AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



377 



Wavelets o! News. 



An tJmbrella in the Apiary. 



An umbrella, to catch up and carry 

 around with me whenever my hands are 

 at liberty, is one of my greatest com- 

 forts. On extremely hot days we always 

 have them handy, and I often make use 

 of them, in swarming time, to hive bees. 

 Our queens all have wings clipped, but 

 the swarms will sometimes cluster, and 

 although I know they will return in 

 time, I do not wait long, but take a few 

 from the cluster, and start them in. 



As our trees are mostly small, they 

 can usually be reached from the ground 

 or with a step-ladder. I often turn my 

 umbrella upside down and shake part of 

 the cluster in it, and take them to the 

 hive where the queen is. — Qleanings. 



Idleness Demoralizing. 



Recently I had a great inclination to 

 work among the bees ; I had not been 

 stung for so long that I was lonesome 

 for their company. So I lighted a bel- 

 lows smoker, put on my hat and gloves, 

 and went into their shady retreat under 

 the big ash. 



I carefully uncovered a hive, and puffed 

 in a little smoke to intimidate the bees, 

 but it did not intimidate them in the least. 

 In lieu of them thinking their house was 

 on fire, and that they must save all they 

 could of its contents, they flew out in a 

 swarm and assailed me. I could hear 

 them cracking against my hat, and utter- 

 ing vengeance against the disturber of 

 their home. I covered them up as quickly 

 as possible and beat a retreat, shooting 

 smoke in all directions with a vim. 

 They followed, not caring for my am- 

 munition, and I sought shelter among 

 the leafy branches of a tree. 



What had changed my docile Italians 

 into such fiends ? Idleness. — Mks. L. 

 Haeeison, in the Prairie Farmer. 



The Honey Crop. 



Latest news from a large part of the 

 country does not give a very flattering 

 prospect of a large crop of white honey. 

 The weather was so cold in many places 

 during the basswood blossoming season 

 the bees scarcely left their hives on many 

 days, and clover had yielded poorly. 



What was still worse, honey-dew, of 

 the blackest kind, was so mixed with the 

 white honey in the sections as to nearly 



or quite ruin it for table use. In some 

 sections of country fair crops of surplus 

 are reported, and I would advise those 

 who succeeded in obtaining good white 

 comb-honey to be cautious about rushing 

 it to market and selling at a low price. 



There are bee-keepers who generally 

 try to beat the other fellow "by getting 

 their honey to market before any one 

 else. This might get them a fair price, 

 if it was not for the fact that nearly all 

 bee-keepers are smart people, act in the 

 same way, and this brings all the honey 

 into the city markets early in the season, 

 glutting the markets before the popular 

 demand for honey has come, and starting 

 the product at a low price, from which it 

 never recovers. We never rush our 

 honey to market very early, and shall 

 not do so this year. The crop at the 

 Forestville apiary promises to be reason- 

 ably good. — B. Tayloe, in Fann, Stock 

 and Home. 



Feeding" "Uncapped Honey. 



It sometimes occurs during Autumn 

 that we have quite a lot of combs of 

 uncapped honey, and also some sections 

 left. It is very desirable to feed such 

 honey to the bees, as it cannot conven- 

 iently be kept over until next year. 



It will be found a pretty hard matter 

 to get the bees to remove this honey 

 from the combs, for if you put it in the 

 hive, or in the upper story, they allow it 

 to remain as it is. We have tried differ- 

 ent plans to get them to take this honey, 

 but it seems that it cannot be success- 

 fully done, unless the combs are exposed 

 to the whole apiary. This plan, how- 

 ever, brings on robbing, and greater 

 difficulties than before are met with. 



When frames are well filled with this 

 honey, we exchange them for lighter 

 ones, which may be found in nearly 

 every hive ; and to clean up the job, we 

 extract all honey, both frames of comb 

 and sections. For extracting sections, 

 we use a wire box to hold about eight 

 at one time. It is a difficult matter to 

 keep sections partially filled with honey 

 over until another season, and this 

 arrangement for extracting them is very 

 convenient. Sections kept over, par- 

 tially filled with honey, should not be 

 placed on the hive in this condition, for 

 such will not produce nice honey in the 

 comb. — D., in National StocTimcm. 



The sewing machine I got of you 

 still gives excellent satisfaction — W. J 

 Patteeson, Sullivan, Ills. 



