468 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



plain to see. Where the sweet clover grew, 

 the stock was fenced off; but wherever cows, 

 whether in pasture or running loose on high- 

 way or range, had access to the banks of the 

 ditches, the sweet clover was eaten down to 

 the roots and never had a chance to grow 

 sufficiently to Vive through the first winter. 

 When 1 considered how large a proportion 

 of our honey crop came from these thin lines 

 of sweet clover along the irrigating-ditches, 

 and thought how many miles of ditch there 

 were where it would thrive if it only had a 

 chance, I was more than ready to concede 

 that one of the greatest obstacles to success- 

 ful bee-keeping in this country is the cow. 



HONEY IN BUTTER. 



Like Dr. Miller I have wondered why W. 

 K. Morrison should want hismixtvire of hon- 

 ey and butter frozen. If the mixture was 

 not stiff enough to suit him, that point could 

 be easily regulated to suit the season by us- 

 ing honey more or less candied. Whether 

 so large a part of honey as fifty per cent 

 would suit many would be a point that could 

 be determined only by experiment. But an 

 old, well-tried, and' perfectly practical meth- 

 od of combining honey with butter is to add 

 a somewhat smaller quantity at the time of 

 making. This is said to be quite common in 

 Europe, especially in Switzerland. We have 

 used the plan in our family for several years, 

 and like it very much. Mrs. Green adds 

 abovit an ounce to four or five pounds of but- 

 ter as it is being worked. An effect you 

 might not look for is that it permits the re- 

 moval of a much larger percentage of butter- 

 milk, which in itself improves the flavor and 

 keeping quality of the butter. Add to this 

 the aroma, flavor, and preservative qualities 

 of the honey, and you have butter that not 

 only tastes much better but also keeps better 

 than that to which honey has not been added 

 — at least that is ovir opinion; and, judging 

 from the fact that others are very glad to 

 get any butter we may have to spare, at the 

 highest retail price, it is at least good butter. 

 Of course, adding honey will not make good 

 butter out of poor, but it seems to me that it 

 would improve it in any case. I have been 

 intending for a long time to mention this in 

 Gleanings, but other things got ahead of it. 

 I am much obliged to our new editor for 

 bringing it up. it is a good thing. Try it, 

 all you butter-makers. 



HIVE-TOOLS. 



A couple of hive-tools are illustrated in 

 Gleanings for March 1. In going about the 

 country inspecting bees I have come across a 

 great variety of tools of this description, 

 some of which are fearfully and wonderfully 

 made, evincing a great deal of thought and 

 labor on the part of the inventor. I have 

 never yet seen one of these complicated con- 

 trivances that I would be content to use my- 

 self in regular work. The practical bee- 

 keeper can not afford to carry a kit of tools 

 with him, but must select something that is 



not burdensome to carry, and will combine 

 as many good points as possible. 



My favorite tool, and the only one I use 

 among my own hives, is made by taking a 

 butcher-knife like that illustrated on page 

 315, and breaking the point square off at the 

 widest part of the blade, just where the 

 notch begins in the illustration. This end is 

 then ground to a short bevel on one side. For 

 prying apart hives, supers, or frames, for 

 scraping hives, bottom-boards, or the tops of 

 frames, and for general lightness and con- 

 venience, 1 know of nothing equal to it. I 

 have found the cheaper butcher-knives, those 

 selling at from ten to twenty cents apiece, 

 really more satisfactory than higher-priced 

 ones, as they are not so likely to break when 

 used for prjnng. The butcher-knife tool is 

 hardly stiff or strong enough, though, to 

 handle Hoffman frames, taking them as they 

 average here; so in my work as bee inspector 

 I always carried as my only tool one made 

 from one of the thin leaves of a broken bug- 

 gy-spring. Grind the thin end down to a 

 chisel edge straight across. Grind one of the 

 edges to a knife edge for about three inches 

 back fi'om the end you have sharpened; round 

 the blunt end off nicely, and you have a tool 

 that can be comfortably carried in the hip 

 pocket, and that can be depended on to pry 

 apart any thing about a bee-hive, and with- 

 out breaking as many frames as will be done 

 by any of those tools which are intended to 

 hook under the end of the top-bar. The 

 hive-tools made oi cast metal, of which sev- 

 eral have been put on the market, wilh their 

 thick blunt edges, are an abomination when 

 it comes to prying apart hives and supers. 



thin or extra thin full sheets of 

 foundation. 

 I am afraid the editor is giving bad ad- 

 vice when he says that a full sheet of foun- 

 dation should be "thin" and not "extra 

 thin," page 307. I believe it is against the 

 interests of bee-keepers to use any other than 

 the thinnest foundation possible, especially 

 when in full sheets. That tough septum 

 which is found in a great deal of comb hon- 

 ey made on thick foundation has helped 

 along wonderfully the belief that comb hon- 

 ey is an artificial product, which belief, most 

 of us will agree, is one of the worst things 

 that ever happened to our industry. If "ex- 

 tra thin" foundation can not be used when 

 the section is entirely filled, then we had 

 better let that plan alone. I use "extra 

 thin" foundation in sheets that come pretty 

 near filling the entire section. Sections are 

 about 4 inches inside, and the sheet of foun- 

 dation that I prefer to use in them is 3| 

 square. After being fastened, the lower 

 edge of the foundation is about J inch above 

 the bottonl of the inside of the section. With 

 this space I have had no trouble with foun- 

 dation buckling, and there will be scarcely 

 over one section in 500 in which the comb 

 will not be well attached to all four sides. 

 With a space much less than this, there may 

 be some trouble from buckling. The foun- 



