746 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE 



the store of the retailer. When honey is 

 shipped by freight to the city markets it 

 then has to be carried by a careless and in- 

 different truckman to the consignee. We 

 find in some cases that we are able to de- 

 liver honey cheaper by automobile than we 

 can by freight. Another tiling we are be- 

 gininng to see is automobile trucks from the 

 city, loaded with freight for our suburban 

 towns — especially those towns that are not 

 reached by railroads. The only thing that 

 seems to be a necessity are hard stone roads. 

 A comnmnity that has not g-umption enough 

 to have roads that are good the year around 

 ought to be left out in the cold. 



WHY IS SWEET CLOVER HAVING SUCH A BOOM 

 IN OKLAHOMA AND KANSAS'? 



A. I. Root has been inquiring why there 

 seemed to be such a big demand from Okla- 

 homa for our sweet-clover pamphlet. As 

 we made a trip through both Oklahoma and 

 Kansas last winter, perhaps we can answer 

 the question. Kansas especially has been a 

 great corn State. The farmers there seemed 

 to have the impression that they could grow 

 nothing but corn and buffalo grass. In 

 later years they have discovered that alfalfa 

 grows well on low lands next to the little 

 creeks and rivers; but it will not gi'ow on 

 the uplands. They are just beginning to 

 discover in some sections of Oklahoma and 

 Kansas that sweet clover will gTow on these 

 same uplands where formerly buffalo gi-ass 

 would be the only thing that seemed to 

 thrive. The result is that the farmers in 

 those States are finding out that sweet clo- 

 ver is going to enable them to make use of 

 their poor lands that heretofore have yield- 

 er but scant returns. After these uplands 

 have been inoculated with the bacteria, sweet 

 clover will thrive and yield luxuriantly. 

 Well, these same farmers are turning their 

 stock — sheep and pigs — on these sweet-clo- 

 ver uplands, with the result that stock-rais- 

 ing is beginning to develop to a proportion 

 that is going to mean the emancipation of 

 much of these bad lands that hitherto have 

 been almost useless. 



SWARMING NOT CONTROLLED BV RAISING THE 



HIVE UP ON FOUR BLOCKS; CARNIOLANS 



INVETERATE SWARMERS. 



Two or tkree of our correspondents, par- 

 ticularly Mr. Foster in this issue, do not 

 believe it is advisable to place too much 

 dependence on raising a colony up on four 

 blocks to check or control swarming, as 

 shown on pp. 593 and 610, Sept. 1st issue. 

 Probably much Avill depend on the strain of 

 bees and the supplementary management. 

 We regard Mr. Vernon Burt as one of the 



best beekeepers in the country. Any one 

 who will talk with him for a while will be 

 convinced that he is not only on the job, but 

 knows it from start to finish. He has been 

 using this scheme for swarm prevention for 

 the last two years — years when we have had 

 at our own yards some unpleasant expe- 

 riences in shinning up trees after swarms. 

 We tried the four-block method at our Car- 

 niolan apiary, but it apparently had no 

 effect. As a matter of fact, every thing we 

 tiied failed; and we came to the conclusion 

 that, when conditions generally are favor- 

 able for swarming, the Carniolans will 

 swarm in spite of us. In this locality we do 

 not regard them as satisfactory for the 

 production of comb honey as the ordinai'y 

 leather-colored Italians. They will breed up 

 earlier, and work earlier and later in the 

 day ; but, my, oh my ! this very breeding 

 aggravates the swarming problem later on; 

 and when Carniolans start to swarm you 

 may reasonably expect they will not do 

 much else in the way of honey production 

 that season. 



^•HE ADVANCE IN THE PRICE OF HIVE LUMBER ; 



HOW LABOR HAS ADVANCED; COST OF 



HIVES NEW AND OLD. 



In this issue, page 750, Mr. P. C. Chad- 

 wick calls attention to the steady advance 

 that has taken place in the price of hive 

 lumber during the past 20 years. What is 

 true in California is more than true in other 

 parts of the United States. A few days ago 

 a subscriber, noticing that the price of bee- 

 faupplies was going to advance this yeai", 

 complained, saying he thought it was unjust 

 and unnecessary'. This complainant prob- 

 ably failed to take into account the advance 

 of the cost of livng, the cost of labor, and 

 the cost of general commodities during the 

 past six or seven years. Nearly every thing 

 has gone up — so much so that it is a real 

 pi'oblem how to make ends meet. The wife 

 ot a workingman is obliged to figure much 

 more closely than she did ten years ago, 

 tiecause the wages of her husband, although 

 they may have advanced, are not yet quite 

 up to the relative advance in the cost of 

 living. 



If it costs more to build a house now than 

 it did ten years ago, it is reasonable to sup- 

 pose that it would cost more to build a hive, 

 because to a great extent the same class of 

 labor and material is employed in each. As 

 Mr. Chadwick points out in the article re- 

 teired to on page 750, the price of second- 

 hand hives to-day ought to be worth nearly 

 the price of new ones. While hives ten or 

 twenty years ago cost less, the natural de- 

 preciation during that period nearly bal- 

 ances the appreciation in the value of mate- 



