16 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



own bees do not satisfy us, we can 

 send away for better queens. I have 

 had bees all the way from blacks to 

 the yellowest Italians, and am satis- 

 fied that the Italians are the bees for 

 me. The only thing in which the 

 blacks excel is in making more beau- 

 tiful cappings to the honey, but that 

 matters little to us who produce ex- 

 tracted honey 



Let all who produce extracted 

 honey make it their aim to have all 

 colonies strong and overflowing with 

 bees at the beginning of the clover 

 harvest and the years of total failure 

 will be fewer. 



Elrov, Wis. 



Carpet Grass 



By C. D. Stuart 



AN excellent pasturage for both 

 live stock and honeybees is 

 the carpet grass of our Califor- 

 nia river bottoms. Luther Burbank 

 describes this plant as Lippia Rcpcns 

 to distinguish it from Lippia Caacscens 

 of European botanists. It is indigen- 

 ous to Chili, and became first estab- 

 lished in California as a lawn grass. 

 Out of some ten thousand plants 

 grown, Burbank propagated two that 

 he named Dixie and Mojave. Dixie 

 makes a deep green lawn of good 

 texture, and requires but one-tenth 

 the moisten e it takes to keep a blue- 

 grass lawn healthy. Mojave grows a 

 lighter green, but is valuable along 

 canals and other water courses, 

 since it throws out long roots that 



A sycam 



Photograph by Winfield Gear 



Lippia Repens. lawn plant in California much 

 sought a'ter by the bees. 



hold the banks from washing. Both 

 varieties spread by rooting, like 

 strawberry vines, and once intro 

 duced to a favorable locality, they 

 quickly overrun the other grasses. 



Lippia is a distinct relative of fra- 

 grant verbena, but different in phys- 

 ical habit. It is not hardy, and one 

 objection as a lawn grass is that it 

 turns muddy-brown as soon as frost 

 strikes it. This unpleasant hue it 

 retains all winter, and does not re- 

 cover a lively green again until about 

 the first of June. But where it roots 

 on overflowed lands, it starts growth 

 as soon as any of the other grasses, 

 because, until the soil is drained of 

 surplus water, no plant can thrive. 



Lippia bears a small white flower, 

 its nectar-sack easily penetrated by 

 honeybees. The flow of nectar is 

 abundant and steady, a yield of two 

 cases to the colony not being extra- 

 ordinary. The honey is light amber, 

 heavy bodied, and about of the same 

 quality as alfalfa, which it is usually 

 taken for. It candies in about the 

 same time after extracting that al- 

 falfa honey candies. Two bottlers to 

 whom I introduced it last year said 

 they preferred the flavor of lippia to 

 alfalfa, but they could not be induced 

 to pay more for it. 



The lippia flower attracts bees 

 from far and near. In Chico. many 

 lawns have been dug up because 

 children playing on them in hot 

 weather were invariably stung on 

 their bare feet. Tile herbage is like- 

 ■ i e attractive to live stock, whose 

 bare Feet are not so easily tickled by 

 ings. Its fine leaves keep 

 v! ei u ami growing, independ* 

 rainfall, and constant cropping 

 to prune the runners and 

 make (lie plants stool; while tramp 

 ing makes them a solid mat. Bur- 

 bank found that to run a wagon 

 over the pasturage caused the plants 

 not only to thicken, but to spread 

 more rapidlj than any other grass 

 subject to a similar pressure I he 

 >hi itograph gi\ 

 ■ i if the trailing habit of 

 this grass, and of its blossoming. 

 In order to take advantage of car- 

 iss pastures for honey pro- 

 ducing, hives must be placed on tres- 



tles. The apiary from which the ac- 

 companying photograph was taken 

 belongs to Winfield Gear, on the 

 Sacramento river. The trestle is 

 about 7 feet high, and in years of ex- 

 treme inundation, water reaches 

 within two feet of its floor. The 

 floor accommodates about one hun- 

 dred colonies, although at the time 

 of taking the photograph there were 

 less than fifty. These trestles are 

 not expensive, and, when well built, 

 last a lifetime — barring sycamore 

 trees. Bees, when wintered on such 

 elevations, are saved from mice, 

 toads, skunks, and all like pests that 

 disturb an apiarist.'s slumbers on 

 stormy nights. 



The photograph also shows some 

 of the adverse conditions a river- 

 bottom apiarist must expect to con- 

 tend against. A neighboring syca- 

 more tree nearly one hundred feet 

 high fell during a storm last winter 

 Mr. Gear was more interested, how- 

 ever, in the condition of the hive 

 shown upside down than in the de- 

 struction of his handiwork. In this 

 reversed hive the bees had started 

 brood rearing weeks ahead of the 

 other colonies, due probably to the 

 breaking of combs and the spilling-; 

 of their stores. The colony appeared 

 but little incommoded by the topsy- 

 turvy condition of their domicile. 



Los Gatos, Calif. 



Increase With Pound Packages 



By John Vanden Berg 



AFTER a number of years of 

 beekeeping, the fall of 1914 

 found me with only five colo- 

 nies of bees. 



During the winter we nailed up a 

 quantity of supplies, including 1,200 

 standard Langstroth frames, fitted 

 with full sheets of light brood foun- 

 dation, which was fastened in place 

 with Dr. Miller splints. Wishing to 

 make a good job we used eight splints 

 thai were boiled in beeswax to each 

 frame. 



Being anxious to increase the num- 

 ber of colonies as rapidly as possi- 

 ble, I bought up colonies of healthy 

 bees wherever I could locate them, 

 some being shipped in from another 



