BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Our first flow after fruit-bloom is poplar, which sometimes yields 100 lbs. of surplus, commencing in April and lasting until about the 15th of May. We then have a dearth of honey until about June 1, when wahoo or basswood begins to yield, lasting from fifteen to.twenty days, in good seasons coming in such quantities that the bees fall in heaps in front of the hives, and the whole yard has that peculiar aromatic smell that basswood alone has. I have taken more than 100 lbs. from that source alone of extracted honey, without any special attention. Oh, if all the trees were poplar and basswood, wouldn't we bee-keepers be happy! But, alas! the timber-men have invaded our happy hunting-ground, and the cotton-planter has followed close on the heels and turned a once fine bee-range into a cotton farm which soon turns rich black fertile land into a red-gullied unsightly region.
But this same cotton-plant on rich bottom land, some seasons, gives us a nice surplus; but the hill lands do not amount to much for surplus, but yield enough for queen-rearing. This plant commences to bloom about the 15th of June, continuing until frost, making a beautiful sight with its dark-green leaves and cream-colored blooms covering millions of acres. We can always tell when it is yielding well by the appearance of the bees when they enter the hive, as their coat is covered with the yellowish dust; but I do not consider the honey the best. In a damp season it has a way of fermenting, or working in the combs. I have seen the cappings somewhat raised from the combs from this cause. While some seasons the honey is light in color and good flavor (mind you, I am giving only facts in this immediate location) a great many tell me from other sections that the honey is fine in color and flavor.
But still there is a bright side to this seemingly dark picture. In the lime lands or prairie belt of our State, where the land has got too poor to grow cotton or other crops, melilotus, or sweet clover, has stepped in and commenced to rebuild what cotton has torn down. It takes hold of all waste places such as roadsides, ditch-banks, and flourishes in deepest gullies where nothing else will grow. I have seen it six to seven feet high in the deepest gullies, which it soon fills up and again produces fine crops. I have known land that made only about eight bushels of corn per acre, which when run in sweet clover for a few years, would yield from 25 to 30 bushels; so it seems as if nature were giving us something back to take the place of our forest; and the beauty of it is our farmers are not fighting it as I see they do in some States. How a farmer can be so blind to his own interest I can't see. Our farmers are mowing hundreds of tons of hay from it, and say it is the very best. They are the very ones who introduced it here; but the bee man has begun to reap a rich harvest from it. It begins to bloom about June 1, here, and yields a light-colored and fine-flavored honey when well ripened on the hive. I think it is as fine as we can produce here. The yield varies according to the amount of waste land and the location. I can give you some idea by mentioning one instance.
A few years ago a friend of mine bought an apiary, paying $500 for it, taking possession in June. He paid for it in sixty days with melilotus honey, that being his only source. You can see by this it is a fine yielded, and has the fewest off years of any plant I know of, consequently the prairie belt is becoming dotted with beautiful up-to-date apiaries with modern methods; and business men are not only investing their hundreds but thousands in the business. A few whom I will mention are located in my county, some twelve miles north of me. The Letohatchee apiaries, the owners of which are putting in something like 700 colonies with up-to-date hives and methods. Sweet clover there is the only source; also two enterprising young men, Messrs. Brown and Knight, of Hayeville, Ala., who own several large apiaries, something like go colonies, besides several large apiaries outside the county. Mr. Brown is a New York man; Mr. Knight, a native Alabamian; also a Mr. David S. Hurst, of Letohatchee, Ala., who is engaging in the business quite extensively, owning several hundred colonies, besides being extensively engaged in the queen-business. Besides these is Mr. C. M. Berry, of Morganville, Ala., who owns several hundred colonies, making a success of the business. I think he is a native of Georgia, and full of Southern grit.
Besides these are hundreds of small apiaries too numerous to mention.
Now comes the most difficult part of this article, that is, trying to tell you something of my own experience. I have been interested in bees since my earliest recollections, putting them in log gums, box hives, and sawing holes in the columns of verandas, etc. Until the Root Co. sent out their simplicity hive I had never heard of a 'frame hive, which I was quick to adopt, seeing at once the value of the movable frame, and have kept up with every improvement that has been put out.
My first venture after adopting the movable-comb hive was to produce comb honey, which I studied with all the enthusiasm that an enthusiastic beeeper ever had; but I soon decided that my location was unsuitable for comb honey, it being too dark. My next was extracted honey; but did not like that. All this time I was studying the most important part of modern bee-keeping, the queen. I have bred queens by every known method, and some never given to the public. I have worked untiringly for the last twenty years at the business, having been a queen specialist for fifteen years, furnishing some of the largest dealers in the business. I have never advertised extensively, owing to the above fact; but some of my old customers are still giving me their orders, which shows I am trying hard to please; but I think it more from the love of the pursuit and a good location for queen-rearing than anything else, which is a long-drawn-out honey-flow. I would almost as soon have no honey coming in as a heavy flow for queen-rearing. I can bring about ideal conditions by feeding better than I can counteract the conditions of a heavy flow. I have had flows so heavy as completely to cover up cells with comb and honey, killing all the queens I have; also had all the unsealed brood covered in honey in a few hours, making it impossible to get larvae of the right age to graft from; besides the thousands of other hard problems in queen-rearing, I have tried all of the mating-hives that have been before the public from the smallest baby to the ten-frame hive, and can hardly tell what I like best; but I think I like the Root twin baby the best; but after trying it more extensively I may find some serious objections to it.
All this goes to show the reason why so many queen-breeders desert the business. One must have a love for it, and be made of some tough material, and not be too anxious to get rich.
W. J. Forhand,
Greenville, Ala.
Bee-keeping in the South is not carried on very extensively in my section, although we have a good country for bees, as our wintes are very mild as a general thing. There are not many days at a time when bees can not fly, so the outlook for bee-keeping is very good, as our farmer be keepers are adopting the latest styles of supplies, and doing away with the old box hive.
As to our pollen and honey plants, bees begin to gather pollen here about the first of January, and it lasts about four weeks. Our next is red elm in February which furnishes abundance of pollen. Maples are our next. Maple begins blooming in March, and furnishes some honey for two weeks; and fruit bloom and blackgum furnish a little honey. Then our main honey-flow is from poplar, beginning about the middle of April. It gives us a heavy flow, and lasts from three to four weeks. Honey from it is of a dark-amber color, and of a good quality. Then we have a flow in June from wahoo and rattan, which is of a very fine grade. Our surplus generally runs from so to 100 lbs, per colony. Then we have a little all along during the summer and fall from cotton and wild flowers.
This is a sketch of my locality. I -will now give the names of some Alabama bee-keepers:
R. O. Cox, Greenville; Elix Whitten, Greenville; B. L. Perdue, Greenville; W. J. Forehand, Ft. Deposit; Holmes & Garret, Letohatchee; D. S. Hurst, Letohatchee; Brown & Knight, Haneville. The last four names are located in Lowndes County, in the sweet-clover regions. It begins blooming in May, and lasts three weeks. The yield per colony is from 150 to 200 pounds. They also get some fine cotton honey in Lowndes County on the prairie lands. It is very light in color and of excellent flavor.
E. A. Simmons,
THE POSSIBILITIES OF BEE-KEEPING IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
Woffer, S. C.
South Carolina is not famous as a honey-producing State, and we have not as large apiaries as some other States; but although modern bee-keeping is in its infancy, yet enough has been accomplished to show that bees, properly managed, can be made to give large yields of splendid honey; and 'in this locality we usually are able to get two crops--one in the spring, the other in the late fall. In the lower half of the State, where they do not have the wild aster, the fall flow may not be so heavy; but in that section where the gall-berry abounds along with other splendid honey-bearing flora the crops of honey are often heavy. In this locality, middle-western South Carolina, we usually harvest crops of very distinct and different grades, but which have about the same market value. In the spring the bees build up rapidly on the elm; then the maple, and then comes fruit-bloom, poplar, black-berry, black gum, 'then the persimmon, from which we get most of our surplus.
THE PALL FLOW.
The bees keep in strong condition during the summer months on sourwood and field crops, such as corn, peas, melons, and, best of all, summer plants, cotton, which brings them to the great goldenrod and wild asters from which we almost always secure a heavy crop about the first of November which always granulates in a few days or weeks after extracting. My honey now in fruit-jars looks almost like snow, and it takes a very strong spoon to get it out; but if one prefers it in the syrup state it can readily be heated to near the boiling-point, which renders it back to the syrup state, and, when heated to very near the boiling-point (do not boil it), it rarely granulates again.
WINTERING.
This is not a serious problem with us by any means compared with what Northern bee-keepers have to do, as the bees hardly ever fail to go into winter quarters with plenty of wild-aster honey in the brood-chamber to carry them through winter. In my experience of some fifteen years of bee-keeping I have never had to feed for winter except the nuclei. We have these in good snug single-wall hives with a water-proof cover. We leave them on their summer stands--no chaff packing nor other protection; close the entrance to % by 3 or 4 inches, and there you are till spring opens; then throw the entrance wide open; put on your super and you are ready for the spring flow. It seems to me that, with everything so favorable, we might make bee-keeping even more profitable than we do.
Well did the poet write:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
For, go where we may, we can not but see the great lack of bees to gather the sweetness that goes to waste on the desert air. If people only knew the great value of honey as a food for men, and would only learn how easily the little pets can be handled and managed, we should see hundreds of bee-hives when we now see hardly any at all.
Some of the bee-keepers in this part of the State are Mr. Philip Markert, near Augusta, Ga., across the river, who has, perhaps, something like one hundred colonies in modern hives, run, I think, for comb honey.
Mr. Pierce Mather, near Kirksey, Greenwood Co., who has some twenty colonies in Dovetail hives run for comb honey.
Mr. F. L. Timmerman, who has just begun modern bee-keeping in Danzenbaker hives.
Mr. W. A. Cheatham, at Troy, S. C., has about a dozen hives for comb honey.
As for myself, I have some 80 colonies in ten-frame dovetail hives, run almost exclusively for extracted honey. S. CHATHAM.
BEE-KEEPING IN SOUT CAROLINA.
Catawba, S. C.
The first recollection I have about bees is when I was five or six years old, in 1865 or 1866. Father had three or four old box hives in the back yard.
The first fifteen years of my bee-keeping I usually secured half of my crop from the poplar bloom; but of late years it has been cut down, and the honey-flow is light from it. The aster is our best yielded, poplar second best; cotton third, cowpeas fourth, persimmon fifth. The cotton bloom is a good yielded some seasons, but only when the cotton has gotten a good start in blooming, and then cut short by a dry spell.
The best record from one hive in one day was in 1888, when I had a good colony on scales during aster bloom. It pulled down 11 lbs. in one day; but the scales stood only 9% lbs. by the next morning. The bees had evaporated 1% lbs. during the night. That hive gained 55 lbs. during the zo days when the aster was in bloom; but I have had colonies beat that twenty-day record on aster.
The year 1905 was nearly a failure. I secured only 1,000 lbs. from 160 colonies; and the season of 1906 was a complete failure, I not securing any honey at all, and I lost one-third of my bees by starving, although I fed 1,000 lbs. of granulated sugar. I now regret that I did not feed more liberally, as my bees have given z,600 lbs. of honey since August of this year, and are heavier in winter stores than I have had in a long time.
About equal parts were secured from cotton and aster. I have about 100 colonies now. I have been doing a local trade in bee-keepers' supplies for a number of years. I make the half-joint hive the same size as the eight-frame dovetail. hive. I also keep the A. I. Root Co's goods for sale. the trade was light the last season, on account of the honey crop being a failure. I think nearly three-fourths of the bees in this section have starved the last two years.
I have always found a good demand for my honey in Rock Hill, S. C., a city of six or eight thousand inhabitants. I am getting to cents per Ib. for all my honey at wholesale. I sell most of my honey in two or three pound buckets, labeled nicely. I usually sell it to two or three grocery stores there, and sell it straight out.
Capt. J. C. Foster, of Lancaster, S. C., has had some success with bees; also W. B. Crosby, Esq., Catawba. There have been numbers of men who have started bee-keeping since I did, but they have fallen out of the ranks for one reason or another. Most people who keep bees don't know when a honey-flow is on until it is over. I always practice clipping my queens' wings to control swarming. I have hunted up and found 33 queens in 3% hours in strong average colonies. I have only the three-banded Italians and some good honey-gathering hybrids. I ordered some five-banded bees some years ago, but I have never seen a five-banded bee yet, and I got them from a native breeder. The ones that I did get would come at me like bullets from a gun.
I think the three-banded Italian bees are about the best yet. I never use any protection when among the bees, except a good smoker and a light-colored suit of clothes and a straw hat. I hardly ever get stung.
H. C. Simpson,Southern Bee Culture
Crouse, N. C.
The general outlook for bee-keeping in this section of the South is good, and, if it is properly followed, profitable. Our honey is of a good quality, and brings a good price The average from old-style box hives is from 15 to 25 Ibs., and such honey sells at 10 and 12 cents per pound. The average from patent hives is from 25 to 30 Ibs., and sells at 15 to 18 cents.
Honey-plants in this location are not very plentiful. The most common ones are poplar, persimmon, sourwood, sumac, melons, ironweed, cotton, and some buckwheat; but it is not extensively planted here.
Below is a list of some of the most successful bee-keepers in my section: W. H. Hoover, G. Anthony, A. H. Black, J. H. Hearner, F. E. Carpenter, J. Harvey, Rev. M. Carpenter, Mrs. Lee Brown, T. Lackey, H. S. Sellers, B. Black, M. Stroup, A. Tasour, C. Rhine, Wm. Bullinger.
We are located southeast of the South Mountains, which lie in Burk Co. Hard wood is plentiful, and sometimes we have lots of honey-dew and pollen from the hard-wood trees.
We have a heavy loss of bees each season in old box hives, and we must adopt patent hives to expect a great success in bee-keeping.
C. C. Ramsey.
BEE-KEEPING IN NORTH GEORGIA.
Jasper, Ga.
Bee culture in North Georgia is carried on in a very limited way. There are a good many bees scattered about the country. King bees and log gums, or square plank gums, reign supreme with but few exceptions. The number of colonies kept in hollow logs or gums ranges from one to fifty. Very few keep fifty. The bees are blacks, mostly. Some are hybrids, or crosses with Italian stock. There are a few bee-keepers who have Italian stock who have their bees in up-to-date hives, and modern methods are used in the management of their bees. With these few exceptions the bees keep themselves and work for nothing and board themselves, and are regarded as a kind of mysterious insect ruled by a "king:" and there is a prevailing idea with some, that, when their owner or master dies, the bees will soon die out; and there is another idea among some of the bee-keepers that bees must be robbed or their honey must be taken at certain stages of the moon, and unless this rule is observed the bees will not do any more good after being robbed. Improved hives and methods are not known to many, and are considered a nuisance. It is not for the lack of pasturage for the bees that keeps the people from engaging in bee culture in a commercial way or as a business. It is for the lack of knowledge. Superstition and ignorance are in the way of many. All the well-to-do farmers, or most of them, have their dozen or so of log or box gums. There is more money to be made with bees in this section, according to the capital invested, than any other pursuit. A colony of bees will pay for themselves in one season if the conditions are reasonably favorable. Frame hives with good Italian stock in the hands of an apiarist who looks after his bees, average so lbs. in ordinary good seasons. In the best or most favorable seasons, too lbs. is the average. In poor seasons, 30 lbs. is a good average. In 1905 we had a total failure so far as surplus honey was concerned. In 1906 there was a surplus of about 30 lbs.; in 1907 the average was about go lbs. Some colonies gave too lbs. of surplus. These figures do not apply to log or box gums. The average for them is from 15 to 20 lbs. of surplus. Any locality where bees do well in log gums is a good location for the modern bee-keeper with his movable-frame hives.
The honey-flow is slow in this part of the State. There are no heavy flows all at once. The flow hasts according to the duration of blooms. If weather conditions are favorable for the secretion of nectar, and for the bees to get out and gather it, in our locality the first honey and pollen come from maple and tag-alder anywhere from the first of February to the first of March. It all depends on the weather conditions. The next honey and pollen come from huckleberry and fruit-bloom the last of April and first of May. Our next is from poplar and blackberry the middle of May, or about that time, sometimes earlier and sometimes later. Our next is from what is called warweed, the last of May to the middle of June. The next honey and pollen are from sumac, from August 1 to September 1; also cotton and persimmons furnish considerable honey at this time, and cowpeas. Some seasons furnish some honey until the last of September.
Bees swarm some during this time of the season, and this is the part of the season for rearing the best queens, and is the best time to requeen or supersede old queens. October brings our last flow of honey. It is from aster, and there are such quantities of bloom that bees almost always store a sufficiency to winter on, and for rearing brood in early spring. Honey from huckleberry and sourwood is white, while all the rest of the honey we get is amber colored, cotton being the lightest.
This is a mountainous country, abounding in springs of clear soft water. The streams or water-courses have more or less rich bottom lands, a very healthy country for bees or man; a mild climate. We rarely have any zero weather. There is no disease among the bees of this section. Black or foul brood is unknown in this part of the State. Bee-moths and robbers are the worst enemies the bees have in this section. The bee-robber, or the fellow with his bees in sections or hollow logs, arms himself with a roll of rags, ties up his head, hands, and pants legs, proceeds after dark to knock off the heads or tops of the gums, and blows smoke into the top end of the gum until he gets most of the bees down, and his eyes almost smoked out, and cuts out the honey and sometimes brood, sometimes drowning all the bees, or a part of them. Very often the queen or "king," as it is sometimes called, is drowned; and in many cases the bees if they are not drowned are so discouraged with the operation that they let the wax-moth get in its work of egg-laying and then there is a fine crop of moth larvae produced, which will cat up the combs, the colony is destroyed, and all the blame is laid on the worms, while it is the bee-keeper or bee-robber that is to blame.
Another drawback to the log gum is the excessive swarming. The gums, as a rule, are too small. Black bees and some strains of Italians will swarm themselves to death when the swarming fever strikes them if crowded into small hives. Large hives will prevent swarming to a great extent--so much so it is not worth while to bother looking after swarms. Our golden stock seldom swarms. Some of our colonies have never attempted to swarm, even when they superseded their old queens. They are the nearest to a non-swarming strain we ever saw.
This section is improving in the supply of nectar under stock law, as there are more honey-bearing weeds and shrubs that are not destroyed by stock than there formerly were while fencing the crops was in vogue. While this section does not produce as heavy flows as some parts of the country, the honey is as good and fine as the best, except red shank and aster. The flavor of these two honcys is not liked by many. Especially is this the case with the red shank. The sourwood produces the mildest honey with the most pleasant flavor known. Poplar, sumac, and huckleberry produce a fine-flavored honey with a good body. There is room for lots of good bee-keepers, and any progressive bee-keeper who will give his time and talent to bee culture in many sections of North Georgia will be amply rewarded, not only in dollars and cents, but in health and pleasure, the best of water, and a fine climate. The demand.for both comb and extracted is good. There are fine openings for outyards, and a nice healthy business can be enjoyed among these hills and mountains. Thousands of tons of the finest honey is wasted for the want of bees and a bee-keeper to take care of it or gather it. There is a demand for all the honey that will ever be produced whenever the cost of production is reduced so as to put it in the list of the necessities of life, at a price so that the common class with small means can afford to buy it and use it as they do sugar and butter. It is the most healthful sweet there is. It is better for the children of our land than sugar or syrup, or candy made from sugar of any kind. Honey is good for the old folks as well as the young ones.
Bees are wintered on their summer stands without any packing of any kind. All that is needed is plenty of bees, 25 or 30 lbs. of honey, and a hive that will keep the rain and snow out.
## 11 Bee-Keeping in South Georgia.