846 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



November, 1917 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



this fall, both for the oats and barley, sow- 

 ing the finely ground limestone this fall and 

 covering it lightly with a harrow. Then in 

 April, one-third less of some early kind of 

 oats may be sowed and one-third less of 

 barley. Little difference will be seen in 

 the yield of grain, and the quality will be 

 better. Also the thinner stand of grain will 

 give the sweet clover a better chance to 

 make a stronger gi'owth which will count 

 much in preparing the land for the next 

 planting of corn. 



If the season is a wet oine, there Avill be a 

 lot of clover to turn under, and it should in 

 no case be plowed before October, after the 

 clover has made all the growth it will, both 

 of top and roots. If the season proves to 

 be a very dry one, and the clover does not 

 make a large growth, then it will be best 

 not to plow the land until the following 

 spring, during the last half of May, when 

 there will be clover standing not less than 

 twelve inches tall. In either case, where 

 a large growth is turned under it is best to 

 double-disk the field, mixing the heavy 

 green clover thru tba soil. This will pre- 

 vent the ground from drying out as it might 

 if a thick layer should underlie the soil 

 above it, thus preventing the moisture from 

 coming up from beneath in a dry period 

 after planting the corn. 



In any season, sweet clover should not be 

 sown later than the last of July, unless so 

 late in the fall that it will not sprout before 

 spring. It does splendidly sown in July 

 when plenty of moisture is present to get 

 it nicely started. 



Obtaining a heavy growth of sweet clover 

 according to the above description is a very 

 efQieiejit plan for preparing land to grow a 

 heavy crop of good solid well-matured corn, 

 as land thus prepared pushes the corn so 

 fast that it ripens fully ten days earlier than 

 usuaL Twenty pounds of hulled seed is 

 the right amount for one to sow, as the 

 stand will be thick enough to repay well for 

 the extra seed required. 



Delmar, Iowa. Frank Coverdale. 



Moving Bees by Motor Truck 



Having moved an entire apiary by motor 

 truck, I have decided that my experience 

 may be of interest to others. 0. S. Mullin, 

 of Holton, Kansas, sold me the apiary, 

 which consisted of 80 hives of bees. These 

 were in ten-frame hives, 13 double-walled 

 and the rest single-walled. I wished to 



move them from Holton to Chapman, Kan- 

 sas, a distance of about 140 miles by road. 

 If I shipped them by rail, they would need 

 to be transferred twice and would be on the 

 road for two days or more. I studied it 

 over and decided to move the bees by motor 

 truck and to send the metal tops and other 

 supplies by freight. The truck that I hired 

 (altho rated at only one and one-half tons) 

 had been hauling two tons every day, and I 

 fignred that the bees would not make much 

 over a two-ton load. 



It took nearly two days to get the bees 

 ready to move. Out of seven-eighths lum- 

 ber Mr. Mullin and I made frames covered 

 with wire screen. They were the size of 

 the top of the hive, and l^/^ inches deep. 

 We removed the inner covers, and with 

 eight-penny nails fastened these frames to 

 the tops of the hives, thus giving the bees 

 a clustering space about two inches deep. 

 We closed each entrance with a folded 

 piece of screen which we pushed in and 

 fastened with a tack. 



The bees were loaded on the truck from 

 six to eight o'clock in the evening of Au- 

 gust 1, and the start was made from Holton 

 about nine o'clock. We did not weigh the 

 load ; but by the time we had traveled six 

 or eight miles we knew that the truck was 

 overloaded. Soon we came to a hill. that 

 was too steep for us, and it began to look as 

 tho we would be unable to proceed. How- 

 ever, each time the motor died Ave blocked 

 the wheel with stones, then sped up the en- 

 gine, let in the clutch, and again advanced 

 from one to three feet. By repeating this 

 process we climbed several hills. About 

 four o'clock, after covering twenty-five 

 miles of our trip, we finally came to a soft 

 place where there was a spring in the road- 

 side. The hind wheel sank in, hub-deep, 

 and we were stuck. 



As soon as it began to get light I went 

 for gasoline and water. We mloaded 

 about half of the bees and pulled out of the 

 hole. Deciding that our load Avas too large, 

 Ave left tAventy-two hives by the roadside, 

 after opening the entrances so that the bees 

 could fly. It Avas about half-past seven 

 Avhen Ave started on ; and at nine o'clock we 

 reached St. Mary's, where Ave secured a hose 

 and gave the bees a thoro Avetting, such as 

 Ave had also given them on leaving Holton. 

 I expected to stop and unload them if it 

 became so hot that they shoAved signs of dis- 

 tress. But altho they seemed restless when- 

 ever we stopped, they would always quiet 

 down on starting. And so by wetting them 



