1294 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. !.■> 



the top-bar it makes the handling of them 

 "a nasty job." 



It was found that the number of clustering 

 bees was very mueh less outside of the combs, 

 on the outside of the end-bars, between these 

 and the wall of the hive; so here was a good 

 place to put your fingers, and a firm hold is 

 obtained. The hold is not only a safer one. 

 but it does not cramp the fingers.^ In shak- 

 ing, it allows the frames to be Held much 

 steadier than any other way in which more 

 or less wabbling of the frame takes place, or 

 an extra amount of strain must be exercised 

 upon the already cramped fingers to prevent 

 it. As shown above, the frame balances 

 easily. The question with me was to adopt 

 one way of handling all kinds of frames, 

 which i already had, rather than to find a 

 frame with "long ears," wide top-bars, or 

 any other form. I have tried all the differ- 

 ent "grabs" given, and on all kinds of 

 frames. It would he impracticable to use all 

 these methods, and to use them on the dif- 

 ferent styles of frames I have, as several 

 kinds are often in one hive. Buying bees 

 from others brings this about, and with the 

 proper method of holding c/// kinds of frames 

 there is no trouble in shaking bees otT the 

 combs. 



Scoi'e another for sweet clover. The hon- 

 ey yield was very light here in the fore part 

 of the season: Im't in August the sweet clover 

 began to give down, and since then some lo- 

 calities have secured a very good crop, a few 

 a really exceptional crop of nice honey from 

 that source. At this date, Sept. 13, the flow 

 still continues good. 



Dr. Miller, I should have said that, when 

 I have a lot of supers empty easily, 1 use 

 very much the same ])lan you do, simply 

 putting them on the bench upside down and 

 loosening the sections by dropping the super 

 an inch or so. But they do not always come 

 out so easily. In that respect your T supei's 

 are probably ahead. Still, doctor, you could 

 not persuade me to go bac^k to the T super, 

 although I once u.sed a great many of them. 



Last month I spoke of the great difference 

 between localities only a short distance apart. 

 Since then some additional facts have come 

 to my notice. One man with about fifty col- 

 onies of bees reports that he will not have a 

 case of honey to market. A])out three miles 

 away from him in one direction a good crop 

 is reported, and alwut the same distance in 



the opposite tlirection a man reports a very 

 good average crop, some of his colonies mak- 

 ing five cases apiece. I know of apiaries 

 that will average inore than double the yield m 

 per colony secured in apiaries inside of a H 

 mile and a half away. * 



Dr. Miller is right in saying that sweet 

 clover is not a desiral^le lawn grass, and the 

 editor is prol)ably right in the l)elief that it 

 could hardly get started on a lawn that was 

 properly cared for. It isremarkal)le. though, 

 what a dwarf can be made of the plant by 

 close pruning. I have seen places where the 

 roadside cattle had kept it closely nii^ped. 

 where the ground was covered with a close 

 mat of it not over two or three inches high, 

 yet lilooming profusely. A lawn of it kept 

 in that contention would l)e really pretty. 

 But one would hardly recognize it as a rela- 

 tion of the six or eight foot stuff that grew 

 where it was unmolested. 



The idea of using turkeys to get rid of 

 grasshoppers is all right so far as it goes: but 

 it does not come within a hundred miles of 

 solving the grasshopper problem. Mrs. 

 Green has a fiock of about fifty fine turkeys 

 that, up to Sept. 1, had not eaten over about 

 a dollar's worth of feed, making their living 

 entirely from grasshoppers, and they had 

 never been off our ten-acre place. Yet the 

 grasshoppers did us a great deal of damage, 

 especially in the vineyard and further corner 

 of the alfalfa-field. Very few here are so 

 situated that they can raise turkeys success- 

 fully without a great deal of expensive fenc- 

 ing or more expensive watching, as the coy- 

 otes that come down from the hills a few 

 miles away are very fond of turkeys. 

 .& 



FOUL BKOOU. 



In Gleanings for Aug. 1 I made a state- 

 ment that was not exactly what I meant. It 

 would appear from that that I considered the 

 McEvoy plan the only cure for foul lynjod 

 that has ever proven practical and effet-tive. 

 What I should have said was that no cure 

 has proven practical and ett'ective that was 

 not baseil on the theory that the disease is 

 conveyed through the medium of the honey, 

 and that when bees have rid themselves of 

 the infected honey they may have carried 

 from the old hive they may be considered 

 cured. I have used with much satisfaction 

 and success a plan given by that vetei'an 

 bee-keeper, M. M. Baldridge. in the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal last year. The principle of 

 the plan, which may be used in various ways. 

 is that undisturbed bees leaving their hive 

 do not carry any honey with them, and con- 

 setpiently are incapable of transmitting the 

 disease. The bees leave the diseased colony 

 through a bee-escape; and on their return, 

 being unable to enter their own hive, go in- 

 to a healthy colony placed alongside. I have 

 used it principally in ctjnnection with the 

 McEvoy method, and so far without a fail- 

 ure. 



