ILLINOIS STA.TE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



131 



white mulberry is seventy-three per 

 cent sugar, saccharine substance, 

 whereas the European mulberry has 

 something like fifteen per cent, and 

 another black mulberry has perhaps 

 twenty- one. I have had some experience 

 in feeding white mulberries to bees, and 

 the more I use them, the better I like 

 ' them. I think it is the coming food 

 for bees in time of droughts, that will 

 be money in the bee-keeper's pocket. 

 I have some bees, and I feed them 

 those mulberries during the time of 

 fruition, from about the 15th of June 

 to the 15th of August. The way I feed 

 the mulberries is by putting them in 

 a dish and mashing them up, because 

 they can't get the honey or saccharine 

 substance out of the mulberries as they 

 are. You have to mash them up. I 

 believe I know some one who has seen 

 that done, and knows how they swarm 

 over it just like a piece of comb 

 honey. I attribute my success with my 

 Ijees to the use of mulberries for food. 

 I have just one colony this year. I got 

 a hundred pounds of honey, and some- 

 times more — call it a hundred pounds — 

 «very year by encouraging the bees 

 with the white mulberry. Any ques- 

 tion I will be very glad to answer. 



Mr. Whitney: Do you find that good 

 honey to winter them on, or don't you 

 know about it? 



Dr. Peiro: Yes, sir; it is a very 

 good honey for me to eat, I know that, 

 and everybody who uses it likes it very 

 much. 



Mr. Whitney: Most fruit juices are 

 not considered good to winter bees 

 on. 



Mr. Kennicott: What mulberry is 

 that? 



Dr. Peiro: The white mulberry. 



Mr. Kennicott: Is it a native of this 

 ■country ? 



Dr. Peiro: It is a native of Persia, 

 I think. It is of the fig family. It 

 is as hardy as an oak, and it needs 

 only to be known about for people to 

 take hold of it and plant it. It makes 

 a beautiful shade-tree. It is as hardy 

 as any tree we have in the country. 

 I am told the wood itself is excellent 

 for posts. 



Mr. Kennicott: "yVe have a mulberry 

 liere that is a na.tive that isn't ex- 

 actly white. It Is' a kind of a pink 

 and yellow. 



Dr. Peiro: That mulberry has prob- 

 ably been hybridized with the black, 

 and eventually it gets a deeper color. 



Mr. Kennicott: It has a very sweet 

 berry and grows very large. I have 

 seen the trees more than two feet 

 through. It is a native of this State. 

 They were never planted here, but they 

 grow wild in the Desplaines timber 

 here. 



Dr. Miller: Are we to understand 

 that this one hundred pounds of honey 

 was mulberry honey? 



Dr. Peiro: Not all of it, but a great 

 deal of it was. 



Mr. Holbrook: It costs money to 

 pick the berries. 



Top Covering Over Hive. 



"How thick a covering on top is- nec- 

 essary to keep in the heat of the hive?" 



Mr. Kennicott: An ordinary super 

 filled with leaves is suflicient. 



Dr. Peiro: Let me say one thing in 

 regard to that very point. I keep my 

 bees outdoors all the time. The way 

 I work it is to take a large box and 

 pad it in with all kinds of paper, news- 

 paper or anything else, and then I work 

 that over my hive, and it goes down 

 to the bottom of the hive and projects 

 out enough so as to protect the en- 

 trance and not let the snow get in 

 there. That answers all my purpose. 



President York: No covering over 

 the top of the bees? 



Dr. Peiro: Just this box I spoke of 

 being padded. 



Mr. Brubaker: Is there a danger of 

 getting too much packing around the 

 bees outside for winter? 



Mr. Jones: Not in our part of the 

 country, eighty miles north of here. 

 In a very warm winter, they ought 

 perhaps to have a little larger entrance. 

 I never found there was any trouble 

 in getting too much — not less than six 

 inches of packing, I would 'say. 



Comb Honey on Hand. 



"What amount or per cent of the 

 crop of comb honey is still on hand 

 among the bee men here?" 



Mr. Macklin: 1 have not had any for 

 six weeks. 



Mr. Kennicott: I have about one 

 hundred pounds on hand, white clover 

 honey mostly. 



President York: There might be a 

 chance to sell it if we knew who had 

 it. 



Mr. Kennicott: I have plenty of 

 customers at home. 



