1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



199 



ranges from the lowlands along most 

 of the coast and far back in portions 

 of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida 

 and Louisiana, and into all those 

 States which border the Mississippi 

 river, there is a typical swamp flora 

 which is so varied that it is impossi- 

 ble to describe it in a short space. 

 Gallberry is again an important 

 source here, with black and white tu- 

 pelo, saw and cabbage palmetto, cit- 

 rus trees and thousands of vines, as 

 well as a number of cultivated crops. 

 Probably two of the best gallberry 

 regions in the country are located in 

 North Carolina and Southern Geor- 

 gia, reaching down into Northern 

 Florida. 



Wesl of tlu' Mississippi river, in 

 Northern and Eastern Texas, is the 

 best cotton honey area in existence, 

 on the deep, sandy, black loam soils. 

 Horsemint is also an important 

 source here, and in some portions of 

 this territory sweet clover is also 

 coming in, even as far up as North- 

 ern Oklahoma. Southern Texas, be- 

 tween the Mississippi and Galveston, 

 appears to be a rather barren bee 

 country. Western Texas, which is 

 subject to periods of drought, has 

 several valuable and important 

 plants. Among them are huajilla, 

 catclaw and trees of the acacia fam- 

 ily. All are valuable for white honey 

 and cover most of the desert por- 

 tion of Texas. 



Beekeeping is fairly well advanced 

 in most of this territory, except in a 

 few regions where box-hives pre- 

 dominate. The territory is devoted 

 to the shipment of pound packages 

 of bees, where a long spring flow 

 builds up the colonies so that many 

 pounds of bees may be taken away 

 from them before the main honey- 

 flows begin. 



Nearly all the honey of the South 

 is a good quality and flavor, except 

 in scattered regions where bitter- 

 weed is prevalent. Honey from this 

 source is unpalatable, but bees will 

 not work it when any other good 

 honey-plant is in bloom. Its season 

 is definite enough so that good bee- 

 keepers may extract in time to pre- 

 vent mixing and may use the bitter 

 honey to feed back to the bees in 

 the fall for wintering purposes. 



Watertown, Wis. 



A Scheme to Prevent Sagging 

 Combs 



IT is to be hoped that the future 

 will bring forth some process of 

 manufacturing foundation _ that 

 will obviate the necessity of wiring. 

 In the meantime. I would suggest a 

 mode of wiring frames that will, in 

 a measure at least, prevent the sag- 

 ging of foundation which commonly 

 stretches the cells for an inch or 

 more below the top-bar. The plan is 

 best shown by reference to picture. 

 Half-inch nails are driven part way 

 in at points A, B, C and D. The 

 wire is passed through the perfora- 

 tions at A and B. The frame is then 

 inverted and the wire given one turn 

 about the nail. C. which is on the un- 

 der side of the top-bar, as near as 

 possible to the groove made to re- 



hod of wiring fra, 



ceive the foundation. The wire is 

 then drawn to moderate tension and 

 fastened to A. Next, with a pair of 

 pliers, the kind commonly used about 

 automobiles, the nail, C, is pressed in, 

 drawing the diagonal wires taut. The 

 horizontal wires are next inserted in 

 the usual way. It is best to drive the 

 nails, A. B and D, on the same side 

 of the frame as is the wedge or cor- 

 ner piece. The. nail, C, is, of course, 

 on the side opposite, close to the 

 groove. 



In inserting full sheets of founda- 

 tion it is found best to slip them in 

 between with the diagonal wires on 

 one side and the horizontal wires on 

 the other. For imbedding we use a 

 small transformer attached to an or- 

 dinary electric light socket, reducing 

 the pressure to about six volts. 



It will be observed that the wax 

 which tends to hold the wires to- 

 gether at points E and F prevents 

 sagging, which is almost sure to oc- 

 cur with ordinary horizontal wiring, 

 if the wtather is hot and there is any 

 considerable weight of bees. The 

 time required to wire frames in this 

 way, after one acquires the knack, is 

 about the same as for horizontol wir- 

 ing. 



It would be of interest to have re- 

 ports from any others who may 

 have actually tried out the diagonal 

 wiring in connection with the hori- 

 zontal here shown. 



E. S. MILLER, 

 Valparaiso, Ind. 



A Boy's Beginning With Bees 



By Elmer Okerlundt 



Editor's Note. — The following ac- 

 count of a boy's first beekeeping ex- 

 perience should be of interest to 

 every beginner. It shows that a fel- 

 low with a good book and good sense 

 can soon master the essentials. It is 

 surprising that such good practice 

 should have been followed from the 

 first with the little help except the 

 book: 



IN the winter of 1917 (when I was 

 17 years old) I decided to buy a 

 swarm of bees and experiment. 

 As for me, I knew no more about 

 bees than the man in the moon. I 

 had never seen the inside of a bee- 

 hive and did not know the names of 

 any fixtures. Therefore, my first 

 move was to find a catalog and study 

 bee supplies. As soon as I got so I 

 could tell comb-foundation from a 



super I went to see one of the neigh- 

 bors. At that time he owned about 

 IS colonies in 10-frame hives, part of 

 which were Italians. He ran them 

 for extracted honey. Upon hearing 

 that I was interested in bees he gave 

 me about 25 copies of the American 

 Bee Journal and Dr. Miller's book to 

 take home and read. The more I 

 read, the more interested I got, and 

 before I knew it I had the fever real 

 bad. 



On April 15 I decided to commence. 

 A neighbor agreed to sell me a 

 swarm, so I drove over and got it. I 

 got them home all right, but when I 

 uncovered the entrance my courage 

 began to fall. Soon I got nerve 

 enough to remove the cover and 

 looked into a hive of bees for the 

 first time in my life. And a hive it 

 was. indeed. The frames had not 

 been out since they were put in and 

 were perhaps 10 or 15 years old. I 

 was unable to remove any, so I put 

 the cover on again to wait until some 

 other day. My first step was to make 

 a good stand for them. 



Although I had been told not to 

 bother my bees until dandelion 

 bloom, I could not resist the tempta- 

 tion, so one Sunday in April, wdien it 

 was almost cold enough to freeze ice 

 on hot water. I decided to interfere. 

 With the aid of a screw-driver and 

 wrecking bar I succeeded in remov- 

 ing the frames, although I broke sev- 

 eral of them. The combs, like the 

 bees, were black as coal, and so 

 crooked that when I transferred 

 them I could not find room for more 

 than 7, so I threw one away. I looked 

 in vain, but saw nothing that re- 

 sembled a queen, and although I got 

 a few stings, I was well pleased with 

 my first adventure with bees. I knew 

 I could handle them on a cold day, at 

 least. After a while I put a hive- 

 body with full sheets of foundation 

 under the other one and as the 

 weather was good they made wonder- 

 ful progress. 



The colony built up strong for win- 

 ter, but we had a very poor season. 

 In spite of these conditions, I man- 

 aged to smuggle away with 75 pounds 

 of extracted honey. I considered this 

 prettv good for a beginner, but the 

 lessons I learned that one summer 

 were worth more to me than all the 

 honey I have ever produced. In the 

 fall I thought they felt rather light, 

 so to be on the safe side I fed them 

 about 5 pounds of granulated sugar. 



