Vol. XIII. 



OCT. 15, I8S5. 



No. 20. 



rs-tx. ea'_-h. single Nuin 



Al'litions to clubs may lie made 



ih ratals. Al)i)veai-u all Lo be s«i>t 



<K POSTOFKUK. 



rim.isMKi) I 



>t \ I \)(\{\n^ MTv^T^TXT \ (^J11(\ I peryenrextra. To all countries KOT of 

 I A. 1. liOOi. Mli,DlJNA,UiIlU. 1. the I;. F.U.,«(; per year extra. 



OUR OWN APIARY 



XV iipiaii.-t who i^ ill Jill iii-at ami I id.v ulioiil 

 liis a|)iai-.\, Iviiows wliat an f'.\t"sore it is to 

 hiwo weeds and grasses fri-Dwiiii;- at t lie eri- 

 tranee of liis hives, and that. too. diiriii'.;- the 

 lieightdl' liie hoiiey-tlow, wlieii time is pre- 

 cious. 'I"o1al<e a long- knife or oilier imijlemont, 

 and cnl away or pull up the weeds, is not only ex- 

 pensive but e.\eeeilingly ilisagreeal)le. Well do 1 

 remember when it was my allotted task as a juve- 

 nile apiarist (?) to hoe away those "i)esky weeds," 

 and how those bees, " peskier " still, innibl eonti-ive, 

 despite my frantic efforts, to plant a stinjr above 

 my shoe-top, or. worse, remind me of their pres- 

 ence uj) my trou.sers leg-. I was young- and inex- 

 perienced, and had a kind of mortal terror of the 

 bee. To tell the truth, I am not particularly fond 

 of meddling with the entrance of hives now. One 

 vacation, just prior to returning to school, I placed 

 a little salt at the entrance of two or three hives, by 

 way of experiment; but as I soon returned to 

 school 1 never knew how it resulted. Our apiarist, 

 however, during this year and the preceding, has 

 made it a complete success, and at a very insigniti- 

 caut cost. About ten days ago it took him about 

 an hour to sprinkle salt at the entrance of 220 hives. 

 When common barn salt is worth !i;i.2,5 per bbl., 

 the whole expense per entrance, annuall.\', includ- 

 ing time, is less than a quarter of a cent. Two days 

 after the application of the salt you might see the 

 weeds killed, root and all, at every entrance. Even 

 the hardy dandelion shared the common fate, The 



action of the salt works best, and is almost imme- 

 diate,- after a rain. Where our entrances were, a 

 day or so ago, a little obstructed, they are now per- 

 fectly clean .-md I fancy the bees appreciate the 

 change too. Now is a good time, when work in the 

 apiary is not iiressing, to kill olf the weeds; and 

 during almost the whole of the next season yo\i 

 will find little troulile from the weeds at the en- 

 trance. It seems to me a good deal of importance 

 needs to be attached to this. It is expensive l>usi- 

 ness, and not a little loss of the much-sought honey- 

 crop, to have the little fellows wasting their time 

 by bumping- their heads against the weeds, and 

 then to crawl over w hat is to th<.-m mountains of 

 obstructions. 



ISEES FLYlN»i Ol T OX ( HII.LV D.VVS. 



Oct. v.— It has been cold and rainy for the last two 

 days. Yesterday, while the sun was out for a 

 short time, a good number of bees tilled the air. 

 The sun soon disappeared, and the atmosphere be- 

 came chilly as before. Then you might have seen 

 little clumps of bees huddling together on the hive- 

 covers and in the grass, too much chilled to return 

 home. There must have been two or three pounds 

 of bees at least that were lost by the sudden change 

 of temperature. A short warm spell on a wet chilly 

 day seems not very profitable to the apiarist. 



MOKE .VBOUT THOSE CAHNIOLANS. 



This morning, Oct. !), was cool and frosty, and 1 

 accordingly concluded it wouUl be a good time to 

 test more thoroughly the disposition of that Carni- 

 olan swarm. Proceeding thence without any 

 smoker we opened the hive, but the few remaining 

 Italians stuck up their "tails" as usual in a threat- 

 eninir attitude. The Carniolans acted quite differ- 



