1022 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



the hive up the tree until nig-ht, then take 

 them home. This way I never lose the 

 queen or the honey. I used to cut the trees 

 down, and would often lose the queen and 

 the largest share of the bees, and about all 

 of the honey. I took from one tree this sea- 

 son ISO lbs. of nice clean honey, besides 

 filling an eight-frame hive full of honey. I 

 sold my tree honey at 10 cents per lb. If I 

 cut the tree down I can hardly sell the 

 honey at any price, as it is mashed up so 

 badly, and mixed with dust from the tree. 



We will now go back to the first. If the 

 farmer doesn't want his tree chopped into 

 I take a bit and bore a hole through to the 

 honey. I then take a stick and break the 

 honey so the bees will fill up. I give them 

 a good smoking, then bore a hole above the 

 bees and one below. I smoke the bees from 

 both holes, and take a hive with one frame 

 of brood in; place the front of it in connec- 

 tion with the hole where the bees go into 

 the tree, then I smoke the bees from the two 

 holes, one below and one above. The bees 

 will soon begin to come out and bunch up 

 on the side of the tree. I take a lard-spoon 

 and dip them up and put them into the hive. 

 I work this wa}^ until I get all I can in the 

 hive, then shut up the hole in the tree, and 

 keep up the smoking. The bees will come 

 out of the first hole I bored. I watch for 

 the queen, and put her in the hive. All the 

 returning bees go to the old hole in the tree, 

 and it is shut up. They soon find the way 

 into the hive. I work this way until I think 

 I have about all the bees out of the tree, 

 then leave the hive until night; then I take 

 it away. The last thing I do, I take a 

 stick and punch the honey open as much as 

 I can, and the bees will not return to their 

 old quarters, but will carry the honey all 

 away. 



I have been a bee-hunter for 35 years, 

 and I have tried all kinds of plans, and 

 this is the only one I have ever found by 

 which I could get bees out of a tree with- 

 out cutting it down or cutting a hole in it. 



Farwell, Mich. 



CUTTING SWEET CLOVER FOR HAY. 



Should it be Cut Before it Comes into Bloom? 



BY J. 



The editorial comment on page 947 is all 

 right, but a little more might be said on the 

 same subject. The idea evidently in the 

 mind of the inquirer was to learn whether 

 a crop of hay and a crop of honey could be 

 secured from the same plants. Of course, 

 if the plant is left until all the blo-soms 

 have matured and gone to seed it will not 

 make good hay, for by that time the stalk 

 is thoroughly ripe and woody, and -the plant 

 is ready to die. But sweet clover cut after 

 a large proportion of the blossoms have ap- 

 peared will still make very fair hay. Back 

 in LaSalle Co., 111., the roadsides in many 

 places are lined for miles with sweet clo- 

 ver. The law requires the road commis- 



sioners to cut this. The time they general- 

 ly do this is when the sweet clover is in full 

 bloom. Of course, I did not enjoy seeing 

 the mower start on the roadsides just when 

 the bees were doing so nicely, but there was 

 no use in objecting. Last season, though, 

 I thought I would see if I could not make 

 some use of the clover after it was cut. It 

 had been cut after it had been in bloom for 

 about two weeks, and the plant was quite 

 mature. So I raked up a lot of this clover 

 along the highway and put it into the 

 barn. It was just then a very busy sea- 

 son of year for me, and I could not give 

 much time to haying, so that several loads 

 were left out a great deal longer than they 

 ought to have been. It was so dry that the 

 leaves would all drop off if any attempt 

 was made to handle it after the dew was off 

 in the morning. Some of it was rained on, 

 and none of it had less than two days of 

 hot sun, most of it several days. Yet in 

 spite of this bad treatment my stock, both 

 horse and cattle, liked it and throve on it. 

 It looked more like hazel brush than hay, 

 and the cattle would not eat all of the coarse 

 woody stalks, though the horse would eat 

 most of it up clean. I have seen the horse 

 come in from a good blue-grass pasture, 

 and pitch into that sweet-clover hay like a 

 small boy into a watermelon. 



The proper way to cut sweet clover for 

 hay, though, is to cut it before- it comes into 

 bloom, being careful not to cut it too close 

 to the ground. In this way it wijl grow 

 again, branching out freely and giving a 

 good crop of honey after the ordinary growth 

 is past its prime. I cut a small patch of 

 sweet clover this way this. season. It made 

 excellent hay, and I think the second crop 

 yielded more honey than if it had been cut. 



The browsing of stock, if not carried too 

 far, is often beneficial in the s ime way. If 

 given free access to it the3' will sometimes 

 keep it eaten so close that it will have no 

 chance to bloom, though it is not easily dis- 

 couraged. I have seen the ground quite 

 white with sweet clover blossoms on plants 

 not over two inches high. 



Another way to get a crop of hay from 

 sweet clover without affecting the honey 

 crop is to cut the clover the first season, 

 cutting it very late. I have never tried this 

 more than once, but the experiment was 

 very successful. A fair crop of very good 

 hay was the result, and the clover was not 

 damaged at all. I intended to try this on 

 a larger scale, but my removal here upset 

 my plans. 



Some of the Utah bee-keepers that I met 

 at the Denver convention told me that, in 

 their part of the State, sweet clover was 

 extensively raised for hay. I have also 

 been told that in some of the Southern 

 States it is raised largely as a forage- 

 plant. It might be a profitable thing to 

 get some of these men to tell us how it is 

 done on a commercial scale. I am con- 

 vinced that there are still undeveloped pos- 

 sibilities in sweet clover. 



Grand Junction, Col., Nov. 26. 



