316 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



April 15. 



introduced in his apiary from the neighbor- 

 hood. L. Stachelhausen. 

 Converse, Tex., Feb. 9. 



WOOD VERSUS TIN SEPARATORS. 



" Please tell me your opinion as to the mer- 

 its or demerits of tin versus wooden separat- 

 ors," writes a correspondent. " The reason I 

 ask is that the modern super is not made 

 wide enough to admit of wood separators, but 

 tin can be used. Will bees store as much 

 honey with tin as with wood ? " 



Answering the last question first, I think 

 bees make no difference between tin and wood 

 as to the amount of honey stored. 



Aside from the matter of cost, durability, 

 and thickness, the chief difference between 

 separators of tin and wood is that, on account 

 of the stiffness of the grain, wood easily re- 

 mains straight and stiff lengthwise, and tin 

 bends lengthwise. On the other hand, wood 

 bends more easily than tin in the other direc- 

 tion, and, what is of still more consequence, 

 the wood shrinks and swells, and tin does not. 

 The result of these differences is that tin is 

 the proper thing to use where the separators 

 are held rigidly in place lengthwise by being 

 nailed, and wood is better where separators 

 are not nailed. Nail a wooden separator in 

 place, and it will curl up in a very unsatisfac- 

 tory manner. It will do better with a single 

 nail at each end, but that is not entirely sat- 

 isfactory. If you attempt to use a tin separat- 

 or without nailing, it is very easily bent in 

 the direction of its length, and it doesn't take 

 much bending to throw it a quarter of an inch 

 out of its proper plane, which means that a 

 section one side of it will be a quarter of an 

 inch too thick, and its opposite neighbor as 

 much too thin. 



You will then see that it will not do to sub- 

 stitute tin in a super designed for wood, and 

 vice versa. But I don't understand what kind 

 of modern supers you can have that are not 

 wide enough for wooden separators. Your 

 separators are hardly more than /g thick, and 

 your supers are hardly less than 12 inches 

 wide. That will admit six sections with their 

 accompanying separators, providing your sec- 

 tions are not more than \\\. Such wide sec- 

 tions are not much used now, and I think 

 most supers for eight-frame hives are 12^ 

 inches wide, making it necessary to use a fol- 

 lower and wedge to fill up the vacant space 

 when sections are \%. In any case, if there 

 is not room enough for a given number of 

 sections, one less across can be used, filling 

 up the space with followers and wedges. 



Marengo, 111. C. C. MILLER. 



TRAVEL-STAIN ; A THEORY AS TO ITS CAUSE. 

 My observations lead me to believe the main 

 cause of travel-stain to be the clustering of 

 very young bees on the combs. The warmth 

 of the cluster and dejections of young bees 

 discolor the cappings. That seems to explain 

 why stained cappings are seldom found in 

 queenless colonies or others having no hatch- 

 ing brood in them. To have sections finished 

 by newly hived swarms, and removed before 



any young bees have emerged from the cells, I 

 have found in my locality to be the best way 

 to prevent so called travel-stain. 



Jas. Comeau. 

 Henry ville, Que., Jan. 26. 



SWEET CLOVER ; HOW TO GET RID OF IT, ETC. 



Mr. E. Smith's advice to L. A. Sawyer in 

 regard to getting rid of sweet clover is sound. 

 It is just what they do here, and (I am sorry 

 to say ) they succeed. Sweet clover is termed 

 a noxious weed in this locality. Street com- 

 missioners, road supervisors, and railroad-sec- 

 tion foremen have strict instructions to cut it 

 before it blooms. In this, however, they do 

 not always succeed ; but they do as a rule get 

 at least the most of it cut before it can ripen 

 its seeds. 



As I saw this wholesale destruction I re- 

 monstrated vigorously, and I used A. I. Root's 

 well-known phrase, " It will never trespass on 

 cultivated soil, or any pasture ;" but there I 

 got my foot in it. I was shown places where 

 it had got a rod or more into a pasture-field 

 and also in meadow. 



Will cattle not eat it? Yes, they do ; but 

 not as long as they have plenty of June grass ; 

 and by the time June grass is scarce the clover 

 is too big. If the farmers would cut it only 

 once, then the cattle would take care of it aft- 

 er the June grass is gone. A year ago last 

 Augtist my bees were storing honey fast, and 

 it all came from the sweet clover. We had 

 had some rain, which had started the clover 

 anew. One day I went to Plasterhead, about 

 3 miles distant, and along the roads I saw a 

 sight of beauty — the fresh green of sweet 

 clover, and only 6 or 8 inches high, loaded 

 with bloom, and my bees were fairly swarm- 

 ing on it. A flock of half-starving cattle and 

 pigs tried in vain to get their heads through 

 the fence and get a bite of it ; but as I return- 

 ed, three men were at work, cutting down the 

 " noxious weed" that the starving cattle were 

 not allowed to get a bite of ; and next day my 

 bees began robbing. I had 62 colonies, and 

 might have got many pounds of honey had it 

 been left; but it is a " noxious weed," and 

 must go. Julius Johannsen. 



Port Clinton, O., Feb. 7. 



SWEET CLOVER IN THE SOUTH ; QUALITY OF 

 THE HONEY. 



I see so many running down J\IeIilotns alba 

 that I feel like saying something in its behalf. 

 It is the first of our forage-plants to come in 

 the spring, and the last to be killed down in 

 the fall. Stock eat it readily until it becomes 

 rather woody, and even then eat the smaller, 

 shoots. We grow it for pasture, for hay, and 

 as a honey-plant. We have no trouble what- 

 ever in getting rid of it here. Our greatest 

 trouble is in keeping it set where stock is al- 

 lowed to run on it. Melilotus being a bien- 

 nial, we either have to keep stock off or re- 

 sow every two years. It makes a rather thrif- 

 ty growth on our thinnest soil, and even where 

 the soil is washed, leaving the white limestone 

 exposed, you will find our melilotus there by 

 itself. We keep from 40 to 50 colonies of 



