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POLLEN. 



The Vse of Pollen as Food for 

 Bees. 



WHUen fnr the American Bee Jimrnal 



BY PEOF. A. J. COOK. 



If Mr. Doolittle will faithfully prom- 

 ise never to be guilty of any .such " cat 

 and king " absurdity again, I will most 

 cheerfully comply with his request, on 

 page 221. 



First, we must have albuminous food 

 or we will soon die. But suppose Mr. 

 Doolittle attempts to live on pure 

 cheese, almost wholly albuminous, and 

 see how his experiment turns out. Dr. 

 Kane was nauseated at the sight of 

 fat at home ; but near the North Pole 

 he could take a pint of clear oil with a 

 relish. Bees, like us, must have a 

 varietj' of food. Again, the relative 

 quantity of each kind will vary with 

 circumstances. 



Suppose that Mr. Doolittle should 

 kill one of his chickens, and should 

 open its crop and find corn. How 

 long would it take to convince him 

 that the chicken never ate corn. It is 

 just so if we examine the digestive 

 tube of a bee. We almost always find 

 pollen — just such pollen as we may 

 secure from the pine or other plants 

 and trees. I will show some pollen 

 from a plant and some from the intes- 

 tine or stomach of a bee at the next 

 North American Bee-Keepers' Conven- 

 tion. 



Now, Mr. Doolittle, come and visit 

 me, and I will engage to convince you. 

 Still I would not engage to feed bees 

 extensively on bee-bj'ead, no more 

 than I would feed friend Doolittle on 

 exclusive cheese, should he honor and 

 delight us with a visit. 



Bees in summer, or whenever they 

 are breeding and working hard, need 

 much pollen. In winter they need 

 very little, indeed I think they need 

 almost or quite none. I know that 

 Schoufield thinks that they must have 

 pollen, and supposes, that they feed 

 upon cast .skins and larval excreta 

 from cells. I think that the great 

 German experiment is mistaken. I 

 shall know ere another year passes by. 



Now that bees live wholly without 

 pollen in winter, is not strange. In 

 hot summer, when we exercise but 

 little, we can live and enjoy life on a 

 diet of exclusive fruit ; while hearty 

 food like meat is distasteful. Put us 

 at hard work, and tliemeat is relished. 

 Add cold winter to the work, and we 

 like the meat fat. So the bee, during 

 the winter quiet, when it is only just 

 active enough to keep the tempera- 

 ture of the hive in the proper condi- 

 tion, eats only honey, and I think that 

 it is the better for it. Hence while bees 



must have pollen, they must also have 

 honey ; either alone would, as an ex- 

 clusive diet, prove fatal to the bees. 

 Witliout any honey, they die quickly ; 

 without pollen they die as certainlj-, 

 but not as soon. If inactive and not 

 breeding, flie want of pollen is so 

 slight that they take very little, and at 

 times none for weeks or months. 



Then, to answer Mr. Doolittle's 

 question, and " get a great name," I 

 will saj* : You can always get bees to 

 eat pollen bj' securing the two condi- 

 tions of activity and breeding. But at 

 the same time they must have an 

 abundance of either honey, or a sub- 

 stitute like syrup. But bees can never 

 be kept on pollen alone. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



BEE-NOTES. 



Spring Care of Bees — Citrowin; 

 Alsike Clover. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY J. M. HICES. 



The l:>ee-master at this season of the 

 year should know the exact condition 

 of all his colonies, and especialh' 

 know that each has plenty of honey 

 and bee-bread to last them until the 

 early spring flowers supplj' a new 

 crop. Should the bees be destitute of 

 bee-bread, it can be supplied by plac- 

 ing in tin pans or shallow boxes newly- 

 ground rye meal, a short distance 

 from the hive, from which the bees 

 will soon carry to their hives a supply 

 for present use. 



I have often made a pool of mud, by 

 throwing on sand with salt and sweet- 

 ened water, for the purpose of giving 

 the bees a watering place, as it is a 

 well known fact that bees must have 

 plenty of water in the spring, in order 

 to feed and rear their young ; hence 

 they use water, bee-bread, and honey 

 as food in rearing early swarms. 



It would be well for all who con- 

 template keeping bees for their own 

 use, or in making a business of it for 

 profit, to purchase a few colonies now, 

 and also get first-class movable-frame 

 hives ; and aljout two weeks before 

 swarming time, the bees, combs and 

 brood should be transferred into the 

 new hives, which should be of such 

 style that you can easily handle and 

 manage your bees profitably. At the 

 same time you can make a proper in- 

 crease of colonies, 7iot too jnany, but a 

 judicious increase, say an increase of 

 3 from 2 good, strong colonies, and 

 then work the bees for honey the first 

 year, while you are gaining knowledge 

 in their proper management. This of 

 course deijends very much upon the 

 style of frame lii\ e selected. 



Alsike Clover for Honey. 



The next duty the bee-keeper owes 

 to himself and to the bees, in order to 

 succeed, is to prepare at least a few 

 acres of good pasture for the bees to 

 work on. Alsike clover is the best, 

 which produces many hundreds of 

 pounds of the finest and best honey to 

 the acre, in quantity, not to be ex- 

 celled by any other honey known to 

 the civilized world. The plant is of a 

 very hardy variety, and not easy to 

 heave, as is the red clover, by freezing. 

 It is a perennial, and one of the best 

 of hay-producing clovers. The first 

 crop each year is the seed crop. 



It is not too much to say that the 

 hay of the Alsike clover is far ahead 

 of all other varieties for cows giving 

 milk, making the richest and best of 

 butter. It is also grand food for fat- 

 tening in the winter, and makes the 

 best of pasture for all farm stock in 

 the summer. 



Four pounds is a suflicient quantity 

 of seed to sow on one acre of ground ; 

 and it should be sown on oats, wheat 

 or rve ground, as soon as it becomes 

 dry enough to crack in the spring. I 

 have had about 20 years' experience 

 in the management of Alsike clover 

 crops, and I have found that it will 

 flourish well on almost all the soils in 

 this country, the damp, wet lands 

 seeming to be well adapted to its na- 

 ture and growth. All the common 

 bees, as well as the Italians, work on 

 the Alsike bloom, and do well on it. 



Battle Ground. Ind. 



NATURE'S 'WAY. 



management of Bees on Katural 

 Principles. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY J. E. rOND. 



In his article on page 168, Mr. W. 

 S. Vandrufi" says : "I suppose I will 

 depart considerably from the present 

 way of managing bees, etc.," and then 

 states, in substance, that heretofore 

 bee-keepers have been all wrong in 

 their methods, and that he alone has 

 discouraged the true means of success, 

 viz., "Nature's way." He further says : 

 "This article may bring forth criti- 

 cisms ; I cannot expect much else, as I 

 am attacking a system in general 

 use, etc." 



Now I do not wish to criticise any 

 one unjustly, but when a wholesale 

 attack of this kind is made, and that, 

 too, backed up by nothing but vague 

 assertions, and without oftering any 

 remedy, or intimating any points con- 

 nected with his wonderful discovery, 

 I feel that I for one am entitled (before 

 admitting Mr. Vandruft' to have done 



