122 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



them down and step on them. This 

 is much better than to be annoyed by 

 them for weeks. 



BEES DURING A SCARCITY OF HONEY. 



Hives should not be opened during 

 a scarcity of honey, unless it is abso- 

 lutely necessary. Robbers will come 

 around, and then stinging will be in 

 order. During such a time, I have 

 occasionally fed a colony a little for 

 a day or two, and then opened them 

 at a time of day when there was honey 

 in the fields, or when few bees were 

 flying. 



To-day I discovered a hive which 

 was queenless, and the moths had 

 moved in ; as I took out the moths, I 

 discovered a little honey and the rob- 

 bers did so at the same time. 1 let 

 them eat it, as I usually do ; if I had 

 taken it away, they would have tried 

 to enter adjoining hives, but let them 

 carry it off and they are satisfied when 

 it is gone. The hive is now desolate, 

 and I shall use the combs in building 

 up small colonies, by removing a 

 comb of brood from strong colonies, 

 giving it to the weak, and putting 

 the empty comb in the place of the 

 one removed from the strong one. 

 If there are any grubs of the bee- 

 moth in them, a strong colony will 

 soon roll them out, to the delight of 

 an old hen, which has the freedom of 

 the apiary. 



HONEY CROP IN THE FALL. 



All should keep their dishes right 

 side up, for there promises to be a 

 Fall flow. Two years of severe 

 drought killed white clover in many 

 places, and what little bloom there 

 was yielded sparingly. Basswood, 

 too, had its oft' year in some regions ; 

 but abundant rains have fallen, and 

 where beekeepers are located near 

 water courses and swampy, unoccu- 

 pied lands, honey may 3'et be gath- 

 ered. The draining of sloughs on the 

 prairie is cutting off one source of 

 honey supply, for Avhere the plow and 

 reaper go, bees stand but a poor 



chance. On the rough, stony land 

 of New England, golden-rod blooms 

 in all its glory ; it is seen hugging the 

 rocks on every hand, but on arable 

 land there is none. Sweet clover has 

 taken possession of Illinois, and is 

 now the principal source of honey. 

 It does not like kind treatment, but 

 thrives best when run over by wagon- 

 wheels, on rough, gravelly soil. 



O. J. Farmer. 

 American Bee Journal. 



HOW TO CLARIFY BLACK AND 

 DIRTY WAX WITH SUL- 

 PHURIC ACID. 



We have been experimenting for 

 the past few days in rendering wax 

 with sulphuric acid. Although we 

 knew the Dadants and one or two 

 others were using it with excellent re- 

 sults in clarifying old dark wax, some- 

 how or other, "we hadn't got around 

 to it." For several months back we 

 have been saving up our old inky 

 pieces of wax, and, besides this, the 

 scrapings from the floor, and other 

 odd accumulations from broken bits 

 of comb. This week we procured 

 some sulphuric acid and proceeded to 

 clarify first the dirty scrapings from 

 the floor, putting them into a copper 

 boiler holding about half a barrel. 

 We first put in about two pails of wa- 

 ter, and then about three ounces of 

 sulphuric acid, and afterward the 

 scrapings. We next let on steam, 

 until the wax began to come to the 

 top. We first dipped off the clear 

 wax floating on the surface, and 

 poured it through a cheese-cloth bag. 

 We next scooped out the residue, in- 

 cluding the dirt, dumped it into the 

 cheese-cloth I»ag, put it into our wax- 

 press, and squeezed it under a gentle 

 and increasing pressure. The wax, 

 as it oozed out, ran into the vat, 

 which, upon cooling, proved to be nice 

 yellow wax. On former occasions, 

 the same treatment without sulphuric 

 acid, would give us wax about as black 

 as ink — or, at least, of a very dirty 



