Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-01-13

NEW KIND OF HONE REE
Indian Territory Nam Belisxes
He Has Found one-
TOUGHER TEAM COMMON VARIETY
Captain Holder Says II stores. HI
Honey In q Sack Under the 6r0und.
Most Of Them Are 40 LnrSc ~
Italian Queen Bees- Trying to Cross
Them.
Captain John Holder. who lives IA q
cabin In the Arbuckle mountains, In
Indian Territory, believes he has dis
covered new kind Of honeybee, and
he is trying to cross 1t with the ordi-
nary bee, says the Kansas City Star.
He thinks that Il he succeeds Id get
ting the two kinds Of bees to cross
breed he viii have produced a bee gu
perior to either, because 1T will be bet
ter adapted to that country and CHI
mate than any bee now known.
Captain Holders home Is ON Colbert
creek, twelve miles west Of Davis, I.
+. IA. claims ownership to 1000 acres
Of wild mountain land there and cult
Yates enough Of At for his own needs.
Near his cabin are forty hollow stumps,
each Inhabited by colony OF bees
he says OF what he believes to be his
bee discovery:
TT is strange mongrel honeymaker.
3 They appear to be a mixture of gray
coated bumblebees and yellow striped
( honeybees Most Of them are as large
as Italian queen bees. They gather
honey and deposit it in honey balls in
holes which they excavate in the
ground. The honey balls, or sacks, con-
sist Of waxy substance and are about
as thick as morocco leather Nearly
every sack, or cell, contains about half
Il q pint of the sweetest honey imagina-
BILE. Its flavor is far superior to COM
mon honey, and it acts like pepsin upon
4 the digestive organs. The mongrel
honeymakers cover their deposits Of
4 sweetness with lot Of fine grass-in
1 fact, with a waterproof roof. "A good
" number of the mongrels are detailed
4 to act as guards to repel invaders such
as skunks, opossums, raccoons, ants
and other creeping things in search of
sweetness.
Polecats dearly love honey. The
queer bees. however, generally succeed
In the battle, as ] have found several
dead skunks near the honey deposito-
ries. where they had been stung to
death.
Some of the honey nests are watch
ed over by from two to ten bees. The
3 larger, families, however. always help
the endangered smaller colonies, as
such families always make their home
q close to their more populous neighbors.
'9The new kind of bees always work
early in the morning and until about
the middle of the afternoon, but never
1 espied one gathering sweetness about
or after sunset. $
THE mongrel bees make honey
where zaristoeratic honeybees would
starVe to death, and therein lies theiI
great value. They gather sweetness
on humble blackjacks, swamp willows,
mountain quinine plants, on the preva-
lent broom weeds, on watermelons,
sweet corn. sorghum cane, wild fox
grapes, on sumach blossoms and poison
oaks. Those bees are great enemies to
snakes, gophers. rats and nosing dogs.
A cur that has ever been stung by one
of them can never be coaxed to again
nose around their honey balls.
4 II have been experimenting with the
new found honey gatherers. have
been trying to tame them so that they
will mix and live with my civilized
bees. The newcomers are curiously in
stump or bee gums. Often terrific
battle takes place, but noticed that
when a moth attempts to enter the
hive during the conflict the mongrels
cease fighting their cousins and prompt
II dispatch the intruding moth. Then
very often the aristocratic bees enter
into amiable relations with the new
corners by letting them crawl into their
hives. am watching this cross breed
ing process with keen delight and viii
! continue to introduce as many of the
mongrels as 1 can capture. think
that, like Burbank in the vegetable
kingdom, I may succeed in producing
new and more probably honeybee
than is yet known to the world.
rs Putting the Navy Into Literature.
~ flames b. Connolly the author has en-