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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feb. 21, 



several years, they sow lucerne, called here by its Spanish 

 name, alfalfa. It is customary to sow this lucerne in old 

 vineyards that have been dug out on account of their age. 

 The lucerne is kept for 6 or 7 years on the same land, and 

 restores to the earth its fertility, by the action of its deeply 

 penetrating roots. 



There are two varieties of sainfoin in France — the Bur- 

 gundy and the two-crop sainfoin. The latter needs better 

 soil, and is not as hardy as the former. I advise those who 

 desire to try this honey-plant to get a small amount, from 

 different seedsmen, and try it first in a pot, or a hotbed. 

 There is but little demand for this seed so far, and the seed 

 that will be furnished to them may be old, and it is well to try 

 it before investing largely in it. 



There is another forage plant which is now advertised in 

 nearly all the seed circulars. It is the Sacaline {Polygonum 

 Sachalinense) a sort of knot-weed. It resembles the knot- 

 weeds or persicarias blooming in the United States, which are 

 closely allied to the smartweed and to buckwheat. It is quite 

 probable that the sacaline would be a good bee-plant, and as 

 it originated in the Island of Sakhalin, in the sea of Okhotsk, 

 between the 45th and 54th degrees of north latitude, it is 

 probable that it would withstand our climate, and might prove 

 a good acquisition for our farm animals and for our bees. 



Hamilton, 111. 



Moving Bees — An Open Cotifessioii. 



BY EDWIN BEVIN8. 



I am going to tell the readers of the American Bee Jour- 

 nal about the worst " fool caper" that I have been guilty of 

 in the course of my bee-keeping life ; not because I feel at all 

 proud of the performance, but in the hope that some other 

 bee-keeper may be deterred from trying to do the same, or a 

 similar thing. 



Being desirous, one spring, of getting more increase of 

 colonies than I was likely to get at home, I sent two hives to 

 a neighbor with the understanding that he was to hive me 

 two early swarms. The season proved to be a pretty good 

 one for honey. The swarms were hived tolerably early, and 

 when the white clover bloom was abundant. The frames had 

 been provided with inch wide starters of foundation, and the 

 swarms hived on Ihcm were big ones. 



Word came about the second day after the swarms were 

 hived, and I thought I would venture to bring them home; so 

 at night I sent a man with a spring wagon to fetch them. On 

 arrival, the hives were placed on stands previously provided, 

 and left until morning. 



In the morning, after bees began to fly freely, I went out 

 to see my new possessions, but there was an ominous stillness 

 about the hives. A hasty examination showed that the bees 

 had stored honey enough, which, added to their own weight, 

 had parted the starters from the frames, and bees, honey and 

 starters were all mixed up together on the bottom-board. To 

 say that I was vexed, chagrined, mortified, is to put it lightly. 

 My instructors — Langstroth and the Dadants — had told me 

 better, but, like other transgressors, I thought I would try it 

 "just once." Once was sufficient. That day I dumped two 

 large, young swarms of bees into the most convenient gully on 

 the farm, and washed up two bottom-boards, and did these 

 things without trying to attract anybody's attention to what I 

 was doing. 



And now, my bee-keeping friends, if you have any apicul- 

 tural sins on your souls, this winter is a good time to unload 

 them. Let us hear from all the brethren. Leon, Iowa. 



First Pollen— Spring Feeding — Bee-Paralysis. 



Yesterday bees brought in the first pollen of the season. 

 The cold weather has been more steady and less broken by 

 warm days this year than usual, and in consequence we expect 

 that when warm weather does come that our nectar-bearing 

 flowers will be so delayed in blooming, that they will not be 

 cut off by the frosts as they were last year. We confidently 

 look for a good honey-flow this year. 



Some half dozen of my colonies were discovered the other 

 day to be nearly without stores. The first thought was to 

 take some combs from those colonies that had a surplus ; but 

 the idea recurred that it would be a disadvantage at this 

 season to unseal the covers that the bees had so industriously 

 glued down last fall, and thus permit the escape of the warm 

 air from within the hive at the most critical season of the 

 year, when the bees are beginning to rear brood, and need all 

 the warmth that they can get. So acting, I suppose, on a 



suggestion that I once saw somewhere, but can't remember 

 where, I made a lot of rather thick syrup, and taking some 

 extracting-combs that were in reserve, I filled these combs 

 with the syrup, and inserted them in the hives where most 

 needed. 



These combs can be filled quite rapidly and satisfactorily 

 by pouring the syrup from the spout of an old coffee-pot held 

 one or two feet above the comb, and using syrup when about 

 milk warm. The combs can be held slanting during tUe 

 operation, so that the syrup will flow down, filling the cells 

 as it runs. The work was done over a large tin pan, which 

 caught the syrup that overflowed, and ran off the combs. In 

 this way I filled some combs as evenly and as nicely as the 

 bees could have done. And there is this supposed advantage, 

 that being uncapped, the syrup will have the effect to stimu- 

 late brood-rearing. 



The weather has been so cool lately that bees would not 

 come to the Simplicity feeder at the entrance at night, and 

 the above plan is, it is thought, a better one, though involving 

 more labor, perhaps. The cloths (made of duck) which were 

 heavily covered with propolis underneath, were then replaced 

 exactly as they were before, and a hot iron passed over them, 

 with the result that they appeared when cool to be as firmly 

 sealed as when first disturbed. I have used the enamel cloth 

 and the duck, and find that the bees in hives covered with 

 duck do much better than under the enamel. The reason 

 is supposed to be that the bees will, in the course of the 

 summer, daub every part of the duck that they can reach 

 between the top-bars with propolis, making it air-tight, 

 whereas it is impossible for them to perfectly ^seal down the 

 enamel cloth to the edges of the hive. They can do this with 

 the duck. 



Judging from the persistency with which bees seal up 

 every crack and cranny about the sides and top of the hive, it 

 is reasonable to conclude that their purpose is to prevent any 

 circulation of air in an upward direction, and it seems to me 

 desirable to use some material for covering over the frames 

 that they can seal down. They cannot do this very effectually 

 with enameled cloth. Those colonies that are covered with 

 duck, or very heavy domestic, have uniformly done better, in 

 my experience, than those covered with the enameled cloth. 



I have read with great interest the article (see page 84) 

 of Mr. Adrian Getaz on the subject of bee-paralysis. Every 

 close observer who has watched the ravages of this disease 

 will fully concur with his views. That the malady is infec- 

 tious, due to a specific germ ; that it destroys many colonies 

 outright, and decimates many more, so that they can gather 

 no surplus, will be admitted by every Southern bee-keeper 

 who has seen it. Ought not the American Bee Journal unite 

 with Gleanings in insisting that queen-breeders shall destroy 

 every colony affected with bee-paralysis in their yards ? 

 Quite a number of the most prominent breeders have pledged 

 themselves in Gleanings to do this, and I submit that the 

 "Old Reliable" should encourage this movement, and thereby 

 aid in protecting the inexperienced from importing the dis- 

 ease into his apiary unwittingly. If the spread of the disease 

 is not checked, I think that in a few years it will be firmly 

 established all over the South, where apiarists buy queens. 

 The matter ought to be so thoroughly ventilated in the bee- 

 papers that the public will cease to buy queens of the dealer 

 who will stand out and refuse to take this precaution against 

 scattering disease and death broadcast over the country. 



Gleanings publishes a list of the dealers who agree to 

 destroy every colony affected with the bee-paralysis. Will not 

 the influence of the American Bee Journal be lent to so 

 important a reform? Public opinion will thus effectually 

 quarantine against the further dissemination of this scourge 

 of the apiarist. Your readers will appreciate an answer. 



I congratulate you on the improvement in the American 

 Bee Journal, both in its make-up and contents. 



Columbia, Miss., Jan. 26. 



[Certainly, Mr. Novice, I am ready to co-operate with any 

 one in any plan that will tend to reduce the danger of spread- 

 ing the new scourge of bee-paralysis. As yet, however, there 

 seems to be not much agreement among the experienced bee 

 keepers as to the true cause of the disease, hence no one 

 seems to know just what is best to recommend in regard to a 

 cure or as to preventing its spread. But, under the circum- 

 stances, I can see no great harm (and there may be much 

 good) in advising all who discover the first appearance of this 

 disease in their bee-yards, to forthwith destroy such affected 

 colonies. I shall be glad to publish a list of the names of 

 those queen-breeders, or dealers in bees, who will agree to 

 follow the above advice, if they will let me know it. — Editor.1 



