THE BEE-KEErERS, REVIEW. 



23 



disrepute, and work an injury to the 

 breeder who possesses a strain of bees 

 tluit really possess tongues of unusual 

 length. It is deplorable that bee-keepers 

 have this disposition to fly at a new 

 thing, and then drop it again as suddenly, 

 before they have really had time to dis- 

 cover its merits or demerits. As I have 

 said repeatedly, let's not be carried away 

 by this long-tongue fad, neither let us 

 cast it aside uninvestigated; for really, 

 we have only commenced to investigate 

 the matter. 



In regard to bees getting honey from 

 red clover, I wish to most thoroughly 

 endorse the following editorial comments 

 taken from Gleanings. Bro. Root says: — 



In regard to this last, I feel that Prof. 

 Gillette has gatherefl a wrong impression, 

 and cerlainlv wrong in supposing that 

 pollen may be the only thing sought by 

 the bees. The red-clover corolla tubes 

 grown throughout the East, as I have 

 measured them, in liundredthsof an inch. 

 vary all the way from . 12 to .36 or .37 in 

 length, the depth increasing from the 

 outside to the center. In the rain-belt. 



at least, I am sure I am right for these 

 measurements. What they may be in 

 Colorado I am not able to say. As nearly 

 as I can estimate, half of the tubes in an 

 ordinary head of red clover come within 

 the range of .20 and .22; so that the bees 

 that have a tongue reach, no matter what 

 tlieir tongue /oii^ih may be, will be able 

 to gather from half of the tubes; and pro- 

 baljjy half of all the necter in the head, 

 as they get some out of the long tubes. 

 That there is honey in these tubes is well 

 known, a fact which can be easily demon- 

 strated. All one has to do is to pull the 

 tubes at the right season of the year, 

 squeeze one Vietween the thumb and finger, 

 and a good-sized drop of nectar will issue 

 from the end. Nay, I have gone further, 

 I have watched bees working on red 

 clover, and have repeatedly seen them ex- 

 tract all the nectar out of the shallow 

 tubes, and draw it down in the long 

 tubes to a point just equal to their reach. 

 While the bees do, of course, gather 

 some pollen from red clover, yet I think 

 the fact is demonstrated beyond doubt 

 that tons and tons of such honey is gath- 

 eied, because there are times when noth- 

 ing else is in bloom, and the bees will 

 store in sections quantities of honey that 

 tastes very much like the bumble-bee 

 honey of our boyhood da3's. 



EXTRACTED DEPARTMENT. 



COMB.ATTING Foil. BROOD. 



.K Simple liiK RlTectnnl .Mciliod 

 of Ki:c])iiii; it at H;iy. 



One by one the problems of apicul- 

 ture are being solved. Foul brood has 

 been considered the greatest scourge that 

 can visit an apiary, yet there are many 

 bee-keepers in Colorado who no longer 

 regard it in that light — in fact I heard 

 more than one say that it was a blessing 

 instead of a curse, as it wiped out the 

 apiaries of the careless and slovenlv, get- 

 ting rid of that much competition, while 

 th° thorough-going bee-keeper could 

 easily avoid loss from it, even if located 

 in a foul brood district. Upon inquiry 1 

 learned that this immunity from loss was 



secured simoly by the wholesale applica- 

 tion of well known principles. The man- 

 ner in which they are applied is well de- 

 scribed in ati editorial in the November 

 issue of the Rocky Mountain Bee Journal, 

 fram which I make the following ex- 

 tracts: — 



While foul brood wiped out many of 

 the original apiarists of the state, it is not 

 considered a serious menace by the intel- 

 ligent "new blood" that has succeeded 

 them. In the "locality" broadly includ- 

 ed in the term Colorado (probably just as 

 applicable to the entire Rocky INIountain 

 region ) the character of the honev flow 

 is such as to jjermit a system of manage- 

 ment for comb honey that practically 

 renders the apiary immune from the 

 disease. 



Some of our largest and be.st comb 

 honey producers have for years made a 

 specialty of producing fancy honey. It 

 is a well known fact that section honey 



