TIOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
The Ever -Busy Honey Bee
Its Value as a Honey Maker as Well as in Pollinization of
Orchards, Clover and Buckwheat.
C. . Hodge, Professor of Social
Biology, University of Oregon,
Eugene, contributes a valuable
and interesting article on the
honey beo as a factor in farm
conservation.
BEES are valuable for the honey crop,
but may be even more so for their
work in pollenation of orchards, clover,
alfalfa and buckwheat. Pew farmers
realize the value of the honey crop.
For Washington, Oregon and probably
the greater part of California not 10
per cent of the nectar is gathered.
Bowsfield says: "I have a yard of bees
which worked in a faild of buckwheat
containing about ten acres. No other
buckwheat was within reach of them.
They brought in over $200 worth of
buckwheat honey from this small field.
This is an average of over $20 per acre.
I have, during an exceptional year, se
cured a yield treble the above from
buckwheat"
He also speaks of securing $430 worth
of basswood honey from a grove of less
than ten acres. These are crops which
ought not to be allowed to go to waste.
Some of the larger factors in the
problem of honey production are indi
cated by figures from the thirteenth
census as follows:
the efficiency of little things in nature.
I will not tell any of the figures I
have, because I want everyone who
reads this to go out into garden, orch
ard and field and get this revelation
straight from nature for himself.
Pollenization by Bees,
It is commonly said that no ntnne
fruit cherry, prune, peach will "set"
at all unless insect pollenized. Just what
insects we have in any locality to do
tms is a study by itself. In most local
ities very few insects of anv kind are
active during this early bloom. All the
nauvo American bees, wasps and horn
ets are solitary, wintering over only the
fertilo nueens. With the honev hee we
have a social colony of from 10,000 to
50,000 active workers ready to swarm
out into the early spring orchard bloom.
The experiment has often been tried of
tying netting over a branch of a fruit
tree during the entire period of bloom
and then comparing the nnmher nf
fruits set on this branch with similar
branches of the same tree. It is com
monly found that there is no set on the
covered branch in the case of anv stone
fruit.
With the pome fruits, apples and
pears, the case is somewhat different.
A few apples apparently yield as well
witnouc cross-pollenation as with it.
Most apples are improved by fertiliza
tion with some other variety. Peara d-
pend much more on insect fertilization
a minute yields a marvelous lesson in
Bees and Honey Production la Pacific States.
Population. Area,Sq. M. No. Hivea. Vl. of pr'd'ct. Lbs. Honey.
WMkblttoa 1,141,90 66,880 83,840 $ 66,391 503,580
Orejon 672,765 4,560 47,285 94,510 839,981
California. 2,877,549 155,980 201.02J 665,367 10,264,715
Lbs. Wax.
4,038
8,383
126,445
The average honey production per
hive is 15 pounds in Washington, 18
pounds in Oregon and 51 pounds in Cali
fornia, which means that modern,
scientific, methods of bee culture have
been somewhat developed in California,
and not, probably, that nectar resources
are necessarily so different.
Different Colors.
Different plants naturally produce
nectars of different colors, flavors and
qualities and upon these inherent dif
ferences depend the characters of the
various kinds of honey. Apple blossom
honey, in regions where the apple blos
som Is fragrant and secretes nectar in
quantity, the writer considers thn most
delicious of all honeys. Along with the
eraze lor appearances generally the
waier-wnito noney of the linden, or
basswood, and the white sage, of South
ern California, have been, in the past,
accorded the place of honor. However
most people do not eat honey with their
eyes and we are beginning to appreci
ate Stirling qualities of flavor and
aroma in even a dark honey.
Probably white clover vields more
honey, the country over, than any other
piant, ana the honey id a bright amber
ol excellent qnahty. The other clovers,
alsike, sweet, red and alfalfa along
with the related peas, vetches and lo
custs all yield honey abundantly and
of the same general type. Then there
are a long list of trees, peach, plum,
prune, cherry, apricot, almond, tulip,
older maple (the maple trees in early
April were fairlv "roarins" with bees
at Forest Grove this spring) and some
otners; another list of flowering shrubs
and vines, raspberries, huckleberries
and blueberries, rhododendrons, azaleas,
manzanitas, laurels, currants, ampclop
sis and grape furnish nectars.
Important Crops.
. Several important crop plants, eot
ton, corn, rape, melons, eucumbers,
squashes and pumpkins, and even
onions, and finally the longest list of
all, the weeds and wild flowers, the
mints and balms, sorrels, docks, dande
lion, the sunflowers, asters and golden
rods, and a host of others all are con
spiring to yield a succession of nectars
for the bees. A country does not need
to be conspicuously flowery to be a
rich paradise for these industrious per
veyors of nature 's most delicious sweets
and danger of overstocking is generally
more imaginary than real. To study and
learn and know the honey plants of a
region and have the bees ready to save
these crops is certainly a most fasci
nating problem for any farmer's fam
ily, or for a neighborhood graige.
A beo is a fuzzy little brush on wings,
and, watch in hand, to observe one and
count how many blossoms Bhe visits in
and are likely to be small, shriveled
and woody, unless seeds are forming
within. It has been claimed that bees
carry the germs of fire blight to the
pear blossoms: and the exrjeriment was
tried on a large scale in Colorado of re
moving all the bees from a near raisinr
locality. The result was that the blight
was not appreciably decreased, the ernti
was practically worthless and the bees
had to be brought back.
Effects of Stormy Weather.
Cold and stormy weather durino- fruit
bloom is often supposed to be the causo
oi orcnards not setting well. This may
be, however, in the main an indirect
cause, the weather preventing the bees
irom wording iroely. In such seasons it
has been observed that an oval area in
an orchard immediately surrounding a
hive, and with the long diameter down
tne wind irom it, has secured a good
set of fruit. Considerable observation
of the prune orchards in Oregon the
present spring has suggested strongly
tnat we may have hero, at least, a par
tial reason for the failuro of the crop
of Italian prunes. Careful attention
to this point throughout the prune dis
tricts this season may shed much valu
able light on this problem.
Hunter, in Kansas, demonstrated ai.
increase or over bo per cent in the seed
crop of alfalfa from a field near which
honey bees wero kept as compared with
a neiu za miles distant irom the near
est apiary. Later observations carried
on by a number of Experiment Sta
tions for the past eight years, while
showing that they are of some impor
tance, indicate that bees are not as ef
fective pollenizers of alfalfa ah thsv
were formerly suppose! to be. There is
a similar problem in connection with
the raisin? of red clover ieed. After
years of selection and breeding, it is
confidently claimed that we have at last
secured a long-tongued strain of honey
bees which work on red clover. Has
their presence increased the yield of
clover seed anywhere in the Pacific
Northwest I
With tha enormoni production of
cheap sugar in recent years the fine in
dustry of beekeeping has tended to fall
into neglect. It is to be hoped that
some of the above suggestions may
bring about a revival of interest in
what has been aptly called "the poetry
of farming."
BritAln In th firat ftwn mnntlia a 10.11
imported 60,000,000 pounds of apples.
TSfl MftTftT state ImvA & rtnfii wnrifc an.
ilve-thonsandth part ot a cent.
Tn 1913 the total commerce of France
broke all record! both aa to valuation and
volume.
is
H $$3aV.
aO.X V
vei i our i
MLanadian nome
from the.
Canadian Racific
r
1 ViEv I
nV'Pn.nrt. .... tl 1 - .....
I is high-priced simply because it was once worth its
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mi ihcia, imcuuicis um iranbpuruuiua laciiiuesinatareuncxceueu.
iiauBvQinuij aiiicnuiu ijrupusiiioa io maua 10 any earnest rnrmerorto
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You Are Loaned $2000.00 to Pay for Farm ImproyemenU!
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