1877. 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



271 



stock have been excluded. Cattle feed iipon 

 the young basswoods with gi'eat avidity, 

 and pasturing our woodlands is eventually 

 going to cut short the young growth of these 

 trees from our forests, as well as many 

 others that are valuable. We planted trees 

 all the way from one to ten feet in height. 

 The larger ones have as a general rule d(uie 

 best. 



Basswood, and perhaps most other forest 

 trees, reipure shade, especially when young ; 

 and uuich to our surprise, some that were 

 l)lanted directly under some large white oak 

 trees, have done better than any of the rest. 

 "Who has not noticed 'exceedingly thrifty 

 basswoods growing in the midst of a clump 

 of briars and bushes of all sorts V I would 

 place the trees not more than 12 feet apart, 

 for it is an easy matter to thin them out 

 whenever they are found too close. A 

 neighbor has planted basswoods entirely 

 round his farm on the road sides, and they 

 add much to the comfort of travelers, are 

 pretty to the sight, and will without doubt, 

 furnish honey enough, in time, to pay all ex- 

 penses. 



The best yield of honey we have ever had 

 from a single hive, in one day, was from the 

 basswood bloom ; the amount was 43 lbs in 

 three days. The best we ever recorded from 

 clover, was 10 lbs in one day. The honey 

 from the basswood has a strong aromatic, 

 or mint flavor, and we can tell when the 

 blossoms are out, by the perfume about the 

 hives. The taste of the honey also indi- 

 cates to the apiarist the very day the bees 

 commence work on it. The honey, if ex- 

 tracted before it is sealed over, when it is 

 coming in rapidly, has the distinctive flavor 

 so strong as to be very disagreeable to some 

 persons. My wife likens it to the smell and 

 taste of turpentine or camphor, and very 

 much dislikes it, Avhen just gathered, but 

 when sealed over and fully ripened in the 

 hive, she thinks it delicious, as does almost 

 every person. 



AFKZSSS. It is with the class of these 

 insects that produce honey, (or rather a 

 sweetish substance that bees collect and 

 store as Iwney) that we liave to do. They 

 are a kind of plant lice, that are to be seen 

 in almost all localities, and during nearly 

 all the summer and fall months, if we only 

 keep our eyes about us, and notice tliem 

 when they are right before us. If you ev- 

 ainine the leaves of almost any green tree, 

 you will find them peopled by small insects, 

 almost the color of tr.e leaves on wliich they 

 live ; while some are quite large, others are 



almost or quite invisible to the naked eye. 

 Now all these bits of animated nature, while 

 they feed on the green foliage, are almost 

 incessantly emitting a sort of licpiid ex- 

 crement, and as this is usually tlirown some 

 distance from the insect, it often falls from 

 the leaves of the tree, like dew. If tliis mat- 

 ter is new to you I wovdd ask you to ex- 

 amine tlie stone pavements early in the 

 morning, under almost any green tree ; an 

 apple or willow will be pretty sure to show 

 spots of moisture, something as if water or 

 rain had been sprinkled over it in a fine 

 spray. The leaves of tlie trees will also be 

 found somewhat sticky where the exudation 

 is suflicient to make it noticeable. 



This substance is I believe, not always 

 sweet to the taste, but usually so. The 

 quantity is often so small, as to be unnoticed 

 by the bees, but occasionally, they will seem 

 quite busy licking it up. I have several 

 times found them at work on the leaves of 

 our apple trees very early in the morning, 

 but never to such an extent that it might 

 really be called honey dew. I have seen 

 them also on a willow fence making a hum- 

 ming like a buckwheat field, and at the same 

 time, the ground under the trees looked as 

 if molasses had been sprinkled about. The 

 bees were at work on the ground also ; the 

 honey 'tasted much like cheap molasses. 

 The strange part of the matter was that 

 this occurred during a warm day late in the 

 month of Oct. ; it proceeded entirely from 

 the aphides, for they literally covered the 

 leaves of the willow, and could be seen plain- 

 ly, ejecting the sweet liquid, while they fed 

 on the leaves. This was plainly the cause 

 of the honey dew in this case, but it is by no 

 means clear, that such is always the case. 



See HONEY DEW. 



ASTERS. Under this head, we have a 

 large class of autumn flowers, most of which 

 are honey bearing ; they may be distin- 

 guished from the helianthus, or artichoke 

 and sunfloAver family, by the color of the ray 

 flowers. The ray flowers are tlie outer col- 

 ored leaves of the flower, which stand out 

 like rays ; in fact, the word aster means star, 

 because these ray flowers stand out like the 

 rays of a star. Many of the yellow autumn 

 flowers are called asters, but this is an error, 

 for the asters are never yellow, except in 

 the centre. The outside, or rays, are blue, 

 piu-ple or white. You may frequently find 

 a half dozen different varieties growing al- 

 most side by side. Where there are acres of 

 them so to speak, they sometimes yield 

 considerable honey, but some seasons they 



