THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



99 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Prepare for Spring: Work.— Under 

 this caption Wm. M. Kellogg writes 

 thus to the Prairie Farmer: 



Right now is the time to get ready 

 our season's work in the apiary. By- 

 and-by our bees will be coming out 

 from their winter quarters, and we 

 sliall then be so busy attending to 

 their wants that the little items, wTiich 

 hare a vast bearing on the success or 

 failure of the honey crop, will be neg- 

 lected or entirely omitted. And say 

 what we will about the pleasures of 

 bee-keeping, the stubborn facts of the 

 case are, tliat we are after the dollars 

 and cents of the business, with very 

 few exceptions, and they who expect 

 to make a success of bee-keeping, to 

 get large yields of honey, or increase 

 in swarms, without attending to the 

 little things of the business, need ex- 

 pect naught else but a failure in their 

 efforts. Let us begin now to get our 

 " house in order," these long winter 

 evenings ; let us spend a part of the 

 time in discussing what we need to do 

 to help our little pets when the time 

 comes for them to work. Most of us 

 have but little to do during the winter 

 season, and the busiest ones can spare 

 now and then a day to the bees. 



Last fall, in the hurry of getting 

 our honey ready for market and the 

 bees packed away nice and snug for 

 winter, many of our tools and fixtures 

 were set to one side, tucked away into 

 the handiest i)lace at hand '• for now," 

 meaning to clean them up by-and-by. 

 That by-and-by has come now ; here 

 go at it with a vim. 



First, that pile of unfinished sec- 

 tions that we extracted the honey 

 from last fall, and put away in a hurry, 

 get them all together and with an old 

 broken stub knife scrape off every bit 

 of propolis, smooth and nice, so that 

 they will go together like new ones 

 without any bother. There, see what 

 a nice lot of them we have, will not 

 the bees fairly laugh to get at them ? 

 The mice liave got at a few of them, 

 we cutout theirnibbliiig, unless soiled 

 too much, if so, cut out all of it and 

 replace witli a good piece of comb 

 foundation. 



Now we will estimate about how 

 many cases of sections we will need 

 to use this season, and use our partly- 

 filled sections accordingly. We ought 

 to put in one or two of them to each 

 row of sections to give the bees some- 

 thing to climb up on, which seems to 

 help them very much. 



Then there are the honey boards, or 

 cases, to hold the sections on the hive; 

 clean them all up too, then put in the 

 sections, tin separators, and wedge all 

 up firmly, and set upon the shelf ready 

 for use. It is not always best to put 

 on a full complement of sections at 

 the first, so when the time comes we 



can only put on so many as we judge 

 the colony can take care of. 



Now for the hives and extra combs ; 

 we look them all over, dig out a mud 

 dauber's nest here, a patch of propolis 

 there, clean them all out. Our frames 

 of empty combs need pruning some, 

 a bit of drone comb here, another spot 

 where the moth may have spoiled it, 

 and fill up tl»e vacancies witu a piece 

 of foundation. This work you will 

 need to do in a warm room, for foun- 

 dation and comb are brittle things in 

 cold weather, but propolis conies off 

 the best where it is cool. 



Then there is our old smoker, look 

 how it is " stuck up," not with pride, 

 but honey and soot, do not forget to 

 clean that up too, and set the old shop 

 to rights generally, and we will find 

 plenty to do, I will warrant you. 



Now lets see, have we as many sec- 

 tions, and as much comb foundation 

 as we will need this season y I do not 

 believe we have ; and now we have 

 been pretty busy and got rather tired, 

 to-night we will write out an order to 

 send off to-morrow to the dealer for 

 the needed supplies. If we order now, 

 he can get our goods ready at his 

 leisure, but after awhile he will be so 

 busy filling orders that we may have 

 to wait, and lose precious time, for 

 when the honey is coming in fast, time 

 is honey and honey is money. " In 

 times of peace prepare for war;" go 

 now, get ye ready for spring work ! 



A Cat's Experience wltli Bees.— The 

 Virgina City, Nevada, Enterprise, 

 gives the following amusing anecdote: 



Charles Kaisey, who has the only 

 hive of bees in town, says that when 

 he first got his colony his old cat's 

 curiosity was much excited in regard 

 to the doings of the little insects, the 

 like of which she had never before 

 seen. At first she watched their 

 comings and goings at a distance. 

 She then flattened herself on the 

 ground and crept along toward the 

 hive, with tail horizontal and quiver- 

 ing. It was clearly evident that she 

 thought the bees some new kind of 

 game. Finally she took up a position 

 at the entrance to the hive, and when 

 a bee came in or started out, made a 

 dab at it with her paws. This went 

 on for a time without attracting the 

 attention of the inhabitants of tlie 

 hive. Presently, however. Old Tab- 

 by struck and crushed a bee on the 

 edge of the opening to the hive. The 

 smell of the crushed bee alarmed and 

 enraged the whole colony. Bees by 

 the score poured forth and darted in- 

 to tlie fur of the astonished cat. 

 Tabby rolled herself in the grass, 

 spitting, spluttering, biting, clawing, 

 and squalling as a cat never squalled 

 before. She apjieared a mere ball of 

 fur and bees as she rolled and tumbled 

 about. She was at length hauled away 

 from tlie hive with a garden rake, at 

 the cost of several stings to her res- 

 cuer. Even after she had been taken 

 to a distant pait of the grounds the 

 bees stuck to Tabby's fur, and about 

 once in two minutes she would utter 

 an unearthly " yowl ! " and bounce a 

 full yard into tlie air. On coming 



down she would try to scratch her ear, 

 when a sting on the back would cause 

 her to turn a succession of somer- 

 saults, and give vent to a running fire 

 of squalls. Like the parrot that was 

 left alone with the monkey. Old 

 Tabby had a dreadful time. Two or 

 three days after tlie adventure Tabby 

 was caught by the owner, who took 

 her by the neck and threw her down 

 near the bee hive. No sooner did she 

 strike the ground than she gave a 

 dreadful squall, and at a single bound 

 reached the top of the fence, full six 

 feet in height. There she clung for a 

 moment, with a tail as big as a rolling- 

 pin, when, with another bound and 

 squall, she was out of sight, and did 

 not again put it an appearance for 

 over a week. 



Plant for Honey. — The Chicago Her- 

 ald remarks as follows on tliis import- 

 ant topic : 



Our pleasant and useful cotempor- 

 ary. the American Bee Jouknal, 

 of this city, is quite emphatic in its 

 recommendation that it is a wise thing 

 to grow both trees and plants which 

 afford a supply of honey for the bees. 

 Among plants it recommends the 

 well-known sweet clover, which will 

 give them continuous pasturage from 

 June until it is too cold for the bees 

 to fly. So tar as trees are concerned, 

 there is none of such value as the 

 basswood or linden, though its season 

 is quite short. It is a very beautiful 

 and healthy tree in all parts of the 

 country, and once established is easily 

 grown. We understand that it may 

 be raised from cuttings, though they 

 will require considerable care the first 

 year. The linden is a very beautiful 

 tree, especially when full of fragrant 

 blossoms in early July. The quality 

 of the honey from this tree is very 

 superior, liaving a flavor almost equal 

 to the wild sage honey of Lower Cal- 

 ifornia. Certainly it will pay to grow 

 both trees and plants for honey, and 

 so far as the trees are concerned, the 

 sooner they are planted the better. 



Local Convention Directory. 



18-S2. Time and Place oj MeetUiij. 



April 11— Eastern Micbiiian, at Detroit, Mich. 

 A B. Weed. Sec, Detroit, Mich. 



2.5~Texas State, at McKinney, Texas. 



Wm. 11. Howard, Sec. 



2*1. 27— Western Michigan, at Grand Rapids. 

 Wm. M. S. Dodice, Sec, Coopersville, Mich. 



27- Kentucky Union, at Kminence, Ky. 

 (j. W. Deiiinree. Sec, Christiansburg, Ky. 



-Chumplain Valley, at Bristol, Vt. 



T. Brookins, Sec. 



IG-N. W. 111. and S. W. Wis., at Rock City. 111. 

 Jonathan Stewart, Sec, Rock City, III. 



2o— Iowa Central, at Winterset. Iowa. 



Henry Wallace, See. 



May - 



t*^ In order to liaye this tabic complete. Secre- 

 taries are requested to forward full particulars of 

 time and place of future meettnKs.— Ed. 



1^" Binders cannot be sent to Can- 

 ada by mail— the International law 

 will not permit anything but samples 

 of merchandise weighing less than Soz. 



