32 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



tract black and foul brood; and after having 

 once gotten the disease are more liable to 

 succumb to it. From your description it is 

 apparent that you have either black or foul 

 brood. I would advise you to try next sea- 

 son the Alexander cure, which cure might 

 also be effective in the case of foul brood. 



2. If you own the pasture and the cattle, 

 there may be no objection to your moving 

 the bees up to the fence line; otherwise I 

 would not do it. Sometimes in the height of 

 the honey-flow, when the bees are flying 

 strong and low, they will attack cattle, but 

 usually not enough to do any serious dam- 

 age. If there is a hedge fence six or eight 

 feet high, you could put your bees as close 

 to the line as you desire, for that would 

 compel the bees to fly high to get over the 

 fence. The cattle or horses would not learn 

 to keep away from the fence even if the 

 bees were disposed to molest. 



3. It is well known that Italians are much 

 gentler than hybrids. Any bees in the 

 height of the honey-flow, if their line of 

 flight is interrupted close to the entrance, 

 are liable to sting. Probably hybrids would 

 be worse in this respect than Italians. 



4. Straw is a fairly good packing material, 

 and there is no reason why you should have 

 lost your bees unless the fronts of the hives 

 were exposed to the prevailing winds, and 

 the entrances were too large. For outdoor 

 wintering, especially when the hives face 

 the north, I would not have the entrances 

 larger than 8 inches wide by J deep. In the 

 case of weak colonies the entrances should 

 be correspondingly smaller. Along toward 

 spring, with a hooked wire rake out on the 

 first warm day all dead bees that may be 

 clogging up the opening. For this you will 

 probably need the assistance of a smoker to 

 prevent attack.— Ed.] 



SWEET CLOVER AS A FORAGE-PLANT IN AL- 

 ABAMA; AS A LAND- RESTORER IT HAS 

 NO EQUAL. 



We grow a great deal of sweet clover here; 

 and after reading what has been said in 

 Gleanings I inclose a few facts concerning 

 it in this section. They may not be worth 

 publishing, yet they may show forth some of 

 the good points of sweet clover, which have 

 been doubted by so many. 



After reading the articles on pages 1120 

 and 1121 concerning sweet clover I have 

 com^e to the conclusion that those people who 

 speak against it haven't tested far enough 

 to learn the many redeeming qualities of 

 sweet clover outside of a remarkable honey- 

 plant. 



As a whole this section of country grows 

 a large quantity of sweet clover, or melilo- 

 tus, as we call it. In the first place it was 

 sown on waste places to redeera the land. 

 As a land restorer or enricher it has no equal 

 here. Then the cattle- men began to see and 

 learn of its value for pasture. There is no 

 grass or clover here that fattens cattle so 

 fast as sweet clover does. A cattle-raiser 

 informed me the other day that people had 



told him that it wasn't sweet clover, but 

 Johnson grass, that fattened his cattle. 

 "But," said he, "I noted that my cattle 

 didn't gain so rapidly aftssr the sweet clover 

 had gone." 



It makes good feed when cut at the prop- 

 er time, and the stock relish it very much, 

 leaving their other hay to seek out every 

 spear of sweet clover, and eating even the 

 coarse stalks. 



But right here, in my best judgment, is 

 where the good qualities of sweet clover have 

 been overlooked. Sometimes, if not quite 

 often, when stock have not been raised on 

 sweet clover they have to learn to like it; 

 but after once learning they never cease to 

 make use of an opportunity to help them- 

 selves to the once distasteful stuff. I have 

 known of horses that, when first brought to 

 this section, wouldn't eat sweet clover at 

 all; yet in a short time they had learned to 

 like it so well that, if turned out to graze, 

 you would see them leave all other grasses 

 and seek out a green plot of sweet clover, 

 there to feed on their choice of the field. 



I can not speak for other sections of our 

 country; for no doubt soil, climate, etc., 

 make a great difference; but here in our 

 lime land sweet clover is fully appreciated 

 and much valued as a feed, pasture, and 

 land- enricher. A. B. Brown. 



Sybil, Ala., Nov. 14. 



[This only confirms hundreds of other tes- 

 timonials we have had. It is indeed a trav- 

 esty on modern legislation that in a large por- 

 tion of the States of this Union there are 

 laws classing sweet clover as a noxious weed, 

 and requiring its destruction along with the 

 weeds just when it begins to yield nectar. 

 We have a pamphlet on the subject of sweet 

 clover, which we send out free to bee-keep- 

 ers to hand out to their farmer neighbors; 

 and they should make an effort to have the 

 law, or that portion of it classing sweet clo- 

 ver as a noxious weed, amended. The time 

 will come when farmers will be growing 

 sweet clover on their farms the same as 

 they grow timothy. When that day arrives, 

 our annual honey-yields will be materially 

 increased.— Ed.] 



THE CUSTOM OF BEATING TIN PANS, AT THE 



ISSUING OF A SWARM, ABOUT 2300 



YEARS OLD. 



Hands across the sea! Pass on the hand- 

 shake to my fellow-teacher Professor Bige- 

 low, and tell him that Alfred the Great is 

 not in it. Away back at the dawn of the 

 Christian era Pliny wrote, ' ' To cause a 

 swarm of bees to settle you must strike on 

 brazen vessels." Claudian, fourth century; 

 Virgil, 70 B. C, and even Aristotle, 384 B. 

 C. , mention the playing on ' ' vessels of brass' ' 

 as a custom universally prevalent. Ovid 

 wrote, probably about the year 1, " They re- 

 port that honey was discovered by Bacchus. 

 He was proceeding from the sandy Hebrus, 

 accompanied by the Satyrs, and they were 

 come to the flowery Pangasum, when the 

 cymbal- bearing hands of the attendants gave 



