GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 





there is an advantage in it; but, so far as I have 

 now explained, there is no contraction about it, 

 for this is as large as I would have a hive when 

 working for comb honey, us it gives the queen all 

 the room she yill occupy, and more room than this 

 is worse than useless. Hives should be made so 

 that all of" the bees can be kept profitably at work; 

 and^fyou have a three-frame nucleus well supplied 

 ' "■' with bees and queen, you should be able to get just 

 as much comb honey from it in proportion to its 

 numbers, as from a full colony. Unless a hive is 

 calculated for this, it is lacking just one important 

 feature. Hives as above described require less 

 manipulation to secure good returns from them 

 than do either larger or smaller hives; yet, do and 

 say what we will, it is the management of hives 

 that gives the practical apiarist good returns of 

 snow-white comb honey— such as sells readily in 

 any market in the world, when a second quality 

 will go begging. Whatever hives we may use, they 

 must be diligently looked after from the time 

 6pring opens till the bees are ready for winter; and 

 unless a person can thus do. he had better not go 

 into apiculture expecting to make a success of it. 



As hinted at above, one secret of success in get- 

 ting comb honey is to get the brood-combs all occu- 

 pied with brood before the honey harvest opens, so 

 that, when it does commence, the bees are obliged 

 to put the honey in the sections. If we use a small 

 brood-chamber it will be seen that the brood comes 

 clear to the tops of the frames or»hive, and conse- 

 quently very close to the sections; hence the bees 

 readily enter them, while with a large brood-cham- 

 ber, the bees store the comb the queen does not 

 occupy, with honey at the beginning of the harvest, 

 so that the sections are excluded from the brood by 

 several inches of sealed honey, which, not liking to 

 pass over, the bees often refuse to go in at all. 

 Gallup saw this point, even though he advocated a 

 large hive; for he said, more than 25 years ago, 

 " We should never allow the bees to get in advance 

 of the queen; for if we do, the prosperity of the 

 colony is checked at once; that is, if the bees are 

 allowed to fill the combs with honey in the spring 

 before the queen has filled them with brood, the 

 colony will be an unprofitable one." This point is 

 one well worthy of our closest attention; and it is 

 only as we look to all of these points, and bring 

 them into line with our work, that we can expect to 

 meet with the greatest success. I have given this 

 article thus early, so that all who are thinking of 

 making hives this present winter can try a few as 

 above, so as to see if I am rinht. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Dec. It!, 1888. G. M. Doolittle. 



SWEET CLOVEK. 



ITS VALUE AS A HONEY-PLANT IN THE REGION OK 

 8ALT LAKE C1TV. 



C5J EING requested by the editor to write an ar- 

 pji tide on the above subject, I have written up 

 |91 the habits, etc., of the plant. Some of the 

 "*^ points which I shall give are probably known 

 to a great many of the fraternity, but I 

 think they will bear repeating. 



Sweet clover grows here along the water-courses, 

 moist waste places, along the roadsides, and in 

 neglected fields. It grows from six inches to as 

 many feet in height, according to the location, and 

 it is covered with an abundance of bloom from top 

 to bottom, yielding in most seasons an abundance 



of nectar, which, after being gathered und stored, 

 produces honey of the very best quality and color. 

 It does not generally bloom in the first year; but in 

 the second it commences about the first of July, 

 and keeps up a continual bloom until killed by 

 frost, furnishing bees with pasturage, generally 

 from the middle of July until the latter part of 

 August. 



Sweet clover is sometimes used for pasturage, 

 and also for making hay, if cut when young, 

 though it is a long way behind alfalfa for that pur- 

 pose. Though it is sometimes relished by stock, 

 very few would sow it for feeding. If eaten while 

 green it is in a measure a cause of hoven, or bloat, 

 in cows. If you wish good milk or butter you had 

 better not feed it to milch cows, as it imparts a 

 very disagreeable taste to it. If eaten off by stock 

 it will soon recover, and produce an abundance of 

 bloom for the bees. 



It is a very fair fertilizer; and it is also claimed 

 that, if planted on alkali land, it will feed on the 

 alkali and exhaust it, besides bringing to the sur- 

 face, with its long roots, elements necessary to 

 plant-life. 



As sweet clover is a biennial it is not a very hard 

 weed to eradicate, and very seldom troubles culti- 

 vated fields, though it will sometimes seed a field; 

 and if such field is planted to grain the following 

 season, it will come up, and is cut off only with the 

 reaper. Next season, if the same field be neglect- 

 ed, it will quite likely be covered with sweet clo- 

 ver, and that, too, sometimes as high as your head. 

 If a field is cultivated as it should be for two sea- 

 sons, the clover will entirely disappear. The plant 

 requires a little moisture in the soil the first year; 

 but after that it will grow without. I consider it, 

 for my part, a great deal better to see a roadside 

 lined with it than the sunflowers, etc., that general- 

 ly grow in such places. 



Now, to sum up, sweet clover is our main honey 

 crop in this locality. It is our best honey; and said 

 honey, I may say without boasting, compares fa- 

 vorably with the best grades known. 



I do not think it will pay to sow it for honey 

 alone, unless on such land as is considered worth- 

 less; but I think it would be a benefit to such land. 



As to the amount of nectar it will produce per 

 acre, I am unable to say; but I think it will com- 

 pare favorably with white clover; in fact, I think 

 that it produces fully two-thirds of our honey crop 

 in this locality, and I should consider this a poor 

 country for honey, if it were destroyed; but as it is, 

 we generally get a crop; that is, the bees generally 

 have some';honey to spare. J. C. Swaner. 



Salt Lake City, Utah, Dec. 22, 1S8S. 



I would say to our readers, that it seems 

 to me friend S. has been quite careful and 

 conscientious in giving the objectionable 

 features of sweet clover in the region of 

 Salt Lake City, as well as the good quali- 

 ties. In that locality there are a very few 

 plants that will stand the fierce drouth of 

 summer ; but sweet clover seems to be one 

 of them, and it might be easily grown on 

 thousands of acres that now bear nothing 

 but weeds of no value. Much of this desert 

 soil is so light that it is very easily prepared 

 for a seed-bed. After sweet clover has 

 once got a start, it furnishes about as per- 

 manent bee-pasturage as any thing I have 

 ever found. In fact, I could not find anv 



