1888 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



637 



mulching it heavy. Hereafter we shall sell 

 it whenever it is nice and people call for it. 

 Last, but not least, you can get beautiful 

 turnips for table use if sown at once. The 

 Purple-top Globe we place at the head of 

 the list for fall sowing for the table. Even 

 if they do not get very large, they are hand- 

 some and excellent. Even quite heavy 

 frosts do them no further injury than to 

 make them still sweeter. 



JOHN'S VISIT TO DR. MILLER'S HOMES. 



HOW THINGS LOOK "OUT WEST." 



ITp GREEABLY to my promise in the last 

 ^Mk number, I will now tell you sonie- 

 j^ thing of my visit to the home of Dr. 

 ■^^ C. C. Miller, who is so well known to 

 the readers of Gleanings. My time 

 for these visits was so limited that I had to 

 do my traveling during the night. I^eaving 

 Mr. Dadant in the afternoon, 1 reached Chi- 

 cago the next morning at 7, and had to make 

 another depot half a mile away in 15 min- 

 utes in order to catch the early train for 

 Marengo. I was soon speeding on my way 

 outof the populous and busy city of Chicago. 

 The first object of interest was the little 

 town of Elgin, so well known for its famous 

 watch-factory. This establishment is to 

 that town very much what the Home of the 

 Honey-Bees is to Medina, although on a 

 much more extensive scale than ours. We 

 were about a couple of hours in reaching 

 Marengo, where I met the doctor's genial 

 face watching for me at the depot, for I had 

 previously dropped him a postal that I 

 should reach there that morning. 



Marengo is a very pleasant little town of 

 1200 or 1500 inhabitants. Shade-trees line 

 the streets, saloons are conspicuous by their 

 absence, and schools and churches hold a 

 prominent place. Doubtless the main rea- 

 son for the town looking so attractive is the 

 absence of King Alcohol and his train of 

 vice. Such towns are becoming more and 

 more numerous in our land, for which 

 we have reason to thank God, and I think 

 we have reason, too, to thank our law-mak- 

 ers. It is true, they may not be making the 

 progress that many people wish they miglit; 

 but I fear the same people forget too often 

 that, as great bodies move slowly, so this 

 fight against intemperance is a stupendous 

 one, and takes a great while to accomplish 

 what we are aiming at. The fact that these 

 local-option towns are growing more and 

 more numerous is a hopeful sign of the glad 

 time when the liquor-power will be bioken. 



The doctor's home is about three-fourths 

 of a mile out of the village, situated on ris- 

 ing ground, with a row of basswoods up the 

 lane to the house. It is a very pleasant 

 home, surrounded by fruit-trees and foliage 

 on almost every side. The apiary is south 

 of the house, down under the apple-trees, 

 and it seemed to me as if they had too much 

 shade, if any thing, but I presume they get 

 used to these shady nooks just as they do to 

 any thing else. I received a warm welcome 

 from Mrs. Miller and sister Emma, who are 

 always glad to see or hear any thing from 

 the Home of the Honey-Bees, so the doctor 

 says, and I was soon made to believe it too. 



When we drove up to the house we heard a 

 swarm in the air, and the doctor at once 

 brought a couple of bee-hats, such as were 

 shown in the picture in Gt^kanings, page 

 249 of last year, where the doctor was tak- 

 ing sections from the T super. These hats 

 had a veil sewed on the brim. They had 

 been in the rain so that the brim came 

 down well to shade the face and neck ; in 

 fact, the one he gave me came nearly rest- 

 ing on my shoulders, and was a little too 

 much shade for my eyes. I presume the 

 ladies prefer such an arrangement as a pre- 

 vention from tan. While in the apiary 

 three swarms issued ; but as the doctor has 

 all his queens clipped he does not have much 

 trouble in climbing trees to get them, be- 

 cause the swarm comes back to the hive 

 very soon after gonig out. He has been 

 working ever since he has kept bees, trying 

 to devise some means to prevent swarming, 

 but has not succeeded as yet. lie mention- 

 ed one incident in connection with swarm- 

 ing that I had not noticed, though perhaps 

 many of you have. He said he did not be- 

 lieve he ever knew a swarm to issue when 

 they had no honey in the hive, unless, of 

 course, in a case where a swarm starved out 

 in the early spring ; but as it would be quite 

 impossible to keep such a condition of af- 

 fairs in our hives, I suppose we shall always 

 be bothered more or less with swarming. 

 The doctor was getting no honey, as usual 

 (at least it begins to seem to him "• as usu- 

 al"), for this is his third poor season. Only 

 the baits which he had put into the supers 

 had been filled, and but few of these had 

 been capped over. He has a bee-cellar near 

 the apiary, where the bees are wintered, 

 and above the cellar is a room for storing 

 supers and sections, and a general work- 

 shop. In this was a great pile of supers 

 filled with sections waiting for the honey- 

 flow. Many of them have waited since a 

 year aga last winter. Still the doctor is not 

 discouraged yet. An all-wise Providence 

 rules, and doubtless He knows best. 



After a pleasant noonday repast with the 

 family we drove to the Belden apiary, east 

 of Marengo about two or three miles. There 

 were not so many bees here as he had the 

 past season, and they were doing very little 

 at gathering honey. His plan of arranging 

 hives in the apiary is a model one, I think. 

 I believe it has been detailed in Gleanings 

 before, but it will bear mention again. The 

 hives are placed in rows about 8 feet apart, 

 and in each row the hives are clumped to- 

 gether in groups of four, two hives facing 

 west close together, backed up against two 

 facing east, and the distance between the 

 clumps is about four or five feet. In this 

 way I believe you can get more hives on the 

 same area of groimd with less confusion to 

 the bees in finding their location than by 

 any other arrangement. The doctor uses 

 ten-frame Langstroth hives, and practices 

 putting two swarms into one hive for win- 

 ter. With this arrangement of the apiary 

 he can do so without confusing the bees in 

 the least. By simply putting one double 

 hive in the place of two single ones with a 

 swarm in each side, and a tight division be- 

 tween, the bees will find their entrance jiist 



