82 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 



honey per year. One year it was 

 over 100 pounds. Honey from cut- 

 ton is very light in color, the comb 

 v< ry white, and of excellent flavor 

 when well ripened. As soon as cool 

 weather sets in this honey fairly 

 draws out in long strings, when 

 handled with a spoon." — Gleanings, 

 page 1313, 1907. 



From the above it will be seen that 

 cotton honey is of good quality, at 

 least in some localities. Samples 

 ■..ml to be from cotton from Georgia, 

 are strong and of rather poor quality. 

 while cotton honey received from 

 Texas is light in color, of mild and 

 rather pleasing flavor. The honey 

 from cotton granulates very quickly. 

 That produced in the southeastern 

 States also has the effect of bursting 

 the containers, possibly from the ef- 

 fect of fermentation. The humidity 

 of the atmosphere evidently has a 

 marked effect on the quality of the 

 honey from this plant. The following 

 reports indicate the quality: 



"As to the quality of cotton 

 honey, I can say from my own ex- 

 perience, that it varies in color 

 from light amber to almost water 

 white. While I do not consider it 

 equal to white clover in flavor, it 

 is superior to basswood. * * 

 The flow increases toward the last 

 of the season, and if we can get 

 two weeks of nice weather after 

 frost it amounts to a considerable 

 increase in the crop." — J. D. Yan- 

 cey, Hunt Co., Texas. Gleanings, 

 page 162, 1910. 



"It did well on our rich bottom 

 land and yielded a fair crop of the 

 finest honey it was ever my pleas- 

 ure to see. It was so thick that it 

 was almost impossible to extract it, 

 and entirely out of the question to 



strain it through a single thickness 

 of cheese-cloth. It was light in 

 color, mild in flavor, and very 

 heavy, and in my opinion superior 

 to any honey ever shipped to this 

 locality, not excepting huijilla. The 

 long drought and consequent ab- 

 sence of all other bloom enabled us 

 to get a purer cotton honey than 

 we had ever been able to get be- 

 fore. Again in the late fall, when 

 the weather began to get cool, our 

 cotton took a second growth, soon 

 blooming profusely, and by acci- 

 dent we got also a fair fall crop." — 

 O. Saunders, Trenton, Texas. Page 

 734, Gleanings, 1910. 

 One great advantage of the cotton 

 flow is its long continuation. In 

 Texas it begins to bloom in May or 

 June, and the bees work it steadily 

 until late fall, often November. Ex- 

 tra cultivation or fertilization of the 

 soil increases the vigor of the plant 

 and the nectar flow is increased ac- 

 cordingly: 



"I can remember when the bees 

 gathered only enough nectar from it 

 to stimulate brood rearing, and now 

 we get from one to three supers of 

 surplus from this source alone. * * 

 On land where we used to make a 

 bale of cotton to 4 or 5 acres, now 

 we make 1 to 2 bales per acre, us- 

 ing high grades of commercial fer- 

 tilizer and more prolific varieties 

 of the plant. It yields more where 

 it grows best, and of a much longer 

 duration."— J. J. Wilder, Cordele, 

 Ga. Page 237, American Bee Jour- 

 nal, 1911. 



Bees get nectar not only from the 

 cotton blossoms, but from extra- 

 floral nectaries as well. At times 

 almost entirely, and to gather freely 

 they seem to neglect the blossoms 



from the extra-floral nectaries. Some 

 of these are located under the flower 

 and begin to secrete nectar before 

 the blossoms open. Others are lo- 

 cated on the under sides of the 

 leaves, and vary from one to three on 

 each leaf. When atmospheric condi- 

 tions are favorable, these glands se- 

 crete abundantly and the nectar 

 gathers in drops. At times it is so 

 abundant that the men cultivating 

 get their clothes saturated with the 

 nectar, while following the cultiva- 

 tor, from the brushing of the leaves 

 against them. Later in the day the 

 heat of the sun evaporates most of 

 the moisture, leaving the clothing 

 sticky. In hot and dry weather the 

 flow is on in the morning and again 

 in the evening, while in cloudy or 

 damp weather it lasts all day. 



When first gathered, the honey is 

 said to be very thin and clear, with a 

 strong and nauseating taste, resem- 

 bling the taste of the plant itself. As 

 the moisture is evaporated and the 

 nectar ripened in the hive, this dis- 

 agreeable taste is lost to a large ex- 

 tent. During a heavy flow a strong 

 odor is frequently present in the 

 apiary, which can be noticed at some 

 distance from the hives. Scholl com- 

 pares this odor to that of crushed 

 cotton leaves. He reports that at 

 times it becomes so strong as to have 

 a sickening effect on the apiarist, 

 even interfering with his work on 

 calm days. 



The heaviest flows come from 

 rank-growing plants on rich soils, 

 during warm and wet weather. At 

 such times the honey is lighter in 

 color and superior in quality, while 

 the honey stored from plants grow- 

 ing on light soils during dry weather 

 is darker and strong in taste. 



Pollen from the cotton plant is 

 white in color, and is produced in 

 abundance from the large bell-shaped 

 flowers. When the bloom first opens 

 it is white, later turning pink. 



The honey-plant region of Ti 



1. The Rio Grande Valley region 



2. The mesquite region. 



The East Texas region. 

 The cotton region. 

 The West Texas region. 



A Wax and Honey Separator 



By J. E. Crane 



I HAVE had a good deal of preju- 

 dice for several years against a 

 capping melter. Whether this was 

 because I did not use it as I should 

 or whether I had expected too much 

 of one, I cannot say, for T had read 

 how you could drop the cappings 

 onto one as you sliced them from the 

 well filled combs, and at the end of 

 the day have a nice lot of clean 

 honey and a cake of wax ready for 

 market. I found instead a lot of 

 honey with more or less dirt in it and 

 my cake of wax with either a large 

 amount of dirt or slumgum mixed in 

 willi it, or a cake of wax where the 

 dirt had settled to the bottom mixed 

 witli wax and saturated with honey. 

 IImu to get out the wax and dirt an 1 

 leave all the honey was often a 

 question. Usually. I think, I tipped 

 the cake of wax up on its side and 

 let it drain until the next day. From 

 some of the cakes I could scrape <>r 

 chip off the dirty wax at the bottom 

 and make them look quite respecta- 

 ble, fit to sell or ship to the manu- 

 facturers of comb-foundation. 



How 



