JUNE 1, 1913 



FORMER FOREST LANDS BEING CONVERTED 

 INTO CLOVER-FIELDS 



BY J. L. GRAFF 



Sheep and clover are working a dual part 

 in the vast tracts of cut-over and burn-over 

 lands in Minnesota and other northwestern 

 territory in which the last of the lumber is 

 fast disappearing. The promise of increas- 

 ed fields of clover bloom has much in store 

 for the beekeepers of that region. 



Sheep are being brought from Montana 

 and other far-western ranges to feed on 

 wild land for the purpose of clearing out 

 the brush preparatory to the sowing of clo- 

 ver. It is claimed that twenty ewes will 

 clean up five acres in as many months, and 

 leave the ground so clean that, when the 

 frost is coming out of the ground the fol- 

 lowing spring, seed will catch without any 

 other soil preparation, and a good stand of 

 clover will be secured in this way. At least 

 two crops are cut in one season. By fenc- 

 ing small tracts and changing the sheep 

 from one tract to another, the patches are 

 well cleaned and the sheep take on a suffi- 

 cient quantity of mutton to sell for much 

 more than they cost when they were turned 

 into the fields. 



One of the illustrations shows the char- 

 acter of the land being cleaned up. No 

 attempt is made to take out the stumps; 

 the seed is sown between them. In the low- 

 er right-hand corner is shown for contrast 

 a small section cut from a photogTai^h of 

 one great field of clover in bloom. From 

 this corner picture one may imagine what 

 kind of improvement could be seen if the 

 clover were to sj^read over the whole tract. 

 In one county alone in Minnesota, efforts 

 are now being made to clean up two million 

 acres. 



Chicago, 111. 



ENTRANCE AT TOP OF HIVE AN AID IN 

 SV^ARM PREVENTION 



BY I. W. BECKWITH 



I have read several items in the bee jour- 

 nals, in which the writers complain that 

 bees are adverse to going up through the 

 queen-excluders with their loads of honey, 

 and so deposit too great an amount in the 

 brood-chamber, thereby crowding the queen 

 and causing swarming. Some beekeepers 

 call the excluders " honey-excluders," and 

 thereby denounce their use. 



I thought that, as the bees object to car- 

 rying their honey up through the excluders, 

 perhaps they would object to carrying it 

 down through them, and so I might take 

 advantage of that propensity by reversing 



381 



the process. So when I set my bees out in 

 the spring I closed the fly holes at the bot- 

 tom of the hives and. moved the lids back 

 so as to allow entrance at the top. It is 

 best to do this, on setting them out, before 

 they have become accustomed to going in 

 at the bottom. If they become accustomed 

 to using the bottom exit it will be necessary 

 to close it tight so as entirely to exclude the 

 light; and eyen then the bees inside will 

 crowd that part of the liive, and those out- 

 side will try to go in there for a month after 

 the change has been made. 



As soon as a super is needed, take the 

 escape out of the escape-board and tack a 

 piece of queen-excluder over the hole; put 

 it on the hive, and a super having an 

 entrance at the front end. I prefer to have 

 this piece of queen-excluder near the front 

 end of the board so that the bees may find 

 it more readily. It may be well to put the 

 escape-board in place at first, leaving off the 

 zinc until the super is needed. 



The result of my experiment was not only 

 that the honey was stored above (only 

 enough carried below to feed the young, 

 the queen having unlimited room). The 

 bees raised so much brood that they were 

 soon very strong in numbers; and before 

 the season was over they occupied two ex- 

 tracting supers and then one half of the 

 bees clustered on the outside of the hives, 

 there not being room inside, and not one of 

 the 22 colonies so treated offered to swarm. 



I wanted to divide some of them, and so 

 put brood above for them to raise queens 

 a la Doolittle; but they would start no 

 queens ; and when I gave them cells nearly 

 ready to hatch they either tore them down. 

 or the few that they allowed to hatch soon 

 disappeared, so I conclude that I have un- 

 wittingly solved the swarming problem. 



Tliis was three years ago last summer. 

 I then quit the bee business and left Wyo- 

 ming for this State. 



I used extracting-supers, having some old 

 brood-coinbs containing pollen. I am not 

 sure but the bees may have stored some pol- 

 len above; but if so it was only near the 

 entrance to the brood-chamber. 



In order to give my bees more ventilation 

 than this arrangement would allow I tacked 

 wire cloth over the lower entrance. 



Rodeo, N. M. 



[A number of beekeepers at one time or 

 another have used upper entrances — most 

 of them, however, using them in connection 

 with a lower entrance also. The objection 

 to having but one entrance, and that at the 

 top, is that in localities where the nights 

 are cool there is danger of having the bees 

 desert the supers, and also that the brood 



