HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 271 



clover. It will not pay to sow anything for honey alone, unless 

 upon land of but little value. It is also useless to plant in small 

 quantities. Plant by the acre or not at all. 



The farmer cannot have a crop of wheat and a crop of corn from 

 his field at the same time, but be may elect to have a part crop of 

 each. Neither can the apiarist have a large crop of swarms, and a 

 large crop of honey from his apiary at the same time. He must 

 choose one or the other; or he may choose a part of each. 



I run my apiary for honey, and not for bees, as a rule, and there- 

 fore I usually have but a small increase of colonies; and if the 

 season is a good one, I usually obtain a fairly good yield of honey. 

 I regard 50 lbs. comb honey as a good yield for a strong colony in 

 a favorable season. The last two years have been unusually good 

 honey years. Year before last I secured an average of 120 lbs. ex- 

 tracted honey from each colony; and last year an average of: 70 lbs. 

 box honey from one-sixth of my apiary, and an average of 150 lbs. 

 extracted honey from the balance. The latter was, however, the 

 largest yield I have ever obtained. 



For several years I have not clipped any queens, and I rather 

 prefer them undipped; but would clip if surrounded by large 

 trees. I permit natural swarming, so far as I permit any, and then 

 manage queens, swarms, cells, and hives, to suit myself. If a 

 swarm is out, and I fear that another swarm may immediately issue, 

 I have discovered that I can easily and certainly prevent its issuing 

 for the present, by simply covering the hive with a carpet or blan- 

 kets, excluding the light, and making it night for them, But this 

 must not be done if they have at all started to swarm. I have 

 found this a valuable discovery. Swarms can easily be kept from 

 uniting, (unless the swarming colonies are near each other,) or 

 from absconding, and can be driven in any direction, or speedily 

 settled almost anywhere, simply by the aid of a pail of water and a 

 dipper. No swarms need be lost. 



A small amount of drone comb must be allowed in the brood 

 chamber, or you will have drone brood in your supers, or sections, 

 for the little fellows imagine "they can't keep house," without 

 drones. Tin separators are not necessary to secure straight combs, 

 unless for glassing. 



In handling bees, I use the Bingham smoker, and usually but 

 little smoke. For smoker fuel I use dry, decayed maple or linden, 

 and find nothing else so good. I never use tobacco smoke about 

 my bees or honey. It is very disagreeable and irritating to the 

 bees, making them cross aod irritable. Tobaceo smoke is disgust- 

 ing, sickening, and very poisonous, and I have no doubt that sick- 

 ness attributed to honey is often caused by eating honey smoked 

 and poisoned by the sickening and poisonous tobacco smoke. I 

 wish most heartily that all dealers in honey would absolutely refuse 

 to purchase a single pound of tobacco smoked honey. Bees that 

 cannot be managed without tobacco smoke, had better be brim- 

 stoned. 



The Northwest has had a large crop of fine honey the past season, 

 and our local markets are glutted, and honey goes begging for buy- 

 ers, at unprecedently low prices. 



