176 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOUENAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Bees in Cliffs. 



Mr. Editor: Enclosed you will find a list o 

 names of beo-keepei s. I Ccannol say that anj' 

 of tliem will subsci'ibe for the Journal, but I 

 am satisfied it is worth the money, and that it 

 will richly repay any one interested in bee cul- 

 tured. 



In my neighborhood we liave nothing Imt the 

 box hive and the common black bee. In the 

 coming spring, I expect to get some frame hives, 

 but am at a loss to know whose patent to get. 

 I also want some Italian bees, but do not yet 

 know whom to purchase from. I want the 

 purest I can get with the least expense. I no- 

 ticed in your January number that Mr. J. R. 

 Gardner, of Christiansburg, (Va.,) states that 

 he had purchased three Italian queens for ten 

 dollars. They were cheap, indeed, if they are 

 pure Italians. 



I am fully satisfied in my own mind that bees, 

 with proper attention, can be made very profit- 

 able in this part of Kentucky. The black bee 

 in its wild f-tate, is found in hollow trees, and 

 sometimes in cliti's or bluffs along our water 

 courses. There is a bluff' m Edmonson county, 

 Kentucky, near the Mammoth Cave, in which 

 I am credibl}' informed, bees have been work- 

 ing for many years. The oldest citizens say 

 they were there as far back as they can remem- 

 ber. The clilfissaid to be two hundred feet 

 high and perpendicular. Tlie bees work out at 

 a hole in the rock about half way up the cliff. 

 They are represented as being very numerous, 

 and there are many speculations in regard to 

 the quantity of honey stored there. 



There is als ) a similar colony of bees in the 

 bluff's of the Cumberland river in Cumberland 

 county, Kentucky; but the cavity where they 

 work out at, is said to be one hundred and fifty 

 feet from the base and the top of the cliff. The 

 bees arc said to be in vast numbers. 



I would like to know of any one has ever as- 

 certained the quautity of honey stored by bees 

 similarly situated in bluffs. I suppose there are 

 other instances of the kind. What would be 

 the best plan to take the honey stored in a cliff? 

 If any of the readers of the Bee Journal can 

 give me a plan that will be satisfactory, without 

 danger from the bees; I may at some future 

 time have the pleasure of giving them an ac- 

 count of a big bee hunt. 



"Wishing you great success, I am, &c., &c. 

 K. P. Allen. 



Smith's Grove, Warren Co., Ky. 



The hotter and dryer the summer is, the great- 

 er and more frequent are the honey dews. Cold 

 and wet weather is unkind for them. Much rain 

 at any time, as coming from a higher region, 

 washeth away that which is already elevated; so 

 that there can lie no more, until another fit of 

 hot and di y weather, and in the end it dissolveth 

 them quite. — Butler. 



A farmer near Northampton, Mass., recently 

 took from a swarm of bees that had taken up 

 their abode in the wall of his house, one hundred 

 and twenty-five pounds of honey. 



[For the Americau Bee Journal.] 



Buckwheat on Poor Land. 



Some thirty years ago when I lived in Cana- 

 da, I had fat hogs, for I was a miller then, and 

 you know that hog manure is very rich. I sowed 

 a piece of ground with buckwheat for my bees, 

 and on returning from the field, with some 

 buckwheat in my sowing bag, I passed through 

 the hog yard and it looked so nice and mellow 

 that I strewed on the buckwheat, shut the hogs 

 in the pen, harrowed in the buckwheat, and let 

 it grow for the bees. The result was that 

 scarcely a bee touched the field blossoms, l)ut 

 the liog yard beat all for bees you ever saw. 

 Well, I learned a lesson then — that is, if you 

 want honey, the richer the land the more honey 

 you will get. 



Now when a person asks me liow mncli buck- 

 wheat shall I sow for mj' i)ees? I ask him how 

 much manure are you going to jmt on your 

 land? Manure your white clover patcJi, cur- 

 rants, gooseberries, raspberries, in fact every 

 tree whose blossoms the bees are to work on. 

 The richer the land the more honey the blos- 

 soms will produce. It is useless to sow buck- 

 wheat for bees on jjoor land. I saw a person 

 last summer who had sowed the same i^iece of 

 liind to buckwheat for eight years in succession 

 without manure, and he said for the last three 

 years his bees. have scarcely touched it. He 

 concluded that they had got sick of buckwheat. 

 But this year he plowed u]) his cow yard and 

 sowed to buckwheat, and the way the bees 

 worked on it beat all he ever saw. Ho took the 

 hint from what I told him last summer. Is not 

 this one great reason why so many ijcojile com- 

 jilain that their bees do not do as well as they 

 did when the country was new, before they had 

 skinned the laud to death western fashion? 

 This skinning process is as bad for bee-keepers 

 as it is for farmers. 



Osage, Iowa. Elisha Gallup. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



When you set out your bees in the spring, set 

 them on the ground by all means. That is, 

 some of my bottom boards have an inch thick 

 cleat nailed on the underside, and some of them 

 a cleat two inches thick. Those cleats, set di- 

 rectly on the ground, have a strip of board or 

 something fixed on the front side, so that when 

 a loaded bee falls on the ground, he can crawl 

 into the hive without any difficulty. Keep all 

 grass and weeds away from the front of the 

 hives, and do not set them in a row close together; 

 but place them around your yard promiscuously, 

 here and there. When set too close together, 

 you are apt to lose many queens, by their making 

 a mistake and entering the wrong hive when 

 they return from the first flight. Before I knew 

 better, I used to lose more or less in that way, 

 every year. Two diff'ercntly colored hives, side 

 by side, will answer well euougli. 



Osage, Iowa. E. Gallup. 



Dry weather makesplenty of Jioney, and moist 

 weather of swarms. — Butler. 



