534 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



ty, both for brood, and, after the honey-season is 

 past, to contain winter stores ; in fact, I would 

 much rather have them in seven frames than in a 

 greater number. When we are working- for comb 

 honey, the space of the other three frames is occu- 

 pied by two wide frames holding: sections — one in 

 each side. In the winter time a chaff division-board 

 takes the place of these two wide frames. The 

 wide frames with sections are never left in the 

 hives when the bees are not gathering- honey, be- 

 cause both sections and combs would become dark 

 and unsightly.] 



^EMI^DE^Y. 



TNa great many localities the honey sea- 

 M son is about over, and iieiliai)S many of 

 M the friends have had experience in rob- 

 "^ bing. Look out for it. If you do any 

 more dividing, work carefully, keep 

 the entrances small, and division-boards up 

 to one side of the brood. 



BUCKWHEAT. 



It is a good time now to sow buckwheat. 

 Although many farmers have a prejudice 

 against making the ground rich, my experi- 

 ence has been that it pays to prepare it as 

 well as for any other crop. It grows quickly, 

 and must have a large amount of food. 

 Neighbor IL suggests that clay soils will 

 bear manuring and phosphate, perhaps bet- 

 ter than a sandy soil. It is pretty generally 

 a safe investment, for the grain is worth all 

 expenses, even if you don't get a crop of 

 honey. 



SEVEX-TOP TURNir. 



It will do now, also, to sow seven-top tur- 

 nip ; but unless you have good deep i-ichsoil, 

 it will be labor thrown away. As it is so 

 liable to be thrown out by the roots in win- 

 ter, an underdrained soil is better. Of 

 course, a sandy subsoil will be pretty much 

 the same thing. The only drawback in sow- 

 ing it so early in our locality is the black 

 flea. It is a great pest with tis, especially 

 during dry seasons. Of course, the seven- 

 top turnip does not give any bloom until 

 next spring. Besides the honey it yields, 

 it is excellent for greens if its groAvth is rank ; 

 and if you do not care for the seed, you 

 can turn it under after blossoming, and 

 it puts the gromid in excellent condition for 

 corn or other crops. 



SUM3IEK OK AVINTEK RAPE. 



Both of these ordinarily pay for seed, even 

 if we care nothing for the licniey : therefore 

 they are a jn-etty safe investment. Piape will 

 blossom yet this fall, if sown now or even 

 later. The winter rape is so much like the 

 seven-top turnip, that I am at present un- 

 able to point out the difference. 



ALSIKE AND WHITE CLOVER 



May also be sown now, but they are usually 

 sown in the spring, I believe ; in fact, I 

 should be glad of reports from fall sowing. 



SWEET CLOVER. 



This can also be sown in the fall ; and if it 

 gets a good start it will make a heavy bloom 

 next season. 



As sweet clover is raised for honev, and 



nothing else, I am still a little backward 

 about advising sowing it, unless it should be 

 a small patch, for experiment. 



BORAGE. 



Borage may be sown so as to produce 

 bloom this fall; but as it furnishes nothing 

 of any value except honey, I would not rec- 

 ommend much of it. Of course, the seed is 

 worth something, although there is but lit- 

 tle demand for it. As it is quite difficult to 

 gather, the seed is worth about 7-5 cents per 

 pound. 



QUEEX-REARING IN THE FALL AND SLIM- 

 MER MONTHS. 



Where bee-keepers get no more honey, 

 quite a little income may be obtained from 

 queen-rearing, providing you have a market 

 for them. A\ here one has acquired a repu- 

 tation for promptness, and- for nice queens, 

 he usually has as many orders as he can fill, 

 clear up "until we have freezing weather. 

 Our two apiaries (our own and one belong- 

 ing to Neighbor II.), comprising now about 

 70(1 coldiiies, are crowded to their utmost 

 capacity to supply daily orders for queens. 

 To see our boys take (lueens out of the lamp 

 nursery, and iiitroduee them at once as fast 

 as they can walk around to the hives, would 

 make one smile who has heard about the 

 difficulty of introducing queens just hatched. 

 During this warm summer weather they have 

 another kind of nursery which they call the 

 " hatcher," for short. It is simply a piece 

 of plank about an inch and a half thick, and 

 the size of the brood-nest, bored as full of 

 li-inch holes as can be. One side is covered 

 with wire cloth, and it is then set over a 

 very powerful colony in a chafO hive; then 

 the enameled sheet, and lastly a chaff cush- 

 ion. No food is furnished for the young 

 queens, for we expect to be around to take 

 them out as fast as they hatch. These 

 queens are just picked up with the fingers, 

 and set down by the entrance of a (lueenless 

 hive, and the l(")ss in iulroducing this way is 

 much less than inserting queen-cells by any 

 plan we have ever tried ; and instead of a 

 queen-cell we have a live queen. 



Now, at tlie risk of having some of the 

 friends think I am advertising here, I want 

 to say that queens reared in so large an api- 

 ary as ours, whe]-e they are all Italians, 

 stand a much better chance of being purely 

 fertilized. During the spring we were com- 

 pelled to buy queens heavily, most of them 

 coming from friends in the South ; and when 

 these were received, any surplus, we intro- 

 duced to our own queen-rearing colonies. 

 But I am sorry to say, that a very much larg- 

 er proportion of them turned out hybrids 

 than those of our own raising ; for the fact is, 

 W(' have not at present a black nor hybrid 

 queen in either apiary, and have not had for 

 some time : therefore our queens can not 

 very well l)e other than purely fertilized. 

 About the only advantage in tested queens 

 f r( im our apiary now is. that they are tested for 

 disposition, w'liile we know nothing about 

 what the temper of tmtested queens will be. 

 So far as honey-gathering is concerned,' we 

 do not have very much opportunity to test 

 the queen in this respect, for we hardly ever 

 keep them long enough. 



