question with hundreds of 

 stocks about me. Go on with your honey- 

 farm, friend W., and let us hear how it 

 comes out. Thanks for the little poem. 



SEX OF BKE OV.V. 



SOMETHING MORE FROM THE FRIEND WHO WROTE 

 ON i: 125, MARCH, 1882. 



HAVE read with marked attention the way in 

 which my opinions have been received by you 

 and American bee-keepers generally, and a year 

 has almost glided past since I wrote the brief arti- 

 cle on the heading of this letter, and I still have 

 cause to hold on to the opinion I then expressed; 

 viz.. That, by the treatment to which the bees sub- 

 jected the ova, they could produce male or female 

 from the same egg. I then started the hypothesis, 

 that the egg of a fertilized queen was "neutral"; 

 but since then I have found myself in a quandary; 

 for although I found male and female produced 

 from worker eggs, every time I have tried to raise 

 queens from drone eggs I have failed. I have 

 placed them in newly raised queen-cells, and they 

 disappeared without leaving a trace behind. I have 

 given queenlcss hives small squares of drone eggs, 

 and when I was about to reach the supposed goal, 

 in eight or ten days every cell was torn down, and 

 here I am still without a solution. I have tried hard 

 to think that the cell was the sole cause of failure, 

 arguing that a drone-cell would give a small forma- 

 tion to queens, and the season was too far advanced 

 for my fully testing this, although the disappear- 

 ance of the male egg from the queen-cell half ans- 

 wers this. 



Then I have seen the theory you propound, of the 

 " bees removing sperm from egg," and it is quite 

 possible you may be right. Could not this be tested 

 by those who have good microscopes? 



You ask me if I noted what the eggs batched out 

 which I saw bees dropping into cells. I can not 

 answer. It was on worker comb, and I did not think 

 the queen was over healthy, her wings having as- 

 sumed a rusty-like appearance. I superseded her 

 and sent all to the hills, not having thought of the 

 act as uncommon. 



Now, right here permit me one question: Have 

 you not observed, when a queen is put into a hive, 

 it may be for the first time, or on returning her 

 after a brief absence, the manner in which she is 

 examined? Do not the bees examine her as if ex- 

 pecting her to drop eggs? 



With reference to bee moving eggs from one cell 

 to another during the spring months, one of my 

 hives became queenless; from what cause I could 

 not explain. Only one or two frames had eggs in 

 them. Although the swarm was quite a small one, 



