AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 657 



For an all-purpose hive, it has many admirers in Utah. As a non-swarming hive, I 

 have always been successful with the 8 and 10 frame Langstroth. 



I have put up my bees for the winter on Mr. Scott's plan, using two-story hives 

 instead of supers. I have placed strips of wood across the frames, giving the bees 

 free passage over them, then laid a strip of burlap and also a sheet of screen-door 

 wire between the two boxes to keep the mice out. I have filled the top boxes full of 

 chaff, removing the covers entirely and placing a gable-shaped roof over each 

 row. I prepared a few colonies this way some years since, and I did not lose any of 

 them. The chaflf in the top, and the packing at the back, keeps them warm, and 

 gives free ventilation, thus keeping them dry. 



Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 7. 



SHCXIOX-HOI^DBR SI.AXS— AI^FAI^FA. 



BY E. S. MILES. 



On page 524, Dr. Miller asks a question himself, as to whether section-holders 

 sag or not. I have used these slats for three years, and while there has not been 

 much in them the last two seasons to make them sag, I have had a few filled, and 

 have never yet had one to sag. If the weight of the four sections was all on the 

 middle, they would undoubtedly sag, but wedging in between the ends as they do, 

 they cannot sag without smashing the sections together. Then the bees always 

 glue the sections together before they store in them, so they would scarcely sag if 

 there were no slats at all. • 



The section-holders in Eoot's dovetailed hive are made of seasoned basswood, 

 and just allow a piece of wood separator stuff to wedge in at the ends. This wedg- 

 ing from the end and side, together with the slat bottoms, gives very little propolis 

 on the sections, and is, I think, a very good surplus arrangement. 



About Alfalfa. — I don't live in the alfalfa country, but I'm closer to it than 

 is Dr. Miller, I think. I sowed a small strip along the roadside two years ago. It 

 has done well, and is, so far as I know, all the alfalfa clover in this (Crawford) 

 county. To describe it I would say it looks more like sweet clover, except the blos- 

 soms and seed-pods, than anything else I know of. The flowers are purple-colored, 

 shaped about like sweet clover blossoms, but probably twice as large. They grow 

 on stems similar to the sweet clover, but rather more in bunches. The seed-pods 

 are funny little things, looking, at a little distance, something like a bunch of little 

 brown worms curled up. 



Alfalfa's forte is dry weather. Whether it will stand the wet seasons we fre- 

 quently have here, remains to be seen. Sweet clover stands the drouth well. I 

 sowed some last spring, and it came through the great drouth all right. It was a 

 little short in some places, perhaps, but " all there." Denison, Iowa. 



HOPJEY-OEW^— CARNIOI.AX BEHS, ETC. 



BY O. B. GRIFFIN. 



I read with very much interest G. W. Demaree's article on pages 494, especially 

 that part in reference to honey-dew. I think his suggestion to have reports from 

 the different localities in which honey-dew has appeared, a good one. I have 

 learned a little about it, and should like to learn more. I had my first experience 

 with it this season, my few colonies storing about 25 pounds in the sections. The 

 summer had been rather dry, and about Aug. 15 the bees commenced gathering it 



