158 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Feb. 22, 19C6 



the spread of the disease as charged ; but, in any case, and 

 especially as the pear is a honey-plant, it is of interest to 

 know that there is an easy way by which the tree may be 

 made more fit to resist the attack of the blight. 



A very able paper on the subject was read by Mr. J. E. 

 Johnson before the Galva Farmers' Institute, and published 

 in the Galesburg Evening Mail. It would be out of place 

 to give the whole of the paper here, but the nub of it is that 

 a liberal application of wood ashes supplies the tree with 

 those elements that enable it to resist to a great extent, if 

 not entirely, the attack of the blight. Simple, and easily 

 within reach of every one. 



Mr. Johnson emphasizes his confidence in the remedy 

 by his closing paragraph : 



" I have trees that blighted 6 years ago, but by giving 

 liberally of wood ashes they have not shown a single twig 

 of blight since, and have borne several crops of nice pears." 



Sweet Clover on the Farm 



One believes more easily what one wants to believe, so 

 ■when bee-keepers speak favorably of sweet clover as a for- 

 age-plant their testimony is likely to be received with a 

 grain of salt. The following, from the National Stockman 

 and Farmer, shows how it is viewed, not from the stand- 

 point of a bee-keeper, but of a farmer : 



East summer there was some discussion of the value of 

 sweet clover. Director F. E. Dawley, of the New York in- 

 stitutes, tells me that he has been seeding sweet clover in 

 his pear-orchard for 9 years, sowing in the summer, har- 

 vesting the growth of hay in the fall, and plowing the 

 ground in the spring. It is not palatable till cured into hay, 

 but then it is eaten readily by his stock, and is nearly as 

 rich in protein as alfalfa. There is a little more woody 

 fiber in it. The variety used is the white sweet clover, the 

 yellow making a ranker growth of less palatable feed. The 

 growth should be harvested while tender, like alfalfa. The 

 experience of Mr. Dawley confirms the belief of some others 

 that sweet clover has a big feeding value, and live stock 

 will learn to like it, and thrive upon it when properly cured. 

 Some animals learn to eat this clover green, when the 

 plants are young and tender, but this is unusual. 



Alfalfa-Growing in New York 



Alva Agee, the able correspondent of the National 

 Stockman, tells in that paper about a miracle of man's 

 making, which " consists in the doubling in value of many 

 thousands of acres of land in an ordinary limestone blue- 

 grass hilly country by seeding to alfalfa." Some pieces are 

 of 40 years standing. It is in Onondaga Co., N. Y., the 

 home of G. M. Doolittle and other prominent bee-keepers. 

 In a region where 90 percent of the farmers are producing 

 alfalfa, it ought not to be a hard thing to say whether the 

 bees get any good from it. Until somewhat recently it was 

 held that alfalfa yielded no honey east of the Mississippi. 

 Will Mr. Doolittle, or some one else, kindly inform us how 

 the matter stands in Onondaga County ? 



See Langstroth Book Offer on another page of this 

 copy of the American Bee Journal. 



■+-*-* — ■ 



A Queen-Bee Free as a Premium. — We are now book- 

 ing orders for Untested Italian Queens to be delivered in 

 May or June. This is the premium offer: To a subscriber 

 whose own subscription to the American Bee Journal is 

 paid at least to the end of 1906, we will mail an Untested 

 Italian Queen for sending us one new subscription with 

 $1.00 for the Bee Journal a year. Or, we will renew your 

 subscription to the American Bee Journal for a year, and 

 send a fine Untested Italian Queen— both for $1.50. Now 

 is a good time to get new subscribers. If you wish extra 

 copies of the Bee Journal for use as samples, let us know 

 how many you want and we will mail them to you. Address 

 all orders to the office of the American Bee Journal. 



miscellaneous 

 Hetps * 3 terns 



^\ 



J 



National Nominations.— The Fillmore Co., Minn., 

 convention, met at Preston, Feb. 8 and 9. This Asso- 

 ciation are also members of the National Bee-Keepers' 

 Association. They passed the following resolution at their 

 recent meeting, and instructed their secretary, Mr. P. B. 

 Ramer, to send it in for publication : 



J?esolved, That the nomination for officers of the Na- 

 tional Bee-Keepers' Association be made by a referendum 

 vote, the man having the largest vote being considered the 

 nominee of the Association. 



Honey Exhibit of Chas. W. Sager — This, as shown 

 on the first page, was an attempt to engrave from a very 

 poor photograph. It will be seen how unsatisfactory the 

 result is. Accompanying the picture came the following : 



I send a picture of the exhibit made by Mr. Sager at 

 the Inter-State Fair at Spokane, Wash., which lasted from 

 Oct. 9 to 16, 1905. Mr. S. is standing by his exhibit. He 

 was fortunate in winning the blue ribbons on both comb 

 and extracted honey at the State Fair, and the blue ribbon 

 on comb honey, and red ribbon on extracted, at the Inter- 

 State Fair. Grace W. Sager. 



Frank Stoflet and Apiary.— When sending the pic- 

 ture reproduced on the first page, Mr. Stoflet wrote as fol- 

 lows : 



I send a picture of my apiary and myself. There are 

 85 colonies in it. I have another apiary of 50 colonies. The 

 house seen in the picture is where I used to winter bees. It 

 has double walls, with 2'/ 2 feet of planer-shavings between. 

 Owing to the walls being too thin I could not maintain 

 a high enough temperature, so I abandoned the use of it as 

 a winter repository. I now winter the bees in a cellar, with 

 far better results. 



The picture is some of my own photography. 



Frank Stoflet. 



The Apiary of D. Pantehefe, of Orhanie, Bulgaria, 

 in Turkey, appears on the first page. Mr. C. P. Dadant met 

 the owner of this apiary at the home of Mr. Bertrand, the 

 well-known editor of the Revue Internationale D'Apicul- 

 ture, during his trip to Europe a few years ago. Mr. 

 Pantehefe was in Switzerland visiting one of his intimate 

 friends— a student at the University of Lausanne. He then 

 informed Mr. Dadant that the Dadant hive and methods 

 were well known among the educated classes in Bulgaria, 

 and that he himself has several apiaries of Dadant hives. 

 The photograph was later sent by Mr. Pantehefe to Mr. 

 Dadant. The hives shown in it are all Dadant hives. 



A Mistake, there appears to be, as some of our sub- 

 scribers seem to understand that they can get the American 

 Bee Journal through the National Bee-Keepers' Association 

 at 75 cents a year. This is entirely wrong, as we have not 

 made such price to the National. We do not know how the 

 report was circulated, but it certainly is a mistake. One 

 subscriber wrote that unless he could get the American Bee 

 Journal at the 75-cent rate as offered by the National Asso- 

 ciation, he should feel that we were discriminating against 

 him. We publish this paragraph so that there may be no 

 further misunderstanding concerning this matter. So far 

 as we know, the National Association is not a subscription 

 agency, and so does not handle subscriptions for any of the 

 bee-papers. It has an entirely different field to work in. 

 We do not think it has ever quoted any 75-cent rate for the 



