July, 1912. 



American liee Jonrnalj 



breakfast tables during the winter 

 months. 



Buckwheat is a profitable crop to tlie 

 farmer. A farmer living some distance 

 from me remarked recently that he pur- 

 chased his farm among the hills :!0 

 years ago, and that the payments were 

 made by growing buckwheat. It does 

 well on poor soil where most other 

 crops would prove a failure. It grows 

 too rank on river bottom soils, and is 

 likely to go down and be difficult to 

 harvest. New soils or clearings are 

 admirably suited to growing it. Where 

 land is not available for this crop the 

 following will give satisfactory results: 

 After harvesting the clover crop, plow 

 the land and seed to buckwheat. When 

 the buckwheat has been harvested and 

 removed from the field, plow again and 

 seed to rye. The following spring the 

 land should again be plowed and put in 

 corn. This will improve the land for 

 the corn crop with the crop of buck- 

 wheat that much gain. Buckwheat 

 15 also a quick and reasonably sure 

 crop, and this alone is sufficient to 

 warrant more of it' being planted. 



Bee-keepers everywhere should en- 

 courage farmers to grow it, not alone 

 for the honey the bees secure from it, 

 but as a means of profit to the farmers 

 themselves. Some years, although 

 blooming in great profusion, it yields 

 no nectar. In many localities smart- 

 weed also blooms abundantly during 

 the period of buckwheat bloom, and 

 very much of this honey is sold for 

 buckwheat honey. It somewhat re- 

 sembles it in color, and where the two 

 are worked at the same time by the 

 bees, the apiarist standing near the 

 hives in the evening, in an effort to 

 scent or locate the aroma, will not 

 easily be able to note the difference. 



Where bees are paying their visits in 

 great numbers to the buckwheat dur- 

 ing the early hours of the day, and the 

 weather is sultry, we can feel certain 

 their visits are not being made in vain. 



Nisbet, Pa. 



The Bee-Keeper and Orchard- 

 man 



BY JOHN PASHEK. 



I noticed in Gleanings in Bee Cul- 

 ture, March 15, 1012, page lii7, an arti- 

 cle written by C. Koppenhafer, where 

 he shows his fine orchard and his bees 

 among them, and e.xplains the opposi- 

 tion of his neighbors to the bees. 



Many of us have the same trouble. 

 Some fruit-growers can not understand 

 that we bee-keepers are their best 

 friends. The bees do no harm to the 

 fruit whatever, and the fruit-growers 

 could not exist without the bee-keep- 

 ers. But those who make these com- 

 plaints are those who have no time to 

 read the bee-papers and agricultural 

 papers. 



We raise fruit-trees around The 

 Dalles by the hundreds of acres, fancy 

 peaches, cherries, and everything else. 

 Just now our orchards are in full 

 bloom, and the bees are very busy on 

 them. There is the largest fruit pros- 

 pect here ever known. Our fruit-grow- 

 ers begin to understand that they must 

 have more bees if they want to raise 

 fine fruit. I am renting my bees out in 



those large orchards during blooming, 

 and getting good pay for it. I am 

 selling books, bee-papers, and lectur- 

 ing on bee-culture. I put articles in 

 papers, and take every opportunity to 

 urge fruit-growers to keep more bees 

 on the farms. 



I put all my section honey in nice 

 cartons, with all directions and infor- 

 mation on them, and it sells for 5 cents 

 more per section than any other honey 

 in the market. 



The Dalles, Oreg., April 19. 



Good Results from Hives With 

 Immovable Combs 



BY F. CRKINER. 



In one of the late numbers of the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review, I find an article 

 which treats of the almost forgotten 

 box-hive, telling how to obtain good 

 crops of honey without transferring to 

 a movable-comb bee-hive. Bo.x-hives 

 are very rare here, but we find quite a 

 few modern hives in small lots kept 

 by farmers; the difficulty with most of 

 them is that the combs in them are as 

 immovable as those in the bo.x-hives. 

 I have had occasion to handle such for 

 some friends. For the benefit of some 

 of our brethren who may be "both- 

 ered "with either box-hives or mov- 

 able-comb bee-hives of the above pat- 

 tern, I will describe my method: 



When the time has come when such 

 colony begins to need more room, I 

 add a brood-chamber full of founda- 

 tion filled frames. With the box-hive 

 this will have to be turned bottom up, 

 when the prepared brood-chamber may 

 be placed over it and things made rea- 

 sonably tight. After this upper story 

 full of foundation filled frames has been 

 on the hive for a week, the foundation 

 in the frames will usually be found 

 partly drawn; possibly some eggs may 



have been deposited in the new combs 

 by the queen. I make no special ex- 

 amination except what I may see by a 

 glance upon the top-bars and into the 

 bee-spaces. 



If a fair start has been made in the 

 newly added brood-chamber, I proceed 

 to drive the bees up into this upper 

 chamber by pounding on the hive and 

 and also gently smoking them. I keep 

 up the drumming for some 10 or 12 

 minutes. The object is to drive the 

 larger part of the bees into the upper 

 box. When I think this is accom- 

 plished, I quickly lift off the upper 

 chamber, place it on a new bottom- 

 board and give it the exact location of 

 the old hive, while the latter is carried 

 a few rods off and given a new location. 

 In almost every case the queen will 

 have gone up with the hulk of the bees, 

 and is thus left on the old stand, while, 

 of course, the old moved hive has no 

 queen. 



It will be found that the old hive is 

 rather destitute of bees, but there will 

 be enough left to take care of the 

 young brood. The entrance should be 

 contracted for a week or two and a 

 ripe queen-cell must be given on the 

 second or third day; or, better, a just- 

 hatched virgin queen may be allowed 

 to run in at the entrance. This old 

 part of the colony will build up into a 

 good swarm by fall, while the new part 

 with the old queen will give tlfe sur- 

 plus honey, section honey of the best 

 quality. Supers should be added from 

 time to time as needed. There being 

 no old combs in the hive the resulting 

 section honey will be free from all 

 travel stain. The season would have 

 to be exceptionally good, and the flow 

 continue until late in the fall, or no 

 surplus could be expected from the 

 part with the new queen, but the fol- 

 lowing season it will be in the best of 

 shape to give another forced swarm' 

 treating again as has been described. 



Naples, N. Y. 



Dr. Miller*s 



Answers^ 



Send Questions either to the office of the .American Bee Journal or direct to 



Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, III. 



He does not answer bee-keeping Questions by mail. 



Are Swarms Caused by Foul Brood ?—Lealher- 

 Coiored Queens 



1 haves colonies of black (lerman bees, 

 which I think are affected with foul brood. 

 I wintered 4 colonies in my cellar, and after 

 1 put them out this spring they did quite 

 well for a time except that one colony was 

 weak. About 2 weeks ago this .colony 

 swarmed out. I caught the queen and killed 

 her. thinking they would return to the hive 

 they came Irom. but although they did. they 

 went away again and did not return. I saw 

 then I had made a mistake. What do you 

 think was the cause of their leaving like 

 that at first ? They seemed to have honey 

 enough, too. , , 



One of my neighbors has a cumber ot 

 colonies of Italian bees, and he tells me that 

 he has a colony that every pleasant day will 

 swarm out. and after a little while return 

 to the hive. They light all around on the 

 grass. Would it be all i iglit to place a new' 

 hive with starters in place of the old hive? 

 Do you think foul brood would cause this 

 trouble? and how can I tell for sure whethei 

 I have foul brood ^ Something surely is the 



trouble, as the larva; in over half of the 

 cells die when quite young, and some of the 

 cappings ate sunken, although I sometimes 

 find live larva> under the sunken cappings. 

 The dead larva are not ropy, and I can not 

 detect anv more odor than is common. 



If I can save these 3 colonies I intend to 

 rcqueen them this summer with Italian 

 queens. Which kind do you recommend, 

 the 3-banded or leather-colored? and when 

 is the best time to requeen ? New York 



Answer.— It is not easy, without knowing 

 fuller particulars, to say just what was the 

 trouble. One would be inclined to think of 

 a hunger swarm, since it occurred so early, 

 but you say there was plenty of honey. It is 

 possible that the old queen was lost in some 

 way and a lot of young queens started. 1 hen 

 when you killed the first queen that issued, 

 they swarmed out and left with the next. 



Yes. it will be all right to put a new hive 

 with starters in place of the old hive when 

 a swarm issues, and let the swarm enter, 

 provided you get the queen with the swarm. 

 Only instead of starters it will be better to 

 have full sheets of foundation, for if you 



