208 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



•Sept. 



able localities. In comparing plants, it 

 should be remembered, tint those that bear 

 mucli honey usually may, at times, furnish 

 nous at all ; and also those which usually 

 f nrnisli none may, under very favorable cir- 

 cumstances, yield largely. 



Tins plant often tiourishes about fence 

 corners, and aroiuid the ruins of old dwel- 

 lings, sheds, or even hog pens. The large 

 leaf, taken by itself, much resembles the 

 currant ; the stalk is much like catnip ; and 

 the little flowers are in tufts, close to the 

 stalk. It remains in blossom a long time, 

 and may be as worthy of cultivation, as any 

 of the plants of its class. 



SffU'STAH'© {Sina2jls Arvenses.) This 

 belongs to the same family as the^ turnip, 

 cabbage, nipe, etc., all of which, I believe, 

 almost invariably furnish honey while they 

 are in bloom. We have a good opportunity 

 of testing these plants, because acres of 

 them are raised for other purposes besides 

 the honey. It will be a liard matter to de- 

 termine which is best for your locality, with- 

 out trying a plant of each. Find out what 

 kind of a market you have for your seed, and 

 then proceed to raise it, as if you were going 

 to depend on the seed alone to i)ay expenses. 

 Should you secure a good crop of honey from 

 it, you will then be so much ahead, and 

 t.here is little chance of any gi'eat loss. 



The honey from these plants is said to be 

 very light, equal to any in flavor, and to 

 command the highest price in the market. 

 Tlie seed should be sown very early in the 

 spring, either in shallow drills so far apart 

 that the cultivator can be used between 

 them, or broadcast. The former plan is, of 

 course, the better one for nearly all honey 

 plants, but is more trouble. Fronl 6 to 10 

 lbs. per acre will be needed, if sown in drills, 

 rfnd from 15 to 20, if sown broadcast. If 

 you wish to save the seed, it should be sown 

 not later than July 1st. When the gi'eater 

 paxl of the pods are ripe, the stalks are to be 

 cut and carefully dried. A cloth should be 

 spread in the bottom of the w^agon, when 

 gathering, for the seed will shell out consid- 

 erably, if it is in proper condition to thresh. 

 I presume we have machines especially 

 adapted for cleaning and threshing the seecT, 

 but I have always seen a flail and fanning 

 mill used. Of course, it should be threshed 

 on a tight floor, or on a floor made tight by 

 a lai-ge piece of canvass. The seed of the 

 common kinds of mustard brings four or five 

 dollars per bushel. I do not know how 

 nvany bushels are raised per acre. The Chi- 



nese variety has been highly extolled for 

 bees, but we liave found the common black 

 mustard that grows almost of itself to tlu-ive 

 better, and be more visited by the bees. 

 Who will give ns the results of some practi- 

 cal experiments V 



NUCIiTiVB. This word applied to bee 

 cultui-e, signifies a small swann of bees, per- 

 haps from one-fourth to one-tenth of a full 

 colony. The plural of the word is nuclei; it 

 Were well to bear this in mind, for there is 

 much confusion in the use of the terms, even 

 in printed circulars. If you remove a dozen 

 bees from the hive, take them so far away 

 that they are homeless, and then let theni 

 fly, they will after a time come pretty nearly 

 back to the place from which you released 

 them; but unless tliey have a queen with 

 them, they will soon wander away and be 

 lost. If you give them a queen, they will 

 come back to where they left her, and will 

 probably remain if she does not stray away. 

 She, like the rest, must fulfill her destiny, or 

 she will wander away; we shall therefore 

 have to provide her a comb wherein to lay 

 eggs. The bees would build the comb them- 

 selves, if there were enough of them, and 

 they had plenty of food. A dozen woidd 

 never build any comb; neither would they 

 make any attempt to rear and hatch lier 

 eggs, if the comb were given them. Per- 

 haps a hundred bees put in a suitably small 

 box, with a fertile queen, might start a col- 

 ony, and this is what we call a nucleus. It 

 is the centre about which a colony of bees 

 may in time be formed. If they should be 

 built up to a full colony, the building up 

 would be done by the queen's filling her 

 combs with eggs, which, when cared for by the 

 nursing bees (see bees), w^ould be converted 

 into larva?, and in 21 days, would be hatched 

 into perfect bees. These bees would then 

 help the original hundred, and the queen 

 would fill a still larger area with eggs, whicli 

 would be hatched in the same way, and so 

 on. The difficulty in the w^ay of building up 

 from such small beginnings seems to be that 

 the queen will lay all the eggs a hundred 

 bees can care for, perhaps, in an hour or two, 

 and then she has to sit or loaf around for the 

 whole 21 days, until she can have another 

 "job." Before the 21 days are up', she will 

 be very likely to get disgusted v^ith such 

 small proceedings, and swarm out, or at 

 least induce the bees with her to do so. If 

 we should increase the number of bees to 

 500 or 1,000, we would get along veiy much 

 better, and there would be little danger of 

 swarming out, unless the hive given them 



