ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



177 



soon as it struck the comb. There 

 is, on the other liand, a good deal 

 of honey- dew in various parts of the 

 world that never granulates at all. 

 There is some honey-dew that will 

 not granulate inside of five years. I 

 don't know of any other way to tell 

 honey-diew except its taste. 



Question — ^Which is superior, Gold- 

 men Italians or Red Clover Bees ? 



Mr. York — Some people write me and 

 tell me they think the long tongued 

 "bees are a fake. 



Dr. Dohrer — That is a question I 

 would like to hear discussed, if there 

 is such a thing as the Red Clover 

 "bee; I would like to know what dif- 

 ference there is — how it differs from 

 the ordinary three banded Italian. I 

 wrote to a queen breeder once in 

 regard to that matter, and he told 

 me he was satisfied of one thing, that 

 they couldn't remain in the hive and 

 Teach out into the fields and get 

 nectar and draw it in with their long 

 tongues, but he wouldn't take the po- 

 sition that there was such a thing 

 as the Red Clover Italian bee. I 

 ■don't believe there is. I never have 

 seen anything of the kind. Bees of 

 the same strain will differ I think as 

 to size, and the tongues will differ as 

 to length, but a strain of bees uni- 

 formly that will go into a red clover 

 "blossom and get honey regularly, I 

 don't believe there is anything in it; 

 at least, I have never been able to 

 tind a man that will guarantee any- 

 thing of the kind. In 1865 I was in 

 the Army, and on my return home I 

 found a peculiar looking honey in one 

 of my hivesi; I opened it out, and 

 unless it was red clover honey I don't 

 know what it was. It w^as hardly a 

 peach blossom color, and yet it was 

 of a reddish cast. "We had in Indiana 

 at that time a great deal of golden 

 rod honey, but this was different from 

 that. Mr. Langstroth never claimed 

 there was any such thing as the red 

 clover Italian bee. 



Question — The best way to hive 

 swarms which have clustered on high 

 trees or difficult places? 



Mr. De Jong — I have a swarm catch- 

 er on a long pole; I have had to get 

 on to the wagon and reach up with 

 that. I have given them a good push, 

 and most of the bees would fall in. 

 In that way I get the swarm down 

 into the hive. 



Dr. Bohrer — "What is the probable 

 height that you could reach? 



Mr. De Jong— About ten feet, and 

 I got up on top of the wagon, on a 

 spring seat, and reached as high as 

 I could. 



Mr. Saunders — I had a little experi- 

 ence with a swarm clustered on an 

 over-hanging branch of a tree about 

 eighteen feet -from the ground; it kind 

 of puzzled me, but I finally made a 

 tripod of long, small poles, and raised 

 my hive underneath them and raked 

 them into the hive and left them there 

 till night, and then removed them. 

 Anybody can make a tripod with three 

 long poles, and it is very easy after 

 you get your hive up there to put them 

 in and leave them there till night, and 

 then remove them. 



The President — ^We have an answer 

 to the question from Ernest Root, 

 which I will read — "In a well regulat- 

 ed apiary swarms should not be al- 

 lowed to cluster in high trees. This 

 can be prevented by having the wings 

 of all queens clipped, or queen ex- 

 cluders placed over the entrances; but 

 it sometimes happens that a stray 

 swarm will take up with some virgin 

 in the air and alight in an inacces- 

 sible place. "Where they cannot be 

 reached with swarming poles and step- 

 ladders, the only thing to do is to 

 climb after them. If they can be 

 reached by a spray of water from a 

 force pump they possibly may be dis- 

 lodged and made to cluster elsewhere 

 or at some point more accessible. 



There have ibeen occasional reports 

 of how a shot gnn has been used to 

 advantage by sending a charge of 

 shot right into the center of a cluster 

 located at some point where the swarm 

 cannot be reached by ordinary means; 

 but this irritates the Dees, kills a good 

 many, and usually fails in its object. 

 "Where a swarm has clustered on the 

 end of a limb, some forty or fifty 

 feet froim the ground, it can often 

 be reached by the following manner: 

 Tie a string to a stone weighing a 

 pound or two. Get some good base- 

 ballist to throw this so that the stone 

 ;will just go over the limb and lodge 

 in some crotch, if possible. If thrown 

 right, the stone may pass over the 

 limb and make a circle a couple of 

 times, winding the string around the 

 limb. This will give a secure attach- 

 ment, so that the limb can be shaken 

 by means of the string attached to 



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