Aug. 31, 1899. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



547 



that nothing- would eat it ; but I have demonstrated to my 

 own satisfaction that horses, cattle and sheep will not only 

 learn to eat it, but will thrive upon it, both as pasture and 

 dried as hay, and that hoijfs are fond of it in the fjreen state. 

 I saj', they learn to eat it, because most stock have to ac- 

 quire a taste for it, not takinpf readily to it at first. I g-ave 

 it a fair trial last summer. My horses and family cow fed 

 upon it almost entirely during the dry part of the season. 

 They became fat and sleek, without the help of grain or 

 other feed. The milk and butter from the cow showed no 

 objectionable flavor. The amount of feed furnisht was 

 something surprising. It has a habit of continually throw- 

 ing out or renewing its foliage and its bloom ; also, when 

 cut or fed back, it keeps it constantlj' fresh. After gaining 

 a growth of four or five feet in height in dense masses in 

 my pasture it was fed down entirely, even the coarse stalks, 

 so that at the close of the season nothing was left. The 

 seeding was, of course, destroyed ; but in my desire to put 

 to a severe test the feed value of the crop, this was lost 

 sight of. 



Sweet clover, like the alfalfa, sends its great roots deep 

 down into the hardest, driest soils, thus enabling it to with- 

 stand severe drouths as no other plant can. This g-ives it 

 great value as a fertilizer ; and growing as it does upon the 

 hardest, poorest soils, it recommends itself for reclaiming 

 soils too poor for raising other crops. It has a habit of 

 taking possession of vacant lots and roadsides, which has 

 caused some alarm with those unacquainted with its habits, 

 fearing it would spread over the fields and prove a pest. I 

 can assure you it will do no such thing. In all of my ac- 

 quaintance with it I have never seen it spread into culti- 

 vated or occupied fields to any extent. I have been very 

 reckless with the seed about my own premises ; and if there 

 had been any danger in that direction I should have found 

 it out long ago. 



Some time during the latter part of last summer I made 

 a trip thru a part of the State where a severe drouth pre- 

 vailed. The cattle and sheep lookt gaunt and hungry, and 

 were roaming over pastures that were dry, scorcht and dead. 

 Fire had run over the farms here and ' there, adding still 

 further to the look of desolation. In places the cows had 

 been turned into the grooving corn, the only green forage 

 in sight. I wondered again and again how it was possible 

 for the stock to escape entire starvation. A field of sweet 

 clover, with its dark green foliage, would have made a re- 

 freshing picture amidst this desolation. It would have 

 been more than a picture. It would have supplied a place 

 where it would have been most heartily welcomed and ap- 

 preciated in this trying emergency. I think it will recom- 

 mend itself and come to be appreciated soon in times of 

 severe drouth. 



It makes a slender growth the first year. It is this crop 

 that is the most valuable for hay, and cutting it will not 

 interfere with the second year's growth. The .second year 

 it grows coarser ; blossoms, seeds and dies root and branch. 

 If cut for hay in the second year it should be cut just as it 

 is beginning to bloom. A second crop may be cut late In 

 the season. It should be well dried, and it requires good 

 weather to do it in. If cut for seed, it may be thrasht and 

 hulled with a machine, like red clover, or the seed may be 

 sovs-n without hulling. 



Now don't be induced by the bright picture I have 

 drawn, to seed your whole farm to sweet clover, for it would 

 result in an unprofitable failure, I am sure. But if you de- 

 sire to test its value, do it on a small scale, with an acre or 

 two, and do it thoroly. I have found it no easy thing to suc- 

 ceed in making it grow as a field crop, and I would advise 

 sparing no pains in getting it started. When once it gets 

 possession of the ground it will stay, if allowed to ripen a 

 late crop of seed. Sow with winter wheat, or rye in the 

 spring, the same as other clover.— Gleanings in Bee-Cul- 

 ture. Huron Co., Ohio. 



A Few Wisconsin Notes and Comments. 



BY B. T. D.WKNPOKX. 



HAVING been a reader and lover of the valuable Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal almost constantly since back in the 

 seventies, I thought it about time for me " to arise " 

 again, like Doolittle's man, and speak. 



There is usually about a carload of comb honey pro- 

 duced in this section, but so far there has been but very lit- 

 tle gathered this season. Clover bloomed profusely, smelled 

 very sweet, and was covered with bees, but only a very 

 small amount was stored from it. 



Basswood bloomed quite well, but yielded no honey ; 

 bees workt on it, but not early in the morning as they will 

 when it yields honey well. 



If we have favorable -weather the rest of the season we 

 expect to get a fair crop of fall honey. My out-apiary, 

 which is about five miles from home, is in reach of consid- 

 erable buckwheat and any quantity of golden-rod. Those 

 bees are doing better than the ones at home. 



OUEEX-MOTHKR .\ND DAUGHTER ON SAME FRAME. 



I saw something this summer that I never happened to 

 observe before in my 24 years' experience in keeping bees, 

 and that was an old queen and her devoted daughter, both 

 on the same frame, and the daughter fertile, too. 



I,EVELING SECTION COMBS. 



As it may be a help to some of the novices I will describe 

 my way of leveling combs : If done in warm weather, 

 take a pail of cold water (put in a chunk of ice if yon have 

 it), dip the sections in, or better, put one in as you take one 

 out, so the comb will get cold and brittle. Shake most of 

 the water from them when you take them out, then you can 

 scrape them down very rapidly with a knife. Another ad- 

 vantage in doing- this is. that should there be any candied 

 honey in the sections the water will soak it up so that if 

 the sections are given to the bees at once they can readily 

 clean it all out. I am seldom able to extract my unfinisht 

 sections until winter, thus the candied honey in some of 

 them. 



ST.^RTING S-WEET CLOVER ON HIGH, SANDY GROUND. 



Now I will be very grateful to Dr. Miller, or any other 

 reader of the " Old Reliable " instructor, if he or she can 

 tell me how I can get sweet clover started on a high piece of 

 sandy ground. I have sowed seed on the piece twice, both 

 times in the spring, once with rye and Alsike clover, and 

 the result is only a few scattering patches and stalks, but 

 what there is is verj' thrifty, standing four to seven feet 

 high. 



BASSWOODS DESTROYED BY SUNSCALD .\ND BORERS. 



I have set out from 25 to SO basswood trees annually for 

 several years ; the)' usually leaf out all right, but I 

 lose a great many during the hot months with sunscald and 

 borers. Perhaps wrapping- them with paper or cloth would 

 be an advantage, or even white-washing them ; but I would 

 not advise using tarred paper, as that would draw and ab- 

 sorb the sun's rays too much. 



Well, I have had to stop twice while writing this short 

 article, and take care of swarms even at this late date — 

 Aug. 11. 



One inch of rain fell this morning, which was much 

 needed by vegetation. I think it will cause buckwheat to 

 secrete honey faster, as we get but little from it here when 

 very dry. Waushara Co., Wis., Aug. 11. 



Introducing- Queens— Empty Combs, Etc. 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



AFTER trying many ways of introducing queens, I have 

 settled upon the following as the easiest and safest un- 

 der ordinary circumstances : 



Take a frame of hatching- brood (there need not be 

 much of the brood left in the cells) and place it in an empty- 

 hive over the queenless bees with a frame the size of the 

 hive, having wire-cloth nailed to both sides of it between 

 the two hives. The thickness of the frame is not of much 

 consequence. I use one about an inch in thickness, and 

 have u.sed others two or three inches thick. I have intro- 

 duced a number of queens this way without a loss. 



WHAT TO DO WITH EMPTY COMBS IN SPRING. 



At the close of the last cold spell of weather in April, I 

 found myself in about the same condition " Hoosier " was 

 in as indicated by his question to the senator's answered in 

 the June 8th issue of the American Bee Journal. Like him 

 I had about 200 empty combs, and like him I was intending 

 to work my bees mainly for comb honey. But the posses- 

 sion of these combs changed my plans somewhat. The an- 

 swers of the senators came too late to be of much benefit to 

 me this season, as I had disposed of a part of the combs and 

 decided on how I would dispose of the rest. But I will here 

 say that I believe they covered the ground more completely 

 and satisfactorily than any other patch of ground has re- 

 cently been covered b_v them in the apicultural field. 



