114 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Feb. 23, 1899. 



after that it should be allowed to mature seed. Thus treated 

 here in Nebraska, it will furnish most excellent bee-pasture 

 up to the time when frost kills all vegetation, and sweet 

 clover is the very last to succumb. 



For early spring- pasturing of cattle, particularly milch 

 cows, there is nothing better than sweet clover. I never 

 knew it to bloat them, altho mj' cattle have pastured on it 

 year after year from morning to night, when no other plant 

 food was in sight, and while it was wet with dew and rain. 

 Pasturing cattle on alfalfa in the same way would fre- 

 quently have been with fatal results. 



While sweet clover is in no way objectionable on culti- 

 vated fields and pastured lands, it is objectionable whenever 

 it gets a foothold on original prairie-grass land which is to 

 be utilized as hay land. By the time that our native prairie- 

 grass is ready for the mower, sweet clover is gone into seed, 

 the stems have become as hard as wood, and thousands of 

 seeds have dropt, thus spreading gradually all over the 

 grass field. Raking together the hay tends still more to 

 scatter the seed broadcast over the infested land, and event- 

 ually sweet clover is sure to run out " old America." But, 

 then, the best of us are not free from sin, and why should 

 sweet clover be 1 



On public highways it is the best plant to grow, if only 

 properly treated. It runs out all noxious weeds, perfumes 

 the air, and feeds the bees ; and to the eye of the bee-keeper 

 it looks very nice, even if it should grow 10 feet high. 



If cut about the middle or towards the end of June, 

 leaving a rather high stubble, it is dwarft sufficiently in its 

 growth to prevent its becoming a nuisance by growing so 

 high as to cause snowdrifts in winter. 



Should a too luxurious aftergrowth follow the first cut- 

 ting in June, the mower has easy work to lay everythng flat 

 late in the fall. That is the way I deal with this useful 

 plant. 



A public road, well and evenly seeded down with melilot. 

 but the growth of it properly checkt at the proper time, is a 

 thing of great beauty, and there is nothing bad about it, 

 but, instead, it furnishes a bee-ranch hard to beat, because 

 it win employ the bees until killing frost ends the season. 



I am advised that a very extensive sheepman about ten 

 miles north of my farm has seeded down a very large tract 

 of land with sweet clover for a sheep pasture. Verj' few 

 sensible men, indeed, will nowadays say that cattle, horses 

 or hogs will eat the " blamed stuff," for it has been proven 

 too often that all of thcin will. 



I very well remember the time — some 35 to 40 years ago 

 — when this country was still full of Indians, that their 

 ponies would not eat our corn. Well, these animals soon 

 learned to like it much quicker than some men will learn 

 that sweet clover is a good thing, and that there is no 

 serious objectionable feature about it, provided it is han- 

 dled as it should be handled. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I am bitterly opposed to all kinds of 

 monopolies, and therefore I consider it time for me to stop 

 my pencil right here on this subject, so as not to monopo- 

 lize too much space in your highly-valued paper. I have 

 preserved every number of all the volumes of the American 

 Bee Journal for over 18 years, which f,act I think proves 

 best my appreciation of the " Old Reliable." May it ever 

 flourish. 



Besides some other topics, I will probably have some- 

 thing more to say about sweet clover later on, if agreeable. 



REPORT FOR THE SEASON OF 1898. 



It appears that the season of 1898 was not a very 

 propitious one for a great number of bee-keepers. I notice 

 in glancing over the many reports in the American Bee 

 Journal, that many of those who have sent a fair or good 

 report attribute their success princially to sweet clover. So 

 it is with me. Sweet clover as a reliable honey-yielder is 

 •' the queen," at least here in Nebraska. 



I began the season of 1898, in May, with 22 colonies 

 which I workt for extracted honey, and 5 colonies in the 

 Heddon hive for comb honej', after I had sold about $80 

 worth of bees. 



I obtained 2,890 pounds of extracted honey, and 375 well- 

 capt 4 '4x4 '4 sections of comb honey — a total of 3, 265 pounds. 

 I increast from 22 colonies to 30, and from the 5 Heddons to 

 but 6 colonies, so I am wintering 36 colonies. 



Besides the above, I set aside for spring and June feed- 

 ing 157 brood-combs, containing at least 550 pounds more of 

 sealed stores, while each colony had not less than 25 pounds 

 of honey to winter on. 



I winter my bees in an open shed, on the summer 

 stands, in double-walled hives, all packt inside the hives. 

 The bees in the Heddon hives are, summer and winter, in a 



suitable vault, which in winter is filled with dry soft-maple 

 leaves. In 18 winters I have never had trouble in wintering 

 my bees. 



I obtained a little over 30 pounds of the finest wax from 

 the cappings rendered in a solar wax-extractor of my own 

 make. 



The foregoing is my report for the season of 1898. Now, 

 if I had not had sweet clover growing all around me, what 

 would my honey crop have been ? Indeed, very little if any 

 at all. One-half of my last year's crop, I may say, was 

 pure melilot, or sweet clover honey, and my fall crop of 

 darker-colored honey is intermixt with melilot and alfalfa 

 so as to consist of about three-fourths of it, while about 

 one-fourth is derived from wild fall bloom, making it of 

 amber color and pleasant taste. 



Hall Co., Nebr.. Jan. 30. 



Something About Queens and Queen-Rearing, 



BY DR. F;. GAI.LUP. 



AS I promist to give something of my ideas about queens 

 and queen-rearing at the time that I got up the large 

 hives, here goes. 



The reader will recollect what I have said about seeing 

 extra-long lived and prolific queens in large hollow logs in 

 a small house built purposely for bees, in extra-large boxes, 

 etc. In consequence of this I had extra-large ideas, and in 

 some way I have never yet seen any reason for changing 

 those wild fancies, as some have seen fit to call them. 



Where bees take their own time and supersede a queen 

 at the right season, and in a strong colony, I have invaria- 

 bly had good queens. I removed a queen from one of those 

 strong colonies right in the season, when it was good 

 weather or swarming time, removed all unsealed larva?, left 

 the sealed brood and only eggs, introduced two frames of 

 eggs from other queens, so I had three frames of eggs in 

 diiierent parts of the hive separated from each other. Now 

 understand I had a large working-force of outside or field 

 bees, and a large force of inside working bees or nurses, 

 yet I went to different colonies in the middle of the day and 

 took out frames of comb with the adhering nurses and 

 shook them down in front of my prepared colony, from sev- 

 eral different colonies, until I had a hive running over full 

 of nurses, as the nurses, having never had a flight, staid 

 wi'.ere they were put, of course the old bees went back. By 

 allowing them none but eggs to start queens from, I did not 

 run any risk of having queens started from larvaj too far 

 advanced as we many times do. 



Well, the result was, I had 36 extra-large cells built, and 

 saved 30 of the first lot of queens, and every one turned out 

 as satisfactory a lot of queens as I ever had. I was not ex- 

 pecting so large a number, con.sequently I was not prepared 

 to take care of them all. You can readily see that having 

 so many nurses and strangers, as it were, from many dif- 

 ferent colonies, the}' built large cells, and after the queens 

 hatcht out there was left in each cell a quantity of royal 

 jelly nearly if not quite as large as a common marrowfat 

 pea. So they were reared under the very best possible con- 

 ditions. That was experiment No. 1. 



After removing the first lot of cells and queens I filled 

 up again to overflowing with nurses as before. The weather 

 was still excellent. This time I gave four frames contain- 

 ing eggs, separated from each other in different parts of 

 the hive ; no division-board was used, and I had 38 cells 

 built. I lost some of this lot in getting them fertilized, as 

 the weather turned bad. What I did save turned out per- 

 fectly satisfactory. I then quit the bees and went, into my 

 present occupation. 



I tried the experiment again in Ventura county, with a 

 3-.story 10-frame Langstroth hive, and reared 30 good extra 

 ones the first experiment. 



I need not tell you that I am in favor of extra-large 

 hives and powerful colonies, both where I lived in Iowa and 

 here in California, either for honey or queen-rearing. 



Orang-e Co., Calif. 



Some of the Insect Pests of Cuba. 



BY O. O. POPPI^ETON. 



ON page 820 (1898), Mr. Danzenbaker asks me for infor- 

 mation about the drawbacks of a life in Cuba, espe- 

 cially the insects found there. This is a rather peculiar 

 subject to find a place in bee-literature, nor will it make the 

 pleasantest of reading, yet it is important that one who 



