THE AMERiCAJS JJEE JOURNAL. 



55 



had niaiiy qualities superior to Ital- 

 iaus, inasmuch as lliey were ex<'ellent 

 comb liuiUiers, and easy to induce into 

 the sections ; some (laiinins that tlie 

 Italians cauie out too early in the 

 spriusr. and thereby dwindled". 



Mr. Ilauicy bad "over l(Ml colonies of 

 Italians and ]l or S t'yprians. Cyprians 

 were so cross that he tried to Italian- 

 ize them, but they wiuild not receive 

 the queen, and persecuted her, in one 

 case, until she (lew away. He was not 

 at all pleased with tlieni. 



Mr. Sutton said his Italians had 

 worked on red clover a great deal 

 during the last season. 



Mr. Butlerlield had watched his bees 

 very closely, and found that last fall 

 the red clover revived after frost, and 

 the Italian bees stored surplus honey 

 from it, which he believed was the 

 finest honey he ever tasted. 



^Ir. Darrow had 20 acres of red clo- 

 ver in isso. and bees would not touch 

 it ; while in 1S!S2, they left early-sown 

 buckwheat at 9 a. m., and went to the 

 clover ; the honey they gathered from 

 it was excellent. 



Iilr. said he had 13 acres of red 



and white clover, which he used as a 

 pasture, and his children, while going 

 for the cows, would often count the 

 bees on the clover, one counting white 

 clover workers, and the other red clo- 

 ver workers, coming out with various 

 results. He does not think they ever 

 mix the load with two kinds of honey. 



G. M. Cooper, Beatrice, and others, 

 came to the conclusion from the dis- 

 cussions on bee pasturage, that it was 

 only necessary to plant or sow in Ne- 

 braska for the purpose of stimulation 

 or increase. 



Mr. Muir was of the opinion that 

 the disposition of a colony of bees de- 

 pended, to a very great extent, on its 

 strength, strong colonies generally 

 being more cross than weak ones. 



At this stage of the meeting, the 

 foul brood question was again sprung, 

 and a motion made to appoint Prof. 

 Culbertson as State Inspector of that 

 disease. Also another motion was 

 carried, for the President to appoint a 

 committee of three toconsult with the 

 regents of the State University, and 

 urge upon them the importance to the 

 State of their directinjj Prof. Culbert- 

 son to carry out the wishes of our As- 

 sociation. The committee consisted 

 of ilessrs. Ilawley, Trester and 

 Bishop. 



An expression was then taken by 

 the Association, showing a preference 

 for Lincoln as the place for holding 

 the next annual meeting. 



Mr. Muir then asked the question : 

 "Will it pay to keep SO acres of land 

 on which there are about 1,600 bass- 

 wood trees, 9 and 10 inches in diame- 

 ter, exclusively for a bee pasture V" 



After quite a general expression of 

 opinion, the Association seemed to 

 come to the conclusion that the owner 

 of such a piece of land, could figure 

 with considerable certainty on $1,000 

 worth of honey from it annually. 



The committee on resolutions, con- 

 sisting of N. Pursen, P. C. Backus, 

 Omaha, and C. S. Avery, Omaha, re- 

 ported as follows : 



Besolved, That the thanks of this 

 Association are hereby tendered to 



the l>ee-kecptrs and citizens of Ijin- 

 coln. tor kind and generous treatment 

 received from them. 



liesolvi'd. That we tender a vote of 

 thanks to the U. P., and 15. & .M. rail- 

 roads, for reduced rates of transporta- 

 tion furnished to members of this As- 

 sociation while attending this meet- 

 ing. 



liesolred. That we tender Mr. B. E. 

 B. Kennedy a vote of thanks for his 

 aid in the apiarian department at the 

 last State fair, also to the Y. il. C. A. 

 of Lincoln, for the use of room for this 

 meeting. 



A vote of thanks was also tendered 

 the Secretary, for work done in the 

 interests of the Association. 



M. L. Tkesteb, Sec. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Buckwheat for Honey. 



ALLKN I'RINGLE. 



In sowing buckwheat for honey, I 

 have found (unusual as it may appear) 

 that the best time is about the first of 

 August ; that is. when there is but 

 the one seeding during tlie season. 

 Of course if you have plenty of land 

 to devote to buckwheat, and sow sev- 

 eral times during the summer, you 

 can commence in May and sow every 

 two weeks until the first of August. 

 But my experience is that bees will 

 not gather from buckwheat early in 

 the season, even when it is yieliiing 

 honey freely, unless they cannot get 

 it anywhere else. Buc'kwheat sown 

 the first of August will bloom during 

 the first half of the month of Septem- 

 ber, when honey from other sources 

 is scarce, and the bees will then 

 gather from it freely. This, of course, 

 pre-supposes the absence of frost dur- 

 ing that time. Last fall my bees had 

 nicely commenced the first week in 

 September to work on the first-of- 

 August-sown buckwheat, when the 

 frost came ami incimptly stopped the 

 industrious ingathering. But that 

 frost last September was exceptionally 

 early in this latitude. The fall before 

 (in 18S2) there was no frost during 

 September, as is usually the case here, 

 and the bees reaped an abundant fall 

 harvest. 



To make the most of buckwheat for 

 honey, the best policy the bee-keeper 

 can pursue, who has land to spare for 

 two seedings during the season, is 

 this : Sow the first lot about two 

 weeks previous to the oi'dinary time 

 your neighbors sow for a crop ; and 

 then sow again about tlie first of Au- 

 gust as already stated. You will then 

 have a pretty continuous bloom (frosts 

 excepted) for over two months ; for 

 the farmers in almost any given lo- 

 cality vary from ten to twenty days in 

 their time of sowing buckwheat for a 

 crop — some sowing as early as the 

 first week in June, while others sow 

 the last of June and the first of July. 

 By supplying your neighbors with tlie 

 seed gratis, they will generally sow at 

 the time you may direct— that is, 

 within the" bounds of a reasonable 

 seeding time, so as to raise a crop. 



Thus you can give seed to a neigh- 

 bor on one side of you instructing 



him to sow it a certain time, say two 

 weeks after you have sowed your own 

 first lot. Then to another you can 

 give seed enjoining him to sow it, say 

 a week or ten days after the first. 

 Then if you can get somebody else to 

 sow a week after that, or even four or 

 five days, give him the seed and you 

 will lose nothing by it. Finally, you 

 can draw up with your own last sow- 

 ing about the first of August, and 

 then your buckwheat " bow '' will not 

 onlj? have "two strings,'' but about 

 half a dozen. * 



A few- years ago I hit upon a plan 

 by means of which I can have a given 

 field of buckwheat blooming continu- 

 ously for three or four weeks. I 

 fancy I now see some old fogies and 

 young wise-acres smiling incredulously 

 at this. Well, it is a fact neverthe- 

 less ; and as I have never thought of 

 taking out a patent on the secret, I will 

 tell all and sundry how the thing is 

 done. I do not say it can be done on 

 all kinds of soil, but it certainly can 

 on light soils, sandy or gravelly. 



After first plowing and harrowing 

 the field to be sown, in order to get 

 the land well pulverized, I plow again 

 in deep and sliallow furrows alter- 

 nately. The plow must be so adjusted 

 that it will be thrown well " to land," 

 so that the earth turned up from every 

 furrow will fall just short of the next 

 one to it, and not fall into it. Having 

 got your plow so arranged that it will 

 run just far enough " to land '' to ac- 

 complish this without any extra exer- 

 tion in holding it, you can plow every 

 alternate furrow shallow by properly 

 bearing upon the handles. This will 

 leave the land in alternate deep and 

 shallow furrows with cones, more or 

 less regular, between them. Now sow 

 your land thus prepared (lengthwise 

 of the furrows for ease in walking), 

 and harrow thoroughly across the fur- 

 rows, and your work is done. 



This process leaves the grain in the 

 soil at different depths from a half 

 inch to seven or eight inches, that 

 near the surface coming up first and 

 the rest following at different times. 

 You will thus have a continuous and 

 protracted bloom for two or three 

 weeks or more. On heavy clay the 

 plan would probably not wo'rk ; 1 have 

 not tried it on such, but on liglit soils 

 it is an almost invariable success as I 

 have proved. 



Selby, Out. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



Can Fertilization and Swarming be 

 Controlled ? 



HENRY ALLEY. 



We have many and perhaps nearly 

 all the useful and valuable imple- 

 ments for managing the apiary, that 

 the bee-keeper demands. A device 

 for controlling fertilization and 

 swarming has been about the only ar- 

 ticle not supplied. We now have that, 

 and I will give a brief description or 

 one that I have been at work upon for 

 a long time. 



The first year I began bee-keeping, 

 I saw the need of some kind of an ar- 

 rangement for destroying drones. I 



