208 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



empty comb in the place of the one 

 removed from the strong one. If there 

 are any grubs of the bee-moth in them, 

 a strong colonywill soon roll them out, 

 to the delight of an old hen, which has 

 the freedom of the apiary. 



HONEY CROP IN THE FALL. 



All should keep their dishes right side 

 up, for there promises to be a Fall flow. 

 Two years of severe drouth killed white 

 clover in many places,- and what little 

 bloom there was yielded sparingly. Bass- 

 wood, too, had its off year in some 

 regions. But abundant rains have fallen, 

 and where bee-keepers are located near 

 water courses and swampy, unoccupied 

 lands, honey may yet be gathered. The 

 draining of sloughs on the prairie is 

 cutting off one source of honey supply, 

 for where the plow and reaper go, bees 

 stand but a poor chance. On the rough, 

 stony land of New England, golden-rod 

 blooms in all its glory ; it is seen 

 hugging the rocks on every hand, but on 

 arable land there is none. Sweet clover 

 has taken possession of Illinois, and is 

 now the principal source of honey. It 

 does not like kind treatment, but thrives 

 best when run over by wagon wheels, on 

 rough, gravelly soil. — 0. J. Farmer. 



Resin Cerate, or Basilicoii Ointment. 



DR. A. B. MASON. 



Rosin, 5 ounces ; lard, 8 ounces ; 

 beeswax (yellow), 2 ounces. Melt 

 together, strain through cotton or linen, 

 and stir constantly until cool. 



If the ingredients are clear, the strain- 

 ing can be omitted. As an application 

 for burns, it is '/par excellence," and has 

 been used in our family for over thirty 

 years. I cannot speak too highly of it as 

 an application in all cases of inflamed 

 sores or wounds, or inflamed eyelids. 

 Spread thickly on a cloth and apply to 

 the part affected, renewing the applica- 

 tion as often as necessary. 



To show how valuable it is, I will 

 relate two incidents : A few months ago 

 a neighbor ran a nail into the palm of 

 his hand so far as to raise the skin on 

 the back of the hand. In a few hours 

 the hand began to swell, and be very 

 painful, followed by rapid and painful 

 swelling of the arm. All remedies were 

 a failure until I made an application of 

 this ointment, and renewed it in half an 

 hour. In less than an hour all pain had 

 ceased, and within twelve hours the 

 swelling had entirely disappeared. 



A few days since, another neighbor 

 was bitten on a sore on his hand by a fly, 

 while sitting at the table. . The hand 

 soon became painful and began to swell, 

 the swelling extending to the arm. A 

 physician was called in, who pronounced 

 it blood poisoning, but the treatment 

 employed gave no relief. 



Meeting him on the street with his 

 arm in a sling, and learning what was 

 the matter, I suggested a trial of the 

 ointment, and gave him some. The 

 next day he was at work as though 

 nothing had been the matter. 



I have just received the following 

 recipe. It is tip top for a cough : Equal 

 parts of unboiled linseed oil, Holland gin 

 and honey. Dose — two teaspoonfuls, 

 repeated as may be needed. I would 

 suggest that the foregoing recipes be 

 inserted in the next edition of the Honey 

 Almanac. 



New Philadelphia, Ohio. 



Texas Apicnltural Notes. 



A. C. ATEX, 



We are now having very dry weather 

 in this part of Texas. It has rained 

 but little during the last month, and 

 cotton (the only crop not matured) is 

 needing rain very much. With rain 

 pretty soon it would make a good crop, 

 but without rain the average will be 

 poor. 



While we had plenty of flowers in the 

 Spring, and the indications were that 

 the bees were doing well, they teally 

 gathered very little surplus, but they 

 built up strong, and now they are boom- 

 ing, mostly on cotton. 



Here, as a general thing, bees gather 

 honey slowly all Summer and Fall. The 

 wet weather in the Spring, I think, was 

 the cause of the partial failure. 



An old friend of mine, who lives about 

 five miles from here, and whose word 

 can be relied on, tells me that last Spring 

 he noticed a very peculiar bee trying to 

 rob one of his hybrid colonies. The rob- 

 bers were very black, with one broad 

 yellow band, about as wide again as the 

 yellow bands on the Italians. They were 

 about two-thirds as large as common 

 bees. There were large numbers of 

 them, and the other bees killed them in 

 such numbers that sometimes he could 

 have gathered up a double handful of 

 dead ones. I wish I could have seen 

 them, for I have never noticed anything 

 like it among my bees. Mr. Thomas 

 thinks his bees killed about all of them. 



