520 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug. 13, 



GEORGE yv, YORK, . Editor. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



GEORGE W. YORK & COMPANY, 

 118 JtHcliisan St., - GIIICAGO, II^K. 



$1.00 a Year— Sample Copy Sent Free. 

 [Entered at the Post-Offlce at Chicago as Second-Class Mail-Matter.j 



Vol. niVI. CHICAGO, ILL,, AUG. 13, 1896. No, 33. 



The Honey Season of 1896 has been an excep- 

 tionally good one in the greater part of the United vStates and 

 Canana, if we may judge by what reports have come in from 

 bee-keepers. Under the heading— "A Queer but a Good Sea- 

 son " — Gleanings had this to say in its issue for Aug. 1 : 



The season is peculiar in several respects. To begin with, 

 every thing started out much earlier than usual. Fruit-bloom 

 showed up quite perceptibly in the brood-nests — something it 

 has not done for some years. Basswood came on almost a 

 month earlier, with great promise. It did, in fact, begin to 

 yield nectar before white clover (it usually /oHojcs) ; but the 

 quantity of blossoms was a very imperfect index of tne amount 

 of honey. Then we waited for white clover; but instead of 

 honey from that source, there was a fair flow from sweet 

 clover. Now, that this is going to seed, white clover near the 

 latter part of this month (a month late), owing to these copi- 

 ous rains, is beginni[ig to show itself everywhere. Honey is 

 coming in again, and being stored. How long this will last, 

 or what we may expect next in this season of contraries, it is 

 hard to say. During this month we have drouths, as a rule; 

 but ?iou) the ground is as wet and soaked as in the spring. 

 The roads are muddy, and the bicycle is at a standstill. This 

 is almost unheard of in Rootville during summer. 



We think there'll be no trouble on the part of bee-keepers 

 to stand a few such "queer" seasons if they'll only prove to 

 be " good " ones. Most of them can put up with the unusual- 

 ness of a season, it only the same uuusualness will also be 

 found in the honey crop — unusually large, preferred, of 

 course ! 



Xtie Lincoln Convention, to be held Oct. 7 and 

 8, promises to be a good one, if we may judge from the pro- 

 gram the Secretary, Dr. Mason, is building. It won't need 

 much "doctoring " when he gets through with it. If all re- 

 spond, as indicated by the list of papers arranged for, it will 

 be worth going a good ways to see and hear. Better lay your 

 plans to be there. Let's simply astound the Nebraska people 

 with numbers. We'd like to see the Lincoln affair out-number 

 the World's Fair convention. We hope it will, for we believe 

 it is to be the most important meeting held by the bee-keepers 

 of this country in a long time. We expect to see something 

 done " along the line " of improving the organization, that 

 will be of great value to every bee-keeper in the land. Be 

 present yourself, and " have a hand " in the thiug. 



1^" See " Bee-Keeper's Guide" offer on page 527. 



Scarlet or Crimson Clover.— The following we 

 take from one of the best seed catalogs issued: 



ScABLET OR CRIMSON Clovbr (TrifoUum incamatum). — 

 This is most valuable crop for green manuring, soiling, hay, 

 pasture and silage. It is purely an annual, and must be sown 

 every year. It will make a good growth on land which is too 

 poor and sandy to grow red clover or any grasses at all, and 

 will make an enormous growth on good land. It will improve 

 worn out and poor soils more rapidly and permanently than 

 any other plant in existence; therefore, the cheapest and best 

 fertilizer, also the cheapest food for all kinds of stock. Its 

 use solves a great problem in economical farming. It grows 

 and matures its crop when other crops are dormant, furnish- 

 ing the very best of feed, and'still permanently improving the 

 soil. Being a winter crop it should be sown in August and 

 Septemoer, from which the spring following it can be cut for 

 soiling early in the season, from the middle of April to the 

 middle of May ; for ensilage and hay from first to last of May, 

 and for seed crop early in June. It will produce on ordinary 

 soil eight to ten tons of green food per acre, one-half to two 

 and a half tons of hay per acre ; plowed under as a manural 

 crop it is worth as a fertilizer §24 per acre. Experiments at 

 the Delaware Experiment Station have shown that .SI. 00 in- 

 vested in seed per acre added 24 bushels of corn, while $1.00 

 worth of nitrate soda per acre increased the yield of corn only 

 six bushels. It can be sown in fields of growing corn, in open 

 ground after some other crop is harvested, in apple, peach, 

 pear, plum and cherry orchards, in vineyards, also with buck- 

 wheat, to keep down weeds and to be plowed under as ma- 

 nure, also for binding drift soils and for preventing washing 

 on hillsides, with most excellent results ; can be pastured some 

 in early spring without injury to either hay or seed crop. Ten 

 to fifteen pounds are necessary to seed an acre properly, and 

 after sowing the seed it should be covered by a light har- 

 rowing. 



Crimson clover is considered by some as a very fine honey- 

 plant, as are all the clovers. It may require some careful ex- 

 perimecting before it becomes a complete success in far north- 

 ern latitudes, but the attempt will have been worth making, 

 if it should succeed. Try it on a small scale first. 



Later.— In Gleanings for Aug. 1, we find the following 

 about crimson clover : 



Some readers may have wondered why The Rural New- 

 Yorker stands by crimson clover in the face of so many re- 

 ports of partial or complete failures. One reason is that we 

 have often observed the marvelous ability of this plant to 

 stool or spread out when once started in the spring. We have 

 seen half a dozen fields that seemed, on April 1, to be entirely 

 killed out, start suddenly into such a rapid growth that, by 

 the middle of May, the ground was well covered. Last week, 

 Mr. L. D. Gale, of Chautauqua County, N. Y., made a quite 

 unfavorable report as to crimson clover. Here is his final re- 

 port, which we print here in full, as it is in line with the posi- 

 tion The Rural has often taken : 



"I must admit that a few straggling crimson-clover 

 plants will make a wonderful showing if left to do their best. 

 They can spread out equal to a bantam hen on a sitting of 

 eggs. Where I thought there was scarcely any left, the 

 ground is covered. It is a surprise to every one seeing the 

 field, to know where the clover came from. May 16 I hitched 

 up the horse and drove over to the field with Mrs. Gale ; she 

 thought the blossoms so handsome that they would add beauty 

 to the bouquet, so we gathered some- and put them with other 

 flowers. What was our surprise to find, in four or five days, 

 that the clover had grown so as almost to hide the other 

 flowers ! Very few honey-bees were seen at this time. A fine 

 rain had come on the Monday following (it had been rather 

 too dry here). I did not see the field again until May 21, five 

 days later, when I went to the field to plow it. I was sur- 

 prised again ; some of it was so thick and heavy that it both- 

 ered me to turn it under. The blossoms were alive with bees, 

 and I almost believe that the whole working force of my 100 

 colonies of bees were upon the field ; they fairly tumbled over 

 each other. I never saw them thicker upon basswood bloom. 

 After going a few times around, I stopped the teams, went to 

 the apiary, and found the bees capping the section honey. I 

 put the teams at work in another field ; and as long as it yields 

 honey at that rate, it can stand there. I think the rain caused 

 the flow of honey. The medium clover is keeping up. 1 feel 

 certain that, where crimson has proved a failure, the medium 

 will be a success. I do not intend to have any more bare 

 floor in my cornfield when I can carpet them so cheaply with 



