374 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 17, 



ment stations report favorably on the growth of this crop In 

 the North, but the Kaosas station in two of its reports men- 

 tions that it did not seem adapted to that locality. Since there 

 are many varieties of cow peas, some of them dwarf, and ma- 

 turing in two months' time, whileothers require a longseason, 

 and, the they may produce abundant forage in the North, will 

 not ripen seed there, Jt is natural that reports should vary. 

 Of their great importance for the South there can be no doubt, 

 and in many localities in the North their value will be equally 

 certain both to the agriculturist and the bee-keeper. 



Lentils may be grown North as well as South, and are ex- 

 cellent for fodder, especially for cows. The seeds make excel- 

 lent soup. These, as well as the vetches and lupines, are much 

 more widely cultivated in Europe than here, and our bee-keep- 

 ers will do well to encourage their spread among American 

 armers. 



Of the Lupines there are many species, but only three are 

 considered valuable for forage, namely: the white lupine (Lu- 

 pinus ttUms), the hairy or blue lupine iLupinus hirsutus) and 

 the yellow lupine t Luplniis hUcns) . The lupines are rather 

 woody to make good fodder but may be utilized for sheep. 

 They will grow on very poor sandy lands. Vast barren wastes 

 In Europe have been brought under profitable cultivation by 

 green manuring with lupines. They do not attract our bees 

 as much as many other leguminous plants, but are still worth 

 consideration. 



Spurry {Spcrduln arvensis) belonging to the Pink family, 

 is a weed in some places, but cultivated, especially in Europe, 

 as a forage plant, sheep and cattle being fond of it. The stalk 

 grows about one foot high, blossoms white, borne in June and 

 July. Plant prefers sandy soil. According to the Michigan 

 Experiment Station (Bui. 68) this plant has been of great 

 value on the jack-pine plains of that State. At the Oregon 

 Station it yielded (Bui. 4) 20 tons of green forage per acre. 

 One of our European acquaintances, who keeps about 400 col- 

 onies of bees, says that this plant yields considerable honey 

 and pollen. This with the testimony from the experiment 

 stations constrains me to place spurry in this list, altho I have 

 made no observations on it myself. 



Hemp (Cannabis sativa), cultivated for its fiber chiefly in 

 Kentucky and westward and southeastward, is said to be an 

 excellent honey-yielder. Do the bees not get more pollen than 

 honey from it ? It is doubtful whether it could be profitably 

 grown much farther north ; but its acreage might be much ex- 

 tended in the latitudes mentioned. Why do not the bee-keep- 

 ers of those regions look to this ? 



(Continued ucvt week.) 



^.'''jSf^/ 



OONDOCTED BY 

 OR. O. O. MIXtJER. MA2iE2VGO, Jit. 



[QuestlonB may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller direct.l 



Swariiiiiii;— Drawii-Comb— Uiiiiing. 



1. I have several hives with the brood-nest fairly full of 

 bees and brood, and with a good supply of honey, but they are 

 doing nothing in the supers ; I have a number of combs almost 

 solid full of honey that I took from the hives early this spring ; 

 would you advise putting one of those (uncapt) combs of 

 honey in the brood-nest with the purpose of having the bees 

 carry the honey into the super ? or would you wait until they 

 begin storing in the super (if they ever do), and then try the 

 above plan ? 



2. To prevent swarming : A colony swarms with a dipt 

 queen. The combs are taken from the hive and the bees 

 shaken from them ; all queen-cells are cut out, and the queen 

 and all the bees returned to the hive. Is it yiur experience 

 that this will stop the swarming fever? or will they go to 

 work on now queen-cells and swarm again ? 



3. To start drawn-comb for supers: It seems impossible 

 to get my bees into the supers at all unless supplied with 

 drawn-comb. Do you think well of the Idea of putting a 

 frame of foundation outside the division-board in the brood- 



nest with the idea of having the bees draw the foundation, 

 and then cutting it out and fitting it into the supers '? 



■4. Dj you think it safe to unite a queenless colony with 

 one having a queen ? Is there not danger of the queen being 

 balled or injured ? And if so united, would it be by shaking 

 the bees of the queenless colony from their combs in front of 

 the hive to which they are to be united ? or how ? 



•5. Suppose you have a lO-frame hive of bees in good con- 

 dition, but not working in the supers, and you place under 

 them another 10-frame hive with no bees, but filled with 

 combs of honey. What would be the effect ? 



Western Penn. 



Answers. — 1. I don't think I'd do either; that is, 1 

 wouldn't put In frames of honey left over from last year with 

 the expectation of having it carried up into the supers. But 

 it may be a good plan to put a frame of honey in the brood- 

 nest, for it isn't the easiest thing to crowd out the queen early 

 in the season by having too much honey in the brood-nest. 

 Very few realize perhaps how much honey -is used up in brood- 

 rearing, and it seems to encourage the bees to go more largely 

 into brood-rearing if a large lot of stores is in sight. It will 

 also practically be putting just so much more honey in the 

 supers, for the bees are not likely to store above till the brood- 

 nest is filled. 



2. In nine cases out of ten they'll swarm. 



8. That's the Oatman plan, and is much practiced by 

 some of the bee-keepers of northern Illinois. It's a good plan, 

 the only objection being the labor involved. 



4. If honey is coming in, there's very little danger — less 

 danger by a good deal than if both colonies had queens. You 

 can shake the bees in front of the hive, as you suggest, or, 

 perhaps better, you can quietly place frames and bees in the 

 hive. If you want to be very safe about it, put one hive over 

 the other, leaving a piece of heavy paper between with a little 

 hole big enough for a single bee to pass through. 



5. Probably they wouldn't work in the super so soon as if 

 you had not given the frames of honey. If the hive is cram- 

 med full, so not a drop of honey can be got into it, there ought 

 to be no difference. 



M I ^ — ■ 



They Will Be Hybrids. 



Will a hybrid queen, purely mated with an Italian drone, 

 produce all yellow workers '? If so, will they be gentle like 

 pure Italians ? E. B. 



Answer. — No, they'll be hybrids, or, properly speaking, a 

 cross — and may be cross as well. 



Ten Inlercsling Questions and Answers. 



1. Do you put sections on as soon as a swarm is hived ? 



2. How can I keep ants out of my honey-house ? It has 

 four pillars or posts set in the ground ; tar on them soon gets 

 hard. Turpentine on a narrow strip of cloth tied around them 

 soon evaporates. 



3. I want my bees to swarm, but do not want any increase 

 in colonies. How shall I manage them ? 



4. I use lO-frame dovetailed hives, and work for comb 

 honey. What kind of hives do you use ? and what kind of 

 honey do you work for ? 



5. Do you put sections on before the bees swarm ? 



6. What is meant by " sealed covers ?" 



7. Which do you consider the best surplus arrangement 

 for comb honey — the T super, wide frame, or section holder ? 



8. How many years will a queen do good service in a 10- 

 frame hive ? 



9. Is 1231 cents enough for honey in a 4v.^x4yxlK 

 section '? 



10. Which style of frame do you prefer — Hoffman or old- 

 stylo thick top-bar '? I mean in regard to manipulation. 



Ml.SSOURI. 



Answers. — 1. If you put sections on as soon as a swarm 

 is hived, there is some danger that the queen may go up and 

 lay in the sections, unless a queen-excluder is used, so if you 

 don't use excluders it's better to wait a day or two before put- 

 ting on supers. As soon as the queen gets started laying be- 

 low, it's all right to put on supers. 



2. Try chalk. Some one has said they will not cross a 

 place well chalkt. Powdered borax is also disagreeable to 

 them. You might have pasteboard or tin so arranged about 

 the pillars that you can have a line of powdered borax of con- 

 siderable depth. You could do as they do in keeping some 

 kinds of worms from climbing shade-trees. They have a sort 

 of dish of tin surrounding the tree, filled with oil. If it had 



