THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



15 



BY F. STROHSGHEIN. 



MR. HUTCHINSON, with your con- 

 sent, I will try and entertain you 

 if I can; but first I must say that you, 

 Mr. Editoi", have been amusing' me. 

 You tell us to "keep more bees," "keep 

 more bees," drop everything else, but 

 "keep more bees;" produce tons of 

 honey, as does Mr. Gill, then you will 

 be able to put money in the bank, as 

 has been done b}' Mr. Coggshall. Sj^s- 

 tematize your work, you say, so as to 

 be able to handle more bees; but the 

 first thing to do is to look up a good 

 location. Now, if we all go to look- 

 ing up g'ood locations, possibly some of 

 us will have to land in Cuba, or some 

 other tropical country: and the home- 

 field will have its nectar wasted, for 

 there is not enough of it to let us all 

 establish many out-apiaries. But then, 

 Mr. W. K. Morrison doesn't want us in 

 the tropics. He tells us in Gleanings, 

 we would better stay at home and raise 

 alfalfa, sanfoin, raspberries, rape 

 and other nectar yielding plants. I 

 am of that opinion, too, but you, Mr. 

 Hutchinson, say that g^eneral farming 

 is very poorly adopted for combining 

 with bee-keeping "that there are criti- 

 cal times in bee-keeping- that will 

 brook no delay, when three or four 

 days' or a week's neglect may mean 

 the loss of a crop, and these times 

 come right in the height of the season 

 — leaving" the team and reaper idle in 

 the back field, while the farmer g^oes to 

 the house to hive bees, is neither pleas- 

 ant nor profitable. Drawing in a field 

 of hay while bees lie idle because the 

 honey has not been extracted to give 

 them storage-room, is another illustra- 

 tion of the conditions with which the 

 farmer bee-keeper has to contend. 

 The serious part of it is that the honey 



thus lost may be worth nearly or quite 

 as much as the hay that is saved." 

 Now, almost rig-ht in the same breath, 

 you tell us that we should systematize 

 our work so as not to find it necessary 

 to visit an out-apiary more than two or 

 three times a month, yet you think it 

 necessary for the farmer to leave the 

 reaper idle on account of his bees. 

 Now, why not apply that system to the 

 farmer's apiary, even if it is at home ? 

 Of course it can be done, providing the 

 farmer is fit for the work. If he is not, 

 neither will he be able to manage out- 

 apiaries. Doesn't Mr. Coggshall, one 

 of the larg^est out-apiary men, tell us 

 he is a farmer, instead of thinking-, as 

 you do, that farming is poorly adapted 

 to unite with bee-keeping ? 



HOW FARMING HELPS BEE-KEEPING. 



Mr. Hutchinson, I think it is one of 

 the best possible combinations. Is not 

 agriculture the main stay of bee-keep- 

 ing in many parts of the country ? In 

 New York, for instance, buckwheat 

 furnishes tons of honey, while the 

 large acreage of alfalfa in the West 

 must not be forgotten, and it is the 

 farmer who must first sow this alfalfa 

 for the bees. Of course there are many 

 natural, nectar-yielding plants, the 

 most important of which are basswood, 

 goldenrod, aster and others (that is for 

 this part of the country). Now, if the 

 farmer furnishes part of the pasture, 

 why cannot he also keep some bees to 

 gather the nectar, always providing, of 

 course, he is fit for bee-keeping . It has 

 been set down as a rule that any plant 

 which furnishes only nectar, and noth- 

 ing else, will not pay to sow on land 

 where other crops will grow. This is 

 quite true, but there is the alsike clover, 



