388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



From Different Fields. 



THE MAN WHO DIDN'T WANT ANY MORE BEES. 



y WISH to tell you something about the colony of 

 jjjl black beep, which is new to me, and probably 

 — ' may be of some interest to you. It swarmed on 

 the 25th of April, a large swarm; but I did not want 

 them, and they remained on the tree over three 

 days and nights before they left. B. B. Temple. 

 Danville, Va., May 24, 1883. 



Why, my friend, I don't see any thing half 

 so funny about the bees as I do about you. 

 I wonder what our ABC friends will think, 

 to hear of a man who would let a rousing 

 good swarm hang three days on a tree, and 

 in the month of April too ! Why, if we had 

 them here we should expect to build up a 

 whole apiary with them in one season ; or if 

 we sold bees and queens by the pound, we 

 should make them do enough to pretty near- 

 ly, if not quite, buy a cow before snow comes 

 again. Are bees so plentiful in your parts 

 that a body could get fine large swarms in 

 the fore part of the season, just for the ask- 

 ing V Well, well ! I suppose they are gone ; 

 but I should really like to know which way 

 they went, and if they left any comb inside 

 the cluster, after their three days' sojourn, 

 wondering all the time, probably, why you 

 didn't " get up and dust," and put them into 

 a hive. 



SOUTH-WESTERN MISSOURI, ETC. 



I settled here in 1870, and have traveled over most 

 of this part of the State. From what the old settlers 

 say, it must have been a perfect paradise for bees 

 before the country was settled up. The settlers 

 have told me they had found as many as forty bee- 

 trees in a season, and that prairie chickens got so 

 much honey-dew on their wings they could not fly. 

 I have seen it very abundant, but the honey is poor 

 and dark, and I would rather the bees would eat it 

 than I. But we have some splendid honey-plants 

 that are natives of this country. I guess I had bet- 

 ter say something about honey-plants, for that is 

 where bees get the honey. 



BUCKBUSH, AGAIN. 



The best native is what is called buckbush. It is 

 a shrub about two feet high; commences to bloom 

 about the first of Julj', and from that to August; 

 and in the fall and winter it is covered with small 

 red berries. The buckbush yields a honey that I 

 think has no superior, and bees will fill their hives 

 before you are thinking about it, when it is in bloom. 

 Simpson grows everywhere. AVe have three or four 

 varieties of sumac. Red - bud grows along the 

 streams; also willow and maple on the prairie. We 

 have a great many plants that the bees work on. 

 There is a variety of cleome that the bees are very 

 fond of. There is a plant, the leaves of which re- 

 semble spearmint, and the flower grows on a spike 

 like gladiolus, that continues in bloom from June 

 till September, and which I think is equal to the 

 Simpson. Then we have goldenrod and wild dah- 

 lias, and sunflower in great profusion. Of the culti- 

 vated honey-plants, we have tho different varieties 

 of clover, ail of which do well, but are not very plen- 

 tiful, owing to the newness of the country; but pop- 

 lar caps the climax of them all, except tbe willow 



jessamine, of which I wrote you. In conclusion, I 

 will say, from what I can learn from reports from 

 other sections, and my own experience, that we 

 have a good bee country. We are highly favored in 

 respect to climate, there being little or no trouble in 

 wintering. I have never lost a hive by cold. Bees 

 fly more here in the winter than I want them to. 

 Hudson, Mo., May 31, 1883. S. S. Johnson. 



Our friends will recognize the buckbush 

 as the Symphoricarpus, already described 

 and illustrated in our back numbers. 



SWEET CLOVER, ETC. ; AND SOME OF FRIEND MC GEE'S 

 PLEASANTRY. 



I thought I had enough hives, sections, and other 

 fixings; but when I see how strung the colonics arc, 

 with a prospect of a heavy fruit-bloom, especially 

 peaches, and the immense quantity of sweet cl jver 

 that is almost knee-high everywhere, it scares me to 

 think of it. 1 expect a big surplus from sweet clo- 

 ver this season. You know (he 301) lbs. taken two 

 years ago was from sweet clover in August, when 

 every thing else was dried up. Apricots opened last 

 Saturday; peaches will be out to-morrow. Sweet 

 cherries blossomed this morning. Well, how is Un- 

 cle Amos and Ernest, and all the rest of the girls and 

 boys? and how is the carpet-stretcherV Tell Miss- 

 " Uno " that the softer the wax, the easier the car- 

 pet-stretcher will work. I have got the telephone 

 up. It works well. You ought to have heard tho 

 bees rattle it yesterday. I don't know what kind of 

 a racket they will make on it when they swarm. 

 Tell Mr.— (with the white hat in the saw-room)— to 

 keep his eyes on the boy when he saws out the hives. 

 I guess this is all you will have time to read to-day. 

 Remember me kindly to ErLvst and all the rest, es- 

 pecially old Mr.— what's his name that packs tho 

 hives? Uno. George H. McGee. 



Point Marblehead, O., May 8, 1883. 



scraps from an a b c; wintering. 

 Winter is gone, and I am through it without the 

 loss of a single colony. Chaff packing did it. I am 

 sorry that I have not watched the temperature at 

 which a bee becomes stitf through cold. When we 

 on the coldest daj's of winter can keep the inside of 

 the hives above that, the great pi-oblem of winter- 

 ing is solved; at least, I know one who thinks so. 

 Some of my colonies last fall would not more than 

 cover 6 L. frames. I left in the full number, 10, and 

 it appears to mc that the cluster moved en masse 

 across the hive, following up the honey. 



DYSENTERY. 



Neighbor W., u mile from mc, last fall had 7 col- 

 onies; 5 were in frame hives, 2 in box hives, all un- 

 protected, except honey - board and cottage-roof 

 cover. I examined them last fall, and found them 

 in as good condition as were mine, except one, for 

 which 1 gave him directions how and what to feed, 

 but they died early from starvation; 3 others died 

 of dysentery, caused by nothing but cold. The hives 

 were in a bad mess; the sides were literally covered 

 with dirt. Tbe combs contained at least 8 lbs. of 

 honey to the hive. There was not a bee left in one 

 to-day, having left honey and brood in all stages. 

 Gold was the sole cause of dysentery in this case. 



TREE-PLANTING. 



I have planted this spring 10 maple and 100 bass- 

 wood trees, from to 13 ft. high, on the sides of the 

 public road. I trimmed some to a straight pole, and 

 on a few I left only a few branches, and a couple I 

 did oot cut at pjl. I was laughed at by a few, wbo 



