The Greeley tribune., 1911-08-17
lASALLE
LEADS IN
SWEETNESS
WILL HAVE WELD COUNTYs
RECORD FOR HONEY
PRESENT YEAR IS PROLIFIC
Large Yield and Good Prices As
sured BY Bee Men-Several
Past Seasons Have Been
Poor Ones

LaSalle, Aug. 14.-LaSalle holds
the record for honey production
from a single colony for one day.
with three pounds to it's credit. E.
C. Harrington. Weld county's bee
inspector, owns the hive. and sew
eral others. One pound day is
considered good increase.
Mr.. Harrington is the largest bee
keeper in the LaSalle district, but
others have considerable interests.
Sam Reeves, in Godfrey Bottoms,
has about 40 stands. Mr.. Bolander
so, C. ]. Fielder 25, while d. P.
Hubbard and Jesse Doney each
have a dozen or more.
The present is best bee year for
some time, owing to the prolific
blooms OF alfalfa, sweet clover and
clioma, the wild bee plant that
grows along the roadside and bears
the reddish purple blossoms. Sew
eral years recently have been COM
plete failures to the honey farmer.
his colonies not making enough
honey in an entire season to live on.
Mr.. Harrington has Will Brand
associated with him in the bee busi-
ness, working on shares. Starting
the season with 145 colonies they
now have 2O5. The bees are not
allowed to swarm nowadays by up
to-date bee keepers, but the most
populous colonies are divided, por.
ton of them being placed in a sepa-
rate hive and given queen OF their
own, with ample honey and other
household furnishings to give the
new family fair start in life. The
new colony does not produce any
honey for market till the second
year, so Mr.. Harrington will only
have the honey from his 145 origi-
nal stands to sell this year. He ex-
poets three cases to the colony, each
case containing "a one pound combs
or cards. Selling at the present
price about $3.50 a case, his gross
income will be over $1,000.
In ascertaining just how much
honey a hive of bees will store in a
day. or other given time, the stand
is set on a platform scale. and the
balance adjusted nicely. At the end
of the day the balance is again
pushed up, showing the added
weight for the day.
1t takes one trip or load from
10000 bees, or 10000 trips from
one honey bee, to gather a pound
of honey. The average colony Of
bees contains from 10000 to $4,000
bees. large number of which dur
ing the summer season are drones,
or males, one lone female, the
queen, and the balance are the
workers, which have no sex. Thus
every worker has to average at
least one trip daily to add pound
of the sweet stuff to the family
store 1t is only when the blossoms
are thick, the sun bright and the
wind a mere breeze, that any such
record as three pounds is possible
1t will not be best for everybody
to quit raising potatoes and start in
the bee business on the above show
ing, for the bee man has fully as
much to contend with as the aver
age man in any other line of work.
Bee pasture may be, and usually is,
short, due to dry weather, flowers
containing little sweetness, or too
many bees within a given area, Just
the same as when cows overcrowd
the cattle range. Then there are
diseases to carry of the laborers,
foul brood" being the worst 1t
is the duty of the official bee in
spector to look after this trouble,
and where he find hives infected, to
order the transfer and isolation of
the diseased colonies and the burn
ing of their old hives, comb and
honey.