888 
WILD CHERRY 
If it takes 10,000 bees to carry a pound 
of nectar , one bee could carry only half its 
own weight. Some work has been done to 
show that a single bee can carry an amount 
of honey equal to its own weight. Honey, it 
will be understood, of course, would make 
a great deal less bulk. If the honeybee had 
a larger sac it might carry a much larger 
amount of nectar. When Professor Koons 
speaks of 10,000 bees carrying a pound of 
honey, he of course means nectar. 
These figures will not mean much to 
the practical beekeeper unless he realizes 
that the force of fielders should be, in the 
height of the flow, three or four times as 
large as the number of young bees acting 
in the capacity of nurses, comb-builders, 
and keeping up the ventilation in the hive 
by which the incoming nectar can be evapo¬ 
rated. It is right here that the very popu¬ 
lous colony — from 75,000 to 100,000 indi¬ 
viduals—shows its great superiority over 
a colony of 30,000 to 40,000 individuals. If 
it takes 20,000 or 25,000 bees to keep house 
on a total population of 40,000 it is clear 
that that colony will not gather a large 
amount of honey. But if the beekeeper has 
made his calculations so as to have a large 
force of fully matured tees at the begin¬ 
ning of the honey flow, not less than 75,000, 
the chances are he will get a crop if the 
honey is to be had. 
In the way of a summary, it may be said 
that there are approximately 5000 bees to 
a pound. While this number could carry a 
whole pound of honey they carry from one- 
fourth to one-half pound of raw nectar. 
The number of trips a bee will make in a 
day will vary from perhaps two or three to 
a dozen or more, averaging, perhaps, from 
five to ten trips during the honey flow. 
WEAK COLONIES TO STRENGTHEN. 
—See TTntting, sub-head “Alexander 
Plan,” also Nucleus and Building up Col¬ 
onies. 
WHITE CLOVER.— See Clover. 
WHITE HOLLY.— See Gallberry. 
WILD CHERRY (Prunv s serotina ). — 
Known locally as black cherry. Few trees 
of Florida are more stately and more sym¬ 
metrical in their growth than the wild 
cherry. It is native all over Florida, on 
high pine lands and in low hummocks. 
The wood is a beautiful red, with a fine 
grain, and is very valuable for cabinet 
purposes. The wood is, however, somewhat 
softer than that of the wild cherry of the 
North ( Prunus pennsylvanica) . In ap¬ 
pearance it closely resembles the wild 
cherry of more northern latitudes. It sel¬ 
dom fails to yield honey, and bountifully, 
too. Coming as it does just before the 
orange trees bloom, it gives a final spurt 
to brood-rearing that is valuable indeed. 
As a surplus honey it is more of a pest 
than a benefit, as the honey is dark red, 
and as bitter as wormwood. The flavor 
of a cherry pit is about that of this honey. 
It does not take a great deal of it to spoil 
the flavor and color of the first orange 
honey of the season, and many beemen in 
orange sections must extract their supers 
of all traces of wild-cherry honey or have 
their fancy orange honey touched and 
tinged. In the vicinity of DeLand, Fla., 
it is a real nuisance after the. orange honey 
commences to come in. Up to that time it 
is a bonanza and a blessing to the apiarist. 
The writer has in many cases placed 
a half-depth super on the strong colonies 
when they were storing from wild cherry, 
which was removed when the wild cherry 
flow was over and the orange flow began. 
Then he would extract the supers and put 
them back on the hives for the flow of or¬ 
ange honey. 
WILD SUNFLOWER.— See Sunflower. 
WILLOW. (Salix). —This is a very nat¬ 
ural or clearly defined genus of shrubs 
and trees found chiefly in the north tem¬ 
perate and arctic zones. Of the 161 de¬ 
scribed species, about 78 occur in North 
America, more than 30 of which are in 
eastern America. So variable are the spe¬ 
cies, and so freely do they hybridize, that 
any entirely satisfactory treatment from a 
systematic standpoint is impossible. The 
Swedish botanist Ande^on, whose mono¬ 
graph, published in the Prodromus of De 
Candolle, was the work of nearly 25 yeai’s, 
declared that of Salix nigricans, which has 
120 synonyms, he never saw two specimens 
that were exactly alike. In Great Britain 
the number of species of willow has been 
placed all the way from 12 to 80. 
The very small flowers are naked, or de¬ 
void of both sepals and petals, and are 
crowded together on an elongated stem or 
