488 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aug. 15 



can never become a nuisance to the farmer. 

 Bee-keepers should take pains to spread 

 these two facts regarding the value of sweet 

 clover as a forage plant for stock. Be sure 

 to tell your farmer friends that stock may 

 be taught to eat it. After that they will oft- 

 en hunt it out to the exclusion of every 

 thing else. 



Sweet clover is one of the most valuable 

 honey-plants in the country, and bee-keep- 

 ers should get their farmer friends to ask 

 their legislatures to repeal that section of the 

 statute that classes it as a weed. 



THE USE OF ROBBER-TRAPS IN A BEE-YARD. 



We are using with considerable satisfac- 

 tion a couple of robber-traps at our home 

 yard. After the honey-flow is over, robbers 

 are often disposed to interfere with the 

 work of the apiarist. A couple of robber- 

 traps are placed in the yard, and these traps 

 apparently catch nothing but old robbers 

 whose presence in the yard is a constant 

 source of annoyance, and a menace to the 

 weak colonies. They had better be dead 

 than alive. 



For the benefit of our newer readers we 

 would say that the trap is nothing more than 

 an ordinary hive having a bee escape so ar- 

 ranged inside that the bees can enter the 

 hive but can not get out. Sweet is placed 

 inside to bait all would-be robbers. In their 

 various prowlings around they finally locate 

 these hives, enter them and stay there for 

 good. As the amount of sweets placed there 

 is not sufficient to do more than bait the 

 bees, they soon starve. 



Possibly this may seem like cruelty to ani- 

 mals. Perhaps they ought to be killed more 

 speedily by brimstone; but certain it is, that, 

 after they learn their bad ways, they are of 

 no further use to their owner. 



A little later on we will give a cut and de- 

 scription of the trap we have adopted. 



THE REVISED BALDRIDGE METHOD OF TREAT- 

 ING FOUL BROOD. 



In our issue for Aug. 1, pages 451 and '2, 

 we gave the Baldridge method of treating 

 colonies for foul brood— a method by which 

 all healthy brood could be saved. This we 

 took from the Bee-keepers' Review for 1894; 

 but Mr. Baldridge calls attention to the same 

 plan that he revised, and again gave in the 

 Review three years later, on page 321, 1897. 



I prepare an empty hive by filling the brood-cham- 

 b>-r wit'i a set of frames — less one or two — filled with 

 foundati m or simply narrow strips of the same. I fro 

 to any strong healthy clony and remove one or two 

 combs of brood, with or without the adhering bees, 

 and place the same in the prepared hive. As gently as 

 possible I reverse the diseased rolony, or turn it end 

 for end, and move it sidewisa Ih^ width of the hive, or 

 a trifle more, and leave the bee-entrance open. When 

 this is done I place the prepared hive on the old stand, 

 but with its bee-entranco in the opposite direction. 

 This m ly all be done any time in the forenoon or when 

 the bees are busy getting honey from the flowers. The 

 b^es will, on their return from work or play, enter the 

 prepared hive and remain there, and within two or 

 three da> s the main force of the matured bees will be 

 transferred to their old location. 



Toward sunset b'ow a few puffs of smoke upon the 

 caged tiuten, to drive the bees away from it, and then 



transfer the tiueen to the colony in the prepared hive. 

 She may be given her liberty at once, and by w;iy of 

 the bee-entrance. Now close the bee-entrance of the 

 diseased colony so that no bees can pass in or out ex- 

 cept through the bee-escape, and gently reverse the 

 hive again so that both hives will now front the same 

 way. Both hives should now stand close together, or 

 within an inch or so of each other. From now on, all 

 the beesin the diseased colony must rassout or through 

 the bee-escape; and as they can not return, they must 

 and will go into the prepared hive. In about three 

 v/eeks all the healthy brood in the diseased colony will 

 be ha'ched out, and soon thereafter all the bees will be 

 lound in the prepared hive, and no loss of either bees 

 or labor. The contents of the diseased colony may 

 now be taken to some proper place and be disposed of 

 by burning the same. This is best done in a room or 

 building to which no outside bees can gain access and 

 get at the honey. But it is not necessary that this 

 should be a total loss. Such combs as contain honey 

 and are free of diseased brood may be extracted and 

 saved !or table use, and the empty combs melted and 

 made into wax— those that contain brood may as well 

 be burned up at once— frames and all — as the cost of 

 replacing them nowadays is but a trifle any way. 



By this time the prepared hive will or should be full 

 of both comb and brood, and without any foul brood 

 or any trace of the disease. In fact, it will be and re- 

 main a healthy colony. At least that has been my ex- 

 perience. 



It will be noted that this is practically the 

 same as the one he gave in 1894, with this 

 difference, that he uses a modern bee-es- 

 cape and reverses the entrance of the old 

 hive for a short time. After this he puts it 

 back with the entrance pointing in the same 

 way. 



REVISED 1909 HONEY CROP AND PRICES; GEN- 

 ERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE HONEY-CROP 

 . REPORTS AS GIVEN ON PAGE 508. 



In the honey-crop reports given elsewhere 

 in this issue, perhaps some of our readers 

 may be a little confused over the conflicting 

 statements: but out of the mass of informa- 

 tion a few facts seem to be clearly brought 

 out. 



In the central-northern States there ap- 

 pears to be a large amount of honey-dew 

 honey gathered. Particularly is this true in 

 Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The latter State 

 has hardly any thing, for there seems to be 

 an almost entire dearth of white honey. 

 This is, no doubt, due to the drouth of last 

 fall, which killed out the white clover. In 

 Ohio and Indiana there is some white honey, 

 but much of it is impaired by a general ad- 

 mixture of honey-dew. In Michigan there 

 appears to be some honey-dew and quite a 

 quantity of white honey. This latter will 

 average from 25 to 50 per cent, and in some 

 sections there has been a very fair average. 



Crossing over into Canada we find but very 

 little honey-dew and a good crop of white 

 honey. 



In New York the yield is variously report- 

 ed from a half to a full crop of white honey. 

 The same is true to a great extent in New 

 Jersey and the New England States in gene- 

 ral. 



In the States south of the Ohio River the 

 reports vary considerably from full to no 

 crop. Crossmg the Mississippi River we find 

 some honey dew and considerable white 

 honey in the Southwest. 



Throughout the alfalfa regions, with some 

 exceptions, there has been a fair average 



